Today I walked around Nara. It was another humid, hot day with sprinkles of rain in between. Nara is famous for its beautiful shrines, temples and its park, where the local deer hang out waiting for a feed. And they didn’t disappoint, and the tourists were enjoying giving them biscuits when I arrived. It was part of the plan that I had made for the day, but after walking around in the heat for a while I got a little hungry. I thought I’d stop and look around for a sushi place. As I walked, I saw that the streets were similar to those in Kyoto and Osaka old towns. There were little differences of course, but essentially the touristy areas of a town have a certain familiarity to them.
I decided to not go a restaurant that was recommended online and find one myself. After a while, the heat was really getting to me… no place felt right. I was about to give up and just go to the restaurant I found online, which would have been good as well I’m sure. But at the last minute, before opening time, a red lantern caught my eye. It was a plain building, cream coloured rendering and brown metal frames for square windows on top of an inconspicuous wooden sliding door entrance. The wooden door was framed by a tall, simple pot plant, blue awning which displayed three characters in white and a small window on the left. In that window were tiny figurines of sushi and what looked like a painted menu on white paper. Luckily I was able to translate… this would be the place I’d eat today, I thought.
Near the wooden entrance, hung a small strip of white plastic – “preparation” it seemed to say. I waited, and before long a kind looking lady stepped out and changed the sign. I smiled at her, but looked away as I didn’t want to pressure her into letting me in. She went back inside and then I tried to open the door a minute later. It didn’t budge. I was a little confused, but after a while of waiting I pushed a little harder. With a little more force, it slid open and I ducked under the two pieces of cloth hanging in front of the door. I was immediately greeted with a loud hai!
At first I thought I did something wrong, but then I realised that this is simply Japanese culture. I’d been to many sushi restaurants before, but never one where there were only 6 chairs and one man behind the bar. Normally, there would be many people yelling irasshaimase! or welcome at the same time… each staff member trying to yell loudly, maybe to lift everyone’s morale. He gestured at me to sit down. I took a seat right in the corner, I was the only one there, but that didn’t seem to curb his enthusiasm as he loudly welcomed me in.
A woman came out of the kitchen, the same lady who I saw earlier, and hurried over to me. She spoke to me in Japanese and then quickly opened a draw beside me and gave me an English menu. I asked for a 10 dish omakase or degustation. It’s an interesting term, it means that you will hand over trust to the chef – you relinquish control over your meal to their experienced taste. I think that’s what we do when we travel, we hand over control to our surroundings. There is something simultaneously soothing and risky about it, but either way it leaves you open. This is the place where something interesting can happen, new connections can grow, and this is what I had opened myself to at lunch today.
It didn’t take long to get started, I was served a tall glass of sake in a black and red box. I thought it was a little peculiar, but I soon realised why the box was there. She poured it until it overflowed a good amount into the box. The glass was so full, I needed to bend down and slurp it before I could properly pick it up. The chef got to work as well. He placed a bowl of seaweed drenched in mustard in front of me, and a little wooden board with pickled ginger to my side. In the mean time, the lady began preparing tea in big ceramic cups. It was beautiful to watch, she was preparing two because another lady had just arrived for her lunch too. Suddenly the voice of the chef pierced the quiet hai… no sauce he told me. He placed a morsel of sushi down on the wooden board confidently with his hands. This started the dance between the chef and the customers, hai… arigato gozaimasu… hai… arigato…
Every piece was delicious. Light, well balanced and fresh. In between each bite I’d take a sip of sake, a gulp of tea and a piece of pickled ginger. I tried things that I’d never eaten before, and I tried things that I had always avoided in the past. It opened my palate, and my mind. While the other customer was in deep conversation with the owners, the sake was getting to my head a little. I felt the most comfortable I’d felt in a long time and began to lean back in my chair. The interior was simple… blue and woodgrain chairs and benches, a little clock with sushi instead of numbers hanging above the kitchen door. But the food was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t believe that such a small, quiet place would be serving up such delicate flavours. I started to feel glad that I deviated from my original plan, and took a chance on trusting my gut rather than a website.
The conversation became a buzz in the background as I started to reflect on earlier today. I was walking around the park wondering why, when I travelled in the past, I would always just stick to the places that were recommended to me. We often only have a limited time when we go on holiday, so I suppose we want to maximise our experience as much as possible. Just outside the restaurant, I saw a sweets stall that had tourists lining up outside. It made me think of the lady I bought sweets from in the small city near my apartment yesterday… was this store in Nara really better in any way than a lesser known place? I didn’t stop to find out.
Holiday time is something we treasure… it’s the precious few days we have away from our work, our “actual life” in a way. It’s time that’s often filled with our dreams. That is, until we go back to our “real life”… the place we sacrifice most of our time, so we can touch our dreams for a few days before abandoning them again. Unless your work is your dream. I remember a time when it was, and I feel nostalgic now realising that I am not like that anymore. I worked for my dreams, but when it came to living them then I did not trust myself.
I traded the uniqueness of my own life for a recommendation by someone else. Now it seems crazy to do that, because it was my own unique path that led me to so many beautiful experiences, like the lunch I had today. I felt as if I were sitting at the table of a strangers house, strangers who had welcomed me despite my differences from them. My time abroad has made me question: when did we start to differentiate our time and devote ourselves to working, instead of just living? As if it is always necessary to control and pre-plan every little thing. In my life, the holidays where I have planned loosely, and often deviated, are always the ones where I have the most memorable experiences. To let living be more of an interaction than an achievement, to give over control but also to let yourself have the freedom of responding. Even though I only ate little portions, I walked away with my stomach satisfied, and my heart full.
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