Japanese Italian Food

Today was a national holiday to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Since they had the day off, the Morimuras took us to lunch at an Italian restaurant down the street. Fox chose Italian, thinking he might get some chicken parmesan. Well, the waitress had never heard of chicken parmesan. In fact, the restaurant didn't even have chicken. Instead, you could order spaghetti and shrimp, spaghetti and crab, pizza with tuna, mayo, and shrimp, pizza with eggs and bacon, or potato gratin with egg and barbecue sauce. Now, Fox doesn't eat shrimp or eggs--so he settled on pizza with corn, ham, and pepperoni. I got a salad with shrimp, potatoes, lettuce, and seaweed--and ate my salad with chopsticks. It was actually really good. I also had some delicious mango juice--Yum!
At lunch, Fumi and I were talking and she asked me what an American does if they can't find a spouse. She asked incredulously, "You mean they just live alone for the rest of their lives?" I said yes, what do they do in Japan? "They find another person who is looking for a spouse through a matchmaker! If they are LDS, then they meet up at a Conference. There is a long list of names of who there is looking to get married, so they take down phone numbers, talk long distance, and get married." She thought it was amazing that America doesn't have matchmakers and people actually remain single their whole lives! I was equally astonished that Japan still has matchmakers! It's kind of funny to find out little quirks about this culture.

After lunch, we went to a gym where your outside shoes couldn't touch the inside of the gym. You either had to wash your shoes or change into another pair of gym shoes before you set foot in the gym. Or you could shuffle around the hallways in some issued slippers, like I did. After the gym, I took Fox to a store I found that has cheap peanut butter! Hooray! So now you don't have to send the gallons we requested. (No, I'm not a gigantic fan of peanut butter. That's Fox. But I make a really yummy peanut sauce that is peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, and vinegar that is great on the TONS of noodles and rice we eat!)
Stay tuned for pictures of Kiwi-flavored KitKats! ~Amy