Beef: It's What's for Tabehodai

Japanese Lesson #12 (I think):

1) Tabehodai: ALL.YOU.CAN.EAT.

Other than the nice, juicy steaks that I had back when I was home for Christmas - prompting my mother to comment that I am eating too much red meat, but there isn't much to be had on this side of the sea regardless - I don't and haven't had the chance to eat red meat ever since I left for Japan. Like beef for example. Crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. Yum yum. My "farewell" dinner cooked by Mel back in October was a steak, potatoes au gratin, corn and A-1 steak sauce.

Of course a lot of red meat is bad for you, and it's really expensive here so I don't bother. It's chicken and fish for me, with the occasional meatballs.

On Saturday, the day before the "my bathroom is flooded" fiasco, I went to Prof. S.'s house in Gion (I love that house) for a presentation on a course that he is preparing for next fall: Kyoto's Modern History. When he told me about it, I had the following reactions (internally of course):

1) My mouth dropped.
2) I began to hate those future KCJS kids, damn lucky people.
3) "PLEASE PLEASE can I just at least sit in on the class? I will be quiet, not say a peep and do all the readings and the homework!"

Just as I was getting the balls to ask if I can sit in the back corner of the J-pod next fall, he turns around and says, "You know, since you are doing this exact thing, you could be my TA, help out with the students, etc...."

So my internal reactions changed to the following:

"HOLY CRAP, REALLY?!?! Thank you so much this is such an awesome opportunity!!!"

First off, I'll get more hands-on-force-me-to-think in depth study. Secondly, I would get paid (not that it matters, hell I would have done it for free since it's such a great oppoortunity). Thirdly, its nice "shiny" (as Cat would say) TA experience that would look great on my resume and grad school apps. This was all before vacation but I really didn't say anything till now because of the presentation and that it is still all up in the air. Scheduling and all, but I will make this fit. Not like I have to take zillions of classes, especially in Fall '07.

Fourhtly, I have now more resources to look at. Part of the presentation included a tentative syllabus. What was cool was that about half of the stuff can be found in my bibliography. At least I know I am doing something right. ;-)

The presentation was in Japanese but I got about 50% of the specifics and a good general sense about it. Prof. S. actually introduced me (and this other student) to the crowd of the academic people attending and actually passed around two copies of my thesis (the edited/long one, as of June 2006). At first I was a wee bit surprised but I figured fine by me. One woman actually took a copy, saying that my work was very interesting. I also met a girl, who said that she was in the seminar hosted by my professor at Ritsumeikan (Prof. S. asked me who was my teacher in front of the whole crowd when introducing me); I asked what kind of teacher he was and she said "Very kind." That's a relief - one guy mysteriously guffawed loudly when I said my teacher's name to the crowd.

After, I called Alisa and asked if she was still up for watching Grey's Anatomy together. She totally forgot, saying that she was at Fuji Daimaru with Ted and Tracy (two JETs) - but since I had told her that I was on Shijo anyway, want to come for dinner? (We watched GA the next day).

No prob, I said. Sounded like fun. And now, Fuji Daimaru is my new favorite department store. I want to buy stuff from there, and furnish my future house/apartment with that stuff. Japanese house stuff is awesome.

We all got hungry. MEGA hungry. And we wanted to pig out. So Ted knew this Korean BBQ tabehodai place for about 2000yen. We had to wait a bit when we got inside, but it was totally worth it. We had a starter of three plates of meat and kimchi veggies, and THEN comes the all-you-can-eat. My favorite was this beef called "Den-niku" which uses the characters for "heaven" and "meat" so Alisa and I called it "heavenly meat." It sure was heavenly!

The Japanese are smart about tabehodai. To prevent customers from staying there FOREVER, there is a 90-minute time limit. Fine by us. We got stuffed, and we had all three desserts on the tabehodai menu.

That was the best meal I have ever had while going out for dinner in Japan. Gotta love tabehodai.