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San Jose Japantown
By Robert | March 22, 2009
So, it only took a decade for me to “discover” Japantown in San Jose. Yeah, it was right under my nose the whole time. If memory serves me right, over those years, I made two half-hearted attempts to find it without a map, and missed it by three blocks on both occasions.
Japantown appears to have fewer shops today than it did twenty or thirty years ago, but also has a vital core that is poised for growth. We enjoyed ramen at Kumako, which opened maybe about a year ago and is curiously the only dedicated Ramen shop in town. Shuei-do is a Japanese confection shop, remniscent of my trips to Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo home of Fugetsu-do and the gigantor Mikawaya.
The newest gem of a shop is Roy’s Station, which opened only a month ago, and is a fantastic re-use of an old thirties-era gas and service station, converted to a coffee shop. Alicia is a big fan of Shuei-do’s kinako mochi and Roy’s unsweetened tea latte. The both of us enjoyed Kumako’s Mabo Ramen.
This brings me to Mieko. She’s a coworker of mine from Japan, and remains politely confounded by my “Americanness.” She blogged about her lunch with us. We brought our DSLRs so I could share with her a few “ProTips.” Her entry just cracked me up! Translated from Japanese: she trips out about how my Japaneseness somehow does not include speaking the mother language. My relative hugeness also trips her out: I’m six feet tall and weigh well over 200 lbs. (I am lying about my weight so that her family and friends in Japan won’t faint). I think she had a good time, and was also happy to find Shuei-do, Roy’s Station and tasty ramen. Turned out that lattes and spicy ramen don’t mix well with her, so I hope she feels better. I’m not entirely sure she was satisfied with my ProTips, so I’ll have to work on improving myself in that area.
After some struggling with an online dictionary, I replied to her in Japanese.
実際、私は日本語を話すことはできません。これは非常にユーモラスです!
Roughly translated to English: “Indeed, I cannot speak Japanese. This is too funny!”
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