ginza
a different side of Ginza
Well, I didn’t want to name this blog post “second day of school” because that would be kind of dumb, but I’m going to start off by talking about the second day of school. I was nervous yesterday that it was going to be hard to make friends in the class, and today we did an exercise where everyone said what country they were from (and I was actually paying attention this time), and there’s only one other person from the US in my class. The language barrier with those who don’t speak English is non-trivial, but maybe if we all get good enough at Japanese, we can start speaking Japanese to each other? On the bright side, I did start befriending a few folks (mostly from Europe), so I was really happy about that. It’ll be a bit of a slower process than I originally anticipated, but we’ve got a lot of time, so that’s totally okay.
The class today was kind of chaotic. First off, when we walked in today, our teacher from yesterday was in the classroom along with another woman. However, our teacher left before class started and this other woman, without any explanation whatsoever, just took over as our teacher for the day, leaving us all very confused. Our teacher yesterday had a general “No English” policy but would occasionally “slip up” (in a good way - I think it’s good to be as immersive as possible without leaving people confused for too long). However, the teacher today either genuinely didn’t understand a lick of English or was really good at pretending. Every time someone said something in English, she just stared blankly, but in my opinion, that’s pretty unhelpful for language learning, especially for adults who benefit greatly from explanations. Honestly, I really miss our first teacher and I hope today’s teacher was just a substitute.
Aside from this completely unexplained teacher swap, there was a 30-minute announcement given by the school administration. In the most stereotypical way imaginable, both the administration and the teacher struggled with the Zoom meeting for a good 10 minutes. I had no idea what was going on the remote-end, but it was clear that there were two audio sources in our classroom - one from the display, and one from the laptop. The echo was so bad no one could understand what was being said. Eventually I got so fed up that I walked up to the podium to try to fix it, and I couldn’t figure it out because the computer was in Japanese. And it was honestly such a classic school moment where all the other people in the class were calling out what to do, but as soon as I opened the dialogue box and it was all in Japanese, everyone was just like “what”. Anyways, it really took me back to childhood school days, so I thought it was pretty funny. Well, what was the announcement anyways? Apparently, the language school I’m attending has multiple campuses and they’ve decided to open a new campus in Takadanobaba (my campus is in Shibuya), and they informed us that they are closing the Shibuya campus. There were some additional confusing elements to this whole thing, but on top of all the other things that had already happened today, it did make me feel like the school lacked a bit of organizational abilities. Another slightly frustrating element about this whole language school experience is that I wish they posted the syllabus and homework online, and like, I wasn’t able to communicate that to our teacher because she doesn’t/refuses to speak English.
I’m hoping that today’s class was an anomaly (due to the 30-minute interruption), because the teacher was going at lightning speed. I’ve been beating myself up for not studying more Japanese ahead of time, but I think I’ve been underestimating how much my attempts to self-study have actually been helping, even if it wasn’t necessarily the most efficient form of learning. I was barely able to keep up with the class today, but I could tell almost everyone else in the class was struggling way more. As a reminder, it’s only day 2. I can easily see how people end up flunking out of this class and need to repeat it again. Another really annoying thing is yesterday, our teacher off-handedly gave us a sheet of paper with a calendar on it, and one really fun thing about Japanese is days of the month mostly have unique names that are not just “day one, day two, day three…” so you have to memorize a whole new set of counting words. And also, we never learned the regular numbers to begin with, so anyone in our class who didn’t learn that is also super screwed. Anyways, after handing us the calendar, our teacher said “no homework related to this but feel free to take a look at it in your spare time.” I happened to have a bunch of spare time last night traveling to and from badminton, so I had Steven quiz me on the days of the month for fun. Turns out, that was essential for class today, and I might’ve been the only one who successfully memorized all the days of the month (and barely, at that).
