Kumamoto

Other than our first night in Fukuoka, our stop in Kumamoto is the first time we have been to a city that seemed to be economically vibrant.  In contrast to the many stores we saw closed at our earlier destinations, Kumamoto seems to have an active commercial life.  There are high-end stores (Tiffany, Prada, etc.) and this is the first city where we have seen a relative abundance of cars like BMW and Mercedes.  


We got a recommendation for a sushi restaurant near the hotel and proceeded to it on Saturday night.  It was down in the lower floor (i.e., basement) along one of the arcades in the shopping district.  The place was small.  There was a bar with 8 seats and two tatami rooms that could accommodate a total of 8 more people.  And one sushi chef.  But it was relatively full, even thought it was early.  A good sign.


We sat down at the bar, where there were already 4 other patrons.  Andrea chatted up the chef, who was nice but not overly solicitous, and made sure to tell the chef that we were not interested in trying the local specialty - raw horsemeat sushi.  As we proceeded to start getting our order, a gentlemen came and sat in the seat next to us.  After a bit, and no doubt hearing our conversation, he turned and asked whether we were from America.  We told him that we were from Boston.  He told us that he was a professor and have been to Boston several times, along with visits to Washington, New York and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where his cousin is a professor.  He teaches economics at a local private university, Kumamoto Gakuen University.  He said that he stays healthy and never goes to the doctor or hospital by eating very little.  He was indeed quite skinny.  The conversation took place in a mixture of English (in which I participated) and Japanese (in which I just nodded my head, but Andrea carried on splendidly).  He ordered an oyster which, although as I have already explained was not a Kumamoto oyster, was one of the biggest plumpest oysters I have ever seen.  We followed suit (do what the locals do).  We had some filefish (or leatherfish; kawahagi in Japanese) sashimi, which came with its raw liver.  Unbeknownst to Andrea, I didn't eat any of the liver, so Andrea ended up eating it all (after asking everyone if it was safe).  The selection was not as vast as at an American sushi restaurant, perhaps because they only have fish that is truly in season.  We each had one piece of toro (tuna belly), which was delicious.  The professor then proceeded to buy us an order of octopus sashimi.  Not to be outdone, the couple sitting in the seats next to him got into the act.  Their English was not as good as the professor's and so Andrea carried the lead.  He is a police officer in the traffic division and she, quite a bit younger and not his wife or girlfriend (we think), is an investigator in the white collar crime unit of the Kumamoto prefectural police.  She had spent some time (it wasn't clear when or why) in Adelaide, Australia and she came over and talked to us a little in English.  Her companion, who seemed to have been hitting the sake pretty hard and didn't speak any English at all, bought me a beer.  For some reason the traffic policeman asked me my age and kept asking us if we thought that he and the white collar crime investigator were father-daughter.  We ended up exchanging cards and e-mail addresses with the professor and the investigator.  As we were leaving the restaurant, perhaps not to be outdone, one of the other couples jumped up and gave us these little miniature origami cranes they had folded.  It was a memorable evening.  


In general, at the mention that we live in Boston, we typically hear "Boston Red Sox" and then "Matsuzaka" or "Daisuke."  It pains Andrea, the diehard Yankees fan, to know that Red Sox nation is in fact Red Sox world.