The Value of No Planning

I think I'm starting to feel old, as my crazy acts get spaced farther and farther apart. I remember in my first year heading off to Tokyo, clubbing all night and doing it again the next one, simply on a whim. That same year, Albert and I took a midnight walk across the bridge to Fuji, two towns away. Last night (and a girl from Australia) reminded me of how fun it is to be impetuous.

For the last week and a half, my former Australian exchange student, Jessica, has been staying at my house. She was the exchange student in my first year and she and I got along and managed to keep in touch since then. She arrived with her friend Kay last Monday, and though Kay went back last Saturday, Jessica's still here as my temporary roommate until the end of the month. Despite being 7 years younger than me, we get along well and it's fun having another person in the house. Back to last night...

I had come home from work amazed that it was Thursday yet again, and wanted to spend a quiet evening indoors due to the rainy weather outside. I was planning on making soup for dinner, watching a movie and catching up on the sleep that I seem to be constantly missing these days. Things didn't go according to plans, to say the least.

First, though I had laid out my ingredients for the soup I was going to make, I kept getting distracted by entering into conversations with Jessica about people at Ihara, friends and friendships, and differences between Japan and Western countries. Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't want to make the soup after all and was contemplating busting out one of the instant Korean ramen packs that I had purchased at Kaldi over the weekend.

Jess brings up sakura-ebi (the tiny cherry blossom-colored shrimp that my little town is famous for) and how she wanted to eat it. I mention wanting unagi (grilled eel) because of passing by the unagi restaurant the other day and seeing the bentos (boxed lunches) that the teachers had ordered yesterday from the place.

We decide to see if we can get them to deliver to the house, since they have both sakura-ebi and unagi, but since I didn't have their number or didn't remember their name, we embark on an online search for the restaurant. Somehow, we manage to find it and miraculously, they have a website. We spend some time looking at the menu and trying to make out the items listed. Finally, we call the place, but they don't deliver at that time. However, they ARE open for another 40 minutes. I suggest the possibility of taking a cab and we run with it. I call a cab, change in a whirlwind 5 minutes and we're out the door and on our way.

We were the only two people in the place, but we paid no attention and enjoyed the deeply satisfying meal. We left the place realizing how close it was to Shin-Kambara station and that we could've saved ourselves the cab-ride and just trained it, but such is hindsight. We begin walking back to the eki, feeling full and accomplished, but I spy the sign for 696 Cowboys and point it out to Jessica.

I had told her about it a little: it's the only bar in Kambara, cowboy-themed (yes, I did say that: COWBOY-themed), and owned by a friend of a friend who loves Elvis. She wanted to check it out, so we head in. She falls in love with it and we decide to get a couple drinks. The drinks multiplied and before I know it, Yan (the owner, who is a professional caricaturist) has done caricatures of the both of us, and managed to get me up on stage to sing "Born to be Wild" and "Country Roads" with him, the waiter (who plays drums apparently) and some other customer on bass.


We headed home on last train. Jessica's decided that she's going to make it her regular haunt while she's in town and I'm definitely planning on coming back again. Sometimes, spontaneity pays off.