ダニエルの冒険

I took a fresh towel and left it on the edge of the sink before I stepped into the shower. I turned on the water and it all gushed out of the tap and drenched the bottom of the towel. I made do with it.

Later I went to wash my hands and as I went into the tiny bathroom, the towel fell off its rack onto my shoulder. I threw it into the shower to get it out of the way and turned on the tap in the sink. The water gushed out of the shower-head onto the towel.

Anyway, today was a great day. Got some last-minute shopping done in the morning and had yoshigyuu for breakfast. Met up with Mitsuki and she showed me around some of the town. We went to karaoke and sang together and caught the latest Ghibli film (”Ponyo”). Quite similar to Totoro in the that:

• Lots of nature themes from the start right through to the end.
• One of the lead characters is female and has a really strong personality.
• Looks like it’s for kids but there’s a lot more in there. Not obvious at all though as it’s mainly thematic.
• No idea what it’s really all about, honestly. Not sure what Miyazaki wanted to say in either.

Leaving Sendai at 9.30am tomorrow to get to Narita. I have to go through Ueno but at least that’s not too deep into Tokyo. Should take 3 hours or so from Sendai. I’ll miss Japan, but it won’t be long before I’m back.

I ate some Gyu-tan (牛タン) yesterday. The first character means “cow”. The second two mean “tongue” (it’s actually an English approximation). With my gyu-tan I also had some teiru-suupu. Read it out loud and you can figure out that it’s “tail soup”. It was all really good and gyu-tan is a well-known Sendai dish.

The waiter asked how it was when I had finished and I told him how much I enjoyed it. I confirmed that the “tail soup” was indeed “tail” and he confirmed that it was. I pointed out how it was interesting that the meal was made of both ends of the cow but nothing from the “middle”. I said “but you don’t need the middle, right?”. “Yeah, you don’t need the middle!”