On one hand, I was worried that class was going to be too slow-paced for me and that I’d want to learn Japanese at a more rapid pace, so I’m really glad that it’s going so quickly. On the other hand, I am really against classes that cater towards the “best” students versus the average or even slightly below average student. I’m not an educator, so maybe I’ll have to ask other educators for their opinions on the subject, but I’ve been in many classes (especially in college) where I was probably the average student, and I struggled a lot. It was so frustrating to see my peers understand the material without any further explanation but I was left feeling very lost. So, I have a lot of empathy for my language school peers - one of them was complaining that we were just constructing sentences as instructed but haven’t learned any grammar yet, and I could totally understand her frustration. I was grateful that I did learn a decent amount of grammar ahead of time and also wished, for the sake of the class, that the teachers would go over that before cramming so much material down our throats. Anyways, enough rambling about school, I imagine this giant wall of text is only interesting to me. I guess it never occurred to me that this was a subject I was so passionate about.
My former housemate Michael is in town this weekend, so we got a few rounds of dinner and drinks together in Ginza. Ginza is basically like 5th Ave in New York, but like, more. Very very bougie, expensive, shiny stores lining the downtown area. It’s mostly tourists there, understandably. I kind of hate shopping (and I especially have no interest in luxury shopping), so I try to avoid spending time in Ginza. However, Michael and I were looking for places to eat, and we walked past all the fancy stores into a really cute part of the neighborhood that honestly felt a bit like Kyoto - the restaurants were set up more like street vendors and had more traditional Japanese decor, like wooden facades and lanterns (see first pic).
We wanted a quick bite before getting “real” dinner, so we stopped by a yakitori place - Yakitori Ton Ton.
We got both the chicken and pork samplers (and pork belly, and miso eggplant) along with plum and shiso (perilla) drinks, which were honestly really good. 8/10
Next, Michael’s brother (who has been to Tokyo a couple of times before) knew about a hip, underground ramen street. Erm, for real, it was literally underground - inside Tokyo (subway) station. The station is a massive labyrinth, we got lost about a half dozen times before finding it. Many subway stations, especially the big ones, have entire malls inside of them, extending up and below ground. It’s basically like shopping/eating outside except you’re protected from the elements.
We got ramen at Soranoiro, and I got the mushroom ramen, which is not vegetarian (it’s okay, that was properly advertised). Since I’ve been eating lots of ramen I wanted to try something besides the classic Tonkotsu or soy sauce ramens, and the mushroom ramen really delivered. It had a fragrant, pungent, truffle-y flavor but was also kind of like eating a salad. The egg was absolutely insane, it was like it was marinated in MSG. 9/10
I was feeling something sweet to end the night, and Michael found a bar (Reclette) that also serves dessert in the penthouse of an 11-story building. I was a little skeptical at first because I thought it was going to be way too classy and bougie for me. We came in and the waiter asked if we were okay with paying “table service”. Ugh, this is why I hate fancy bars. But Michael seemed okay with it so we sat down, and I realized the entire place could seat a maximum 8 people, and there was just 1 person working there. He didn’t speak much English but informed us that there was no menu. Well, if ordering in Japan with a menu was hard enough, how the heck were we supposed to order without one? I looked at the waiter, hoping for any assistance, then looked at Michael, then back at the waiter who stared at patiently waited for us for a solid 3 minutes while I kept trying to open my mouth to say something but I was completely unable to.
view from our table
Eventually we pulled out the translator app and asked him to “surprise us”. He seemed confused but he said, “recommendation?” in Japanese, which seemed close enough, so we said yes (and specified light on the alcohol). He made me a strawberry martini (it was basically a fresh strawberry smoothie, in the best way possible) and Michael a Moscow Mule with homemade ginger ale and fresh ginger. They were both insanely delicious.
He also served us a small dessert which was included in the table service. It was a light sweet potato cheesecake square and a matcha chocolate square, both were also really yummy - not too sweet or indulgent, but really hit the spot. I got a great picture of it.
this is why I can’t be an influencer
I had such a good time - it was a very intimate, custom experience and did not feel like a tourist trap at all. When we left the restaurant, he put on our coats for us (like, what a parent does for their child 🥺), chauffered us into the elevator, and bowed the deepest bow I’ve ever seen. While it was a bit pricey, the service was incredible, and he was so patient with us and didn’t judge us at all for being sloppily-dressed foreigners. Again, he was running a one-man show, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also making the desserts in addition to the drinks too. I can’t really rate this one because it’s less about the food and more about the experience, which was awesome. I actually feel so lucky that we got a spot that night just waltzing in without knowing much about it.