Indian Food in Japan

I have decided to challenge myself with the highest level of Japanese placement exams so I have been studying quite a bit lately. I get too distracted in my own apartment with the internet etc, so I usually go to Mister Donuts and drink some coffee while I work (free refills….which usually ends up leaving me with the jitters).

I was working on kanji flashcards (so I can input them into my brand new shiny Itouch) and then Dara joined me. We were chatting about what we should do later in the day and decided to go into Kyoto City for some Indian food.

I talk to Dara a lot about The Boy as well because she dated a Japanese guy for about 9 years. They broke up recently, but her experience has helped me become more used to the idea of an international relationship. I mentioned that I thought Monday (August 10) was his birthday but wasn’t sure I heard him right (it was a long time ago and it was only mentioned in passing). So Dara pushed me to invite him to dinner with us and said she would find out.

I tend to be hesitant to invite The Boy out with me and my American friends simply because I don’t want it to be overwhelming for him. Being experienced with being the only “foreign” person in a group I know how daunting it can be when people are speaking very quickly in your non-native language. Also, he is so quiet it is hard to tell if he is enjoying himself.

But at the Indian restaurant he seemed to relax a lot more. Laurel is a big help with that I think because A. she is an English teacher so she knows how to speak in ways that non-native English speakers can understand and B. because she is very animated and can break any tension by making things funny, especially to Japanese people who are fairly reserved when it comes to expression. Though they finally showed him the music video we all made several months ago (I have thus far been able to hide it from him). We had a lot of fun. Plus the dinner was pretty amazing…cheese nan mmmm.



Dara helped me by asking him when his birthday is…and it turns out I was right. It is Monday. So we spent half the night making up things that we should do to celebrate, which just embarrassed him. He kept saying that he never celebrates his birthday so it’s ok not to do anything. The three of us were just like…umm no. We’re Americans, we like birthdays, if you’re gonna hang out with us you better get used to it. We made jokes that we would force him to do Karaoke (which he doesn’t like) and puricura (the Japanese version of those photo machines they used to have at the mall, only WAY more cutesie and shiny crazy), and drag him to go see a chick flick, or sing to him at a restaurant. He seemed a bit scared of us then (^_~)

I was glad that The Boy was able to relax some more. It gives my friends a chance to see him more like I see him. Because he really has a great sense of humor and is very smart and I want other people to see that side of him.