What to do when visiting Japan? Eat, that's what.

Sadly, the next day already marked Wallin’s departure. He was to fly out at 12:45pm, so we actually had to get up at a decent hour to take him to the airport. As per usual, Nagoya airport was not at all busy, and so we had time to grab some chicken curry for lunch at a café in the airport. We were all pretty delirious with hunger, and at the point where we would say (and then laugh at) the most ridiculous things. I even made Maria cry she was laughing so hard. And I pretty much take pride in any time I make Maria cry (irrelevant of the number of tears). I also managed to snap a decent shot of Maria and Wallin.

...and then another in which the main attraction is Maria’s freakishly large hand. Notice how it is bigger than her head?! Yikes, that's unfortunate.

After lunch, we escorted Wallin to security check-in and said our goodbyes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad to see him go. Wallin was of course playing it tough, but he kept looking back and waving or smiling even after he cleared security, so I know that fool was bawling his eyes out the minute he turned the corner…that or the minute he realized he was back in Korea. Ouch.
So our merry band of revelers was down to two, and it felt a bit lonely walking through the airport back to the train terminal. I was very grateful that Maria was staying for well over 2 weeks, unlike like some folks cough Annie cough, as Wallin’s 5-day stint seemed all too short. With Wallin on his way back to the land of kimchee, Maria and I decided to stop in Nagoya, in hopes of hitting up my favorite ramen place. Sadly, there were still closed for the New Year’s holiday, so instead we wandered randomly around Nagoya for awhile, with Maria supposedly satisfied “just to be in Japan.” I sometimes forget that all of this is new to other people. I think especially since I’m in the same region as when I studied abroad. When I go back to Nagoya, it’s not a big city that puts stars in my eyes, it is simply my old stomping grounds. And the novelty of being in Japan has worn off for me a bit (the novelty of really awesome food, however, has not), so that I sometimes forget to just look around and enjoy being here. Anywho, we essentially walked around with no destination, to the point where I was turned around, and our plan became to hopefully stumble upon a subway station. We did also happen upon this sign for a Japanese-French restaurant with "good" food. Don't want to know what the quotes are for...

And after an hour or so of strolling, we came up another subway stop, and made our way back to Nagoya station, where I took the chance to take Maria to the same miso pork cutlet place I had taken Wallin a few days earlier. After dinner we headed back to the O-gak (one of our affectionate nicknames for Ogaki) and watching Anthony Bourdain:No Reservations on Netflix while staying warm under the kotatsu (table with blanket and heating element underneath) and the nearby space heater (for those who don’t know, there is no central heating in my apartment).

The main goal of the trip for Maria was to eat lots of delicious food, Japanese or otherwise. So most days I worked involved Maria occupying herself for the day either by 1) Being lazy around the apt. 2) Wandering around Ogaki 3) Taking a trip to Nagoya and hopefully not getting lost. Then when I got back the main issue was where to grab dinner. I wanted her to have a proper spread of Japanese food, plus try the local gems that do other cuisine really well. A number of times, our quest for food brought us into Nagoya. One such night I went straight from work to the train station and met up with Maria and Lauren in Sakae (the happening, entertainment district of Nagoya) and went to dinner at Yama-chan, a chicken-wing chain restaurant/bar that is practically an institution in Nagoya…that I had actually never been to before. Overall, it was pretty decent, and it was an “izakaya” style place, which means you order a bunch of small plates of food to share between everyone. The food itself was good, and their famed chicken wings were tasty (probably due to the MSG, but hey, I’m not above that). The burdock root fries were also quite yummy. Then a poster up on the wall caught my eye, they had a “red miso lager” beer for sale by the bottle. It was overpriced, but I had to try it.

I can’t say I tasted the miso, but overall the beer was tasty, and much better than all the light beer that is most popular over here. I kind of felt bad for the Japanese couple that got put at the table next to us in the little room, since we weren’t exactly quiet. At the same time, Yama-chan is not the place you go to for a quiet dinner, and they took it well in stride. After dinner, we bummed around Sakae a bit more and took Maria to a game center (read: arcade) to do purikura (photo booth.) The basic idea is that you pick your background, take a number of pictures in front of a green screen, making the most ridiculous faces you can in body positions that make sense with the background (i.e. green pipes a la the Mario games, etc.). After having managed to get rid of all of your dignity in this fashion, you get to go around to the computer screen on the side of the booth, and insert clip art and write messages on the pictures with the touchpens. The goal, or at least standard practice, is to put so much additional crap on the photo that you can barely see people’s faces. Maria was suffering from sensory overload just from the arcade atmosphere, and was like a deer in headlight when she first sat down with the touchpen. After a few minutes, she got the hang of it and had the pictures properly covered with stars, sparkles, and, of course, the steaming pile o’ poop graphic. Once we had printed the photographic evidence of our collective insanity, we decided to call it a night. We all still had train rides back home and work the next day (well, at least Lauren and I).
We managed to make it to Nagoya again, and this time my favorite ramen place was open. I’m quite proud of this place and wanted Maria to try it. It’s a hole in the wall place that seats maybe 12 people, and the kitchen area is larger than the seating area. Their specialty is “spicy miso garlic butter ramen” and Maria was quickly a fan. In fact, that became her favorite meal of the entire trip. Excellent, yet another convert.

At another place we went to, I ended up trying a black sesame based ramen, which was pretty darn amazing as well. We also ended up going to Masala Master, and also made a trip to Bellmart, the Brazilian restaurant/market, with Jon and Sarah. We go there often enough so that the guy who works at the restaurant recognizes Jon, Sarah, and I. We pretty much always order a can of Guarana with our meal, and this time when we paid our bill, the guy just handed us a bag with 4 cans of Guarana, on the house. I always knew he was awesome beforehand, this just verifies it.
Jon's forehead wrinkles (@Bellmart)

Sarah's favorite Asian pose (also @Bellmart)