Thursday 14 November 2013

Day 31: There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story

And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain....wait wait wait, those aren't my words (but it is my way). But the end has arrived. And it is welcome! I had, what has become my favourite combination, Kotteri ramen and butakimchi, the pork and spicy fermented cabbage (It really does taste better than it sounds).

The smile says "I am happy it's over", the dead eyes say "I will always remember you"
For my final ramen I was joined by 3 of the people who live in the same building as me and we had a little ramen party. We are pretty much celebrities now, we got seating straight away (There were only 3 people in the restaurant), they gave us free drinks (all the water we could drink) and they asked to take our photo (I mean I asked them to take our photo).


This is how we party!

And just like that, it was over. What a whirlwind it has been: A different bowl of ramen or side every night, dining with men and women alike and oh the glamour! I decided that you guys have been missing the real stars of the show, the ones who made all of this possible, the staff. So I decided to get a photo with them.
You can tell by their headgear they mean serious ramen business

I saw one of these two every day for the past 31 days. I really don't now how they will cope without me! The guy on the left if a massively jolly man, who has remembered how I like my ramen and the other guy is usually the chef who gives me a big smile when I arrive. I couldn't have done it without them. Literally, if they weren't there no one would have cooked me ramen or taken my order.

The whole experience was interesting. I am glad I have done it, but I won't be doing it again. I feel that it was great to not have to cook for a month, or do the dishes but I do miss controlling my daily food variety. 

I also think that there is not a food on earth that I would be happy eating every day for 31 days. Ramen was/is one of my favourites and if I can't happily do it with that, the there is little hope for any other food. However, if an other companies wish to offer me a month of their food free, I would definitely accept that challenge! HINT HINT

For those who don't know these are 4 other massive food chains in Japan. The last one is curry, not vomit.
Health-wise, it really hasn't been that bad. I had a cold for a couple of the weeks but I don't think you can blame the ramen. I had a stomach ache for the end of the first and 3rd weeks, which I think you can probably blame the ramen for, but they went away. I have yet to go to the BMI/Body fat machine because the wrong side was being used for men today at the public bath. I could have gone into the other side but I feel all the naked women would have had something to say about it (and you do not piss off old Japanese women!)

I have actually finally weighed myself, but with a different scale so this isn't exactly good science (Cause this was going to be in a journal before this) but I weighed 74.5kg. If you look back to the prologue you will see that I weighed 77kg at the beginning. Meaning I lost weight by eating ramen everyday. 

We will have to wait till tomorrow to see how much of that was muscle and how much was fat, but all in all this is very surprising. I will add a before and after picture tomorrow (I'll be honest I tried the after picture tonight, but the light was all wrong). The only thing I am worried about is the sheer amount of sodium I ate, and I think that could be a problem so I will be cutting back on that for a while. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what it has all been about:


As a final note, if you liked my blog and thought "Maybe he should write about ramen less" (maybe you missed the reason for the blog) then you are in luck. I have decided to continue my blog, that way you can trak my month of recovery following my month of ramen. I have decided to live a "Healthy" life for the next month until the day of my flight back to the UK for the first time in 2.5 years.

I will be running everyday, eating healthy and the worst of all having no booze. So tomorrow it will all start again on day 1. Feel free to follow my recovery from this previous month. Or not, I know it won't exactly be the ramen-centric blog you have come to love. 

Oh the photography......
The above was my last hurrah until I get on that plane. If you choose to follow me, tomorrow I will explain all the rules of my coming month as well as the before and after picture and my BMI/fat percentage. we live in such exciting times!


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