![\"IMG_8837\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_8837.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAfter an extensive introduction to our abroad experience, which included a tour of our hotel and information about its surrounding restaurants, I went to try some of the native food that initially spurred my obsession with Japan as a ten-year-old: sushi<\/i>, or, as the Japanese indicate anything worthy of honor by adding \u201co\u201d as a prefix, osushi<\/i>!<\/p>\n
With the astute advice of my new Japanese conversation partner, Asuka, we decided on an affordable nearby sushiya <\/i>known as Yamato.<\/p>\n
Asuka is a Chinese major who tells me she loves movies and shopping, things that I can talk anybody\u2019s ear off about, and she strikes me as both insightful, though fairly soft-spoken.<\/p>\n
For the price of 735 yen, roughly $7.50, I bought a mixed plate of osushi<\/i>, which also included complimentary green tea, or ocha<\/i>, and miso soup.<\/p>\n
Throughout our dinner, Asuka and I shared our thoughts about the food and Japanese culture through bouts of Japanese and English (\u201cJapenglish,\u201d as I like to call it) and we both agreed that Yamato had incredible osushi <\/i>for such a humble price.<\/p>\n
Apparently, other locals had the same idea because ten minutes or so after we arrived, the already cramped restaurant was filled up with everyone shoulder-to-shoulder at both the tables and the sushi bar.<\/p>\n
Even so, the sushi chefs were willing to chat with me about their favorite kinds of osushi <\/i>to work with, adding every now and then that my Japanese was good and that they were elated to serve both my friend and I.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been to both Virginia and Texas before and I can now say with no small measure of conviction that the Japanese humble style of hospitality blows so-called \u201cSouthern hospitality\u201d out of the water.<\/p>\n
Sorry I\u2019m not sorry for saying so.<\/p>\n
For the sake of branching out, many of us ordered food that we had either never heard of or never tried\u2014I for one ordered udon <\/i>with vegetarian fried rice because I really couldn\u2019t imagine anything that sounded more delicious in the moment.<\/p>\n I also couldn\u2019t imagine anything more perfect to compliment it than the cigarette my new friend from University of Minnesota had offered me.<\/p>\n Needless to say, we both concurred in the statement he made then: \u201cDude, I love this place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Within the first twenty-four hours of living in the greater Tokyo area, I was overjoyed to quickly find my place amid the Chiba prefecture\u2019s serene, though hardly idle, urban culture. After an extensive introduction to our abroad experience, which included … Continue reading <\/a>The next day, I went to a noodle shop inside one of the malls nearby Hotel Springs Makuhari with some particularly amicable study abroad students.<\/p>\n<\/a>We had both forgotten that, in Japan, smoking during dinner is totally fine until we walked into the restaurant and noticed a duo of two particularly mischievous looking Japanese youths smoking and drinking beer in the corner.<\/p>\n