I ate Jellyfish!

No really, I ate jellyfish yesterday. Let's start from the beginning! *time warp waves* do-do-do-do-dooooooooo!

So yesterday, I got up and went to the Board of Education. You see, I have the big demo class coming up soon. This class is for my 6th graders and a bunch of Board of Education people, middle school English teachers, all the ALTs, and other random people are coming to watch the Enya Super English teachers on December 12th. This is a big deal for all of us, and unfortunately I am having trouble with communication with people. You know, the whole Japanese/English barrier thing. So I went to talk to Mihara-san yesterday about fixing my Lesson Plan and laminate some papers.

So I got there and Mihara-san helped me decode the mysteries of the Japanese lesson plan. Then I sat down to do some laminating. By the way, laminating 36 papers takes FOREVER. The laminating machine is sooooo sloooooow. So while I was sitting there, Mihara-san asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with her and Nakamura-san. I was going to say 'no', but then I figured I might as well go. I didn't have any plans and it could be fun.

At 12:00 we went to a little Chinese restaurant downtown and met Nakamura-san and Otani-san. As much time as I spend with these ladies, they are all about 20-25 years older than me so I can't call them by their first names. Maybe someday I can unbend and call them Miyako, Naoko, or Midori...but for now, I will continue with the "-san."

At the restaurant, the ladies discovered that I have never eaten jellyfish before (go figure, right?). I didn't even know you could eat jellyfish! Bleh. But, in the spirit of a fun lunch, I tried the jellyfish.

Ok, for the record, jellyfish tastes NOTHING like jelly! Actually, it doesn't taste like much of anything. It's kinda like tofu and all the other billions of vegetables Japanese folk eat, in that you really need to put sauce on it to give it any flavor. What disturbed me so much, was the consistency. They said it would be really chewy...but I think there is a translation error on watch chewy means (I'm not being funny, I truly do think there are more meanings to that word in Japanese). Anyways, jellyfish is CRUNCHY. I'm not lying. It was crunchy. It's about the consistency of chewing on a raw cucumber. For reals, yo! It was absolutely bizarre. I was think it would be octopus chewy and was really surprised when I crunch into it. I am not a fan of the jellyfish. It will stay in the 'not to be eaten pile'.

Speaking of octopus (which I totally did, go look!), I ate octopus yesterday. I had tako-yaki balls! It's like this little doughy ball with octopus in it. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't a normal takoyaki ball, but a Chinese-style one that you soaked in miso before eating. It did convince me that I should try real tako-yaki. There is a smal stand outside of the apartment. If I can get someone to share with me, I would love to try it.

Back to the lunch! I had jellyfish and tako-yaki balls. I also had this really yummy steamed bread thing with pork on it. We also had this weird green onion thingy which wasn't so lovely and I think something else but I forget. It was a nice lunch, if a little strange. I enjoyed chatting with the ladies and I hoped they enjoyed talking to me, too. They probably did. I'm interesting! That sound conceited, but I promise its not. I really am interesting.

So, yay! I ate octopus and jellyfish. What an interesting culinary day for me!