The first....of many...about...food.

Such a rainy day today. It always seems that whenever it rains, the day just seems to get crappier. The job I thought I was getting fell through, as they only needed one person to actually teach the employees at the company because having two different people would be complicated to deal with the lesson plan, which should be continuous throughout. It was a complexity of those issues (I would like to think I wasn't chosen because my lack of formal experience once again biting me in the ass, but I really have no means to even think that) that lead to the decision, but I'm fine with it. I'll have plenty of chances to teach someone English here and make money (and more friends) on the side. At least Hakuoh will help me find a job, so if I need it.

But, yeah, that was a considerable bummer. I'm still waiting on the JASSO scholarship, so I am relying solely on funds that I am getting from back home. I should hear something about that within the next few days, so should be okay. Hopefully I don't have to wait until NEXT month for the funds to arrive, as it could put somewhat of a financial strain on my family and I.



"This has nothing to do with Lotteria, but it emphasizes that I must talk about food now."

So, considering that it was an appropriate day to go and look for something decently comforting, I decided to go to Oyama Station and try the Japanese take on fried American-style foods. There's not much in terms of American style food restaurants in Oyama station, but I did find a place near the front entrance of the station called Lotteria. The name looked misleading, as it was not an Italian restruant, but a weird version of perhaps either what would be Wendy's or Rally's in the states. I decided it would be best to try out some of the burgers, so I tried the "Ebi" burger or "Shrimp" burger, as I only know of this as when I got it, it wasn't chicken as the picture leads you to believe it is. I also got something called "snack chicken" which basically was chicken nuggets in a smaller form than say what you could get at McDonalds.

Anyway, the burger itself wasn't that bad. I know for a fact that Japanese love putting manganze on a lot of American food, but this burger had only a little on it. It mainly had a kind of cocktail sauce in it (Henz makes the best kind I think) and the shrimp was pretty good. I would definitely go back sometime and eat there again.

The day I try the MegaMac (the bastardization of burgers as a huge amount of meat put into a sandwich that McDonald's Japan is offering) will be a seperate entry within itself.

If you're a foreigner in Japan, and your skills at the language aren't completely great, most restruants have menus that include pictures of some sort. This allows for the simplisity of just pointing to said item you want to eat, and the understanding is simple and well put. Places where menu's aren't available are usually fast food joints, and chances are have something that has picture on a main display or are written in some shape or form in Katakana, so those with some ability in Japanese (because Kanji can be daunting sometimes) can make youself heard.

Anyway, this is the first of many entries about food in general. I'll promise to blog more about different subjects though, because my writing ability isn't limited to food alone.

(This entry is dated about a few days due to being too busy to finish it)