Yesterday at noon we finally arrived at Josh’s, where he came to greet us at the Satsuma-Sendai train station in his good old Humboldt State t-shirt.  He lives literally a minute away from the station, which will be quite handy as Matt and I plan to make frequent use of our rail passes during our stay on Kyushu as we go on excursions during the day while Josh is out at work.  Luckily the trains are punctual and fast here, meaning that if we leave in the morning on a train across the island, we don’t really have to worry about not getting home again that night.  Unlike India, it is very abnormal for trains to be late in Japan.

Once at Josh’s apartment, which he had so lovingly cleaned for our visit, I pushed aside a pile of his dirty laundry to make room for our backpacks so that I could unpack a few things.  I dug around in Matt’s bag for a minute to find a particular item.  Proudly I presented him with a gift from home: an American football.  My brother grinned and went to work inflating it with a bicycle pump.  Matt and I freshened up and we all went for  a quick lunch before deciding to head to a nearby park for a game of catch.  Josh gave us a quick tour on the way there.  Sendai seems very small town—no big buildings, not a lot of traffic, and pretty mellow.  Consequently, there is not much to report on the tour.  Once we arrived at the park I was reminded that I am not very good with the football.  After a few earnest but unsuccessful attempts at teaching me the right technique from both Matt and Josh, I was content to sit on a bench and watch them play catch.

Afterwards, we headed to one of the larger grocery stores in town to get some ice-cream.  I have a thing for grocery stores: all that food, all those raw ingredients—so much potential.  Groceries change from country to country, and Japan’s seem to be pretty good.  Perhaps my perspective is biased since I also really like Japanese food, and Japanese groceries happen to carry all the right ingredients for making the aforementioned cuisine, in addition to offering plenty of pre-made foods.  My observations were confirmed the next day when Matt and I went to the Daiei in Kagoshima.  Daiei is a low-end department store, and the bottom two floors sell all kinds of edible goods.  Matt picked up some fresh mochi and I some other snacks for an on-the-go lunch.  And then we gawked for a few minutes over the bento box section.

It was essentially an open cooler, like the ones you would find in a market’s deli back in the US.  Only instead of soggy sandwiches and questionable looking salads, this cooler was filled with trays of sushi rolls, bowls of noodles and corresponding condiments, a variety of bento boxes, and, of course, sashimi which looked ravishing in the glow of Touched By An Angel-esque lighting shining down on it (oh wait, that was just in Matt’s head).  Since we are staying with my brother for a good amount of time (about a week and a half) and because the cost of our two rail passes has already put us over our daily budget, Matt and I are planning to make a majority of our meals while we’re here.  But it’s not just about saving money.  It’s about trying food.  We could go to a restaurant for Japanese food, but not all residents of Japan go out to eat every night, so why should we?  I’m excited to try more items from the grocery store than just the prepared items that we are usually relegated to buying for lack of a kitchen in which to cook the other items.  Not that the pre-made items are bad—the mochi here is onolicious!  Anyways, in conclusion: Japanese markets=A+