This is Memorial Day weekend, and many things are closed. Because I am remaining on campus to take summer courses, I still need to eat college food at times, especially this weekend when all sources of food on campus (all one of them) are closed. Tonight’s meal consisted of instant ramen noodles in a shiitake mushroom broth, and a drink of sake. The noodles were from a company called Koyo and they were great, I highly suggest picking them up as a cheap snack if you find them as they were only 89¢ a package in a natural foods store. The sake I believe was made by an American brewery named Momokawa. I’m not an expert on sake by any means but it tastes good to my palate at least, so it was worth the money. Just a quick tidbit, sake actually refers to any alcoholic drink in Japanese and the word 日本酒 (nihonshu) specifically means sake. All in all it was a simple, satisfying, slightly different dinner that basically falls under traditional American college grub.
Author Archive for nebulousecho
My name is Adam. I don’t think I’m much anything special, just a 23 year old university student in the United States. I thought about writing a blog but I had no clue what to write about. Well that’s a lie, I did, but I didn’t feel like getting into it. I didn’t even want this blog to be honest, I just signed up for the Kanji flash card feature on this site and behold – I got a blog with it. So, I figured I might as well start one, detailing a journey I am attempting. I won’t give a lot of details, simply because some of them are fairly laughable, but here is the gist of it:
I am 23. I have lived in the same country my whole life, I have lived in the same state for 17 or so of those years. I have been to Canada, I have been to Europe. Something just feels wrong about all of these places. While in Europe (Germany to be exact, Munich (in Bavaria) to be very exact), I happened to meet two girls from Hong Kong that were also staying at the same place I was. Germany felt like an alien land to me. I thought I knew the language after studying it for almost two years but I quickly found I knew nothing. I felt like (with no offense to any Germans that may read this) that the Germans were overly proud of themselves, their culture and their language. While they are certainly friendly, I also felt an air of alienation from them, like I didn’t belong there and I wasn’t supposed to be there.
Now, let me get back to the girls. I mention them because during my two-plus weeks in Germany, I felt the most comfortable and welcomed around these two complete strangers from Hong Kong who offered me a package of their 2¢ Chinese ramen noodles. For such inexpensive food, it was also the best thing I had to eat while there. After talking to them about our respective trips, even they said that maybe I should go to Asia instead.
I thought about it for a little bit, but I was more interested in getting back to America (which I really disliked before leaving for Germany) and getting my German classes over and done with forever. Now it’s been a few months, German is in fact finished, and that unusual, intangible draw to Japan, Japanese, and its culture that I’ve had for almost 10 years is suddenly coming on strong. None of my quests towards anything grand have actually amounted to victory, but on the other hand, I realized time and again that they weren’t meant for me.
I want to find a place I truly belong, and right now my sights are set on Japan. What you will read here is my probably humorous journey to learn the Japanese language, condition and build my body and spirit, and perhaps I will even make it across the Pacific.
私はチャンピオンですか。はい！