Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

13th July 2006

Number 121 - Three Destinations, Three Ways of Speaking, Three Kinds of Food

When I woke up this morning and looked outside, it was raining.
Although I wrote yesterday about Mr Suzuki's powers to bring fine weather, I thought his luck must have finally run out, but when we got to our destination in Osaka, the weather was fine...

By way of saying which, we moved from Sendai to Osaka. We went straight to the hotel and after finishing lunch the interviews began. By the way, today was magazine -> radio -> radio -> TV -> radio -> TV -> press conference -> TV -> newspaper -> TV...

As might be expected in Osaka, the interviews were a complete change from quiet Hokkaido, and Tohoku[1]. It was also very interesting for me. The speed they spoke at was probably 1.5 times as fast (so in the same time they said 1.5 times as much).

Their questions were also full of variety. I really felt that when you make people do a lot of things in front of the camera or microphone, their national [regional?] character comes out.

Dinner was Okonomiyaki[2], and it was the first time in a long time that I had eaten this, I was overjoyed. Tempura, Sashimi and Yakiniku are all good, but if you eat them every day you start really wanting to have something homestyle.

[Photo of an air conditioning vent in the ceiling]

[caption] The air conditioner which was groaning away in the roof of the Okonomiyaki place.

After dinner I went, holding my stomach, which had grown taut from all the Okonomiyaki, to give an audience greeting at the Mido Kaikan[3].

The best part was that all 900 seats were full. Their passion transmitted itself to me and I was really overjoyed. Hearing that there were a lot of applicants for these preview seats, at the same time as feeling gratified by this, I also felt sorry for the many people who were rejected. So to all the people who couldn't see it at the preview screening, please come and see it after it opens!

After that we went by Shinkansen to Nagoya.
When I think that we started out this morning in Sendai, today was really a day of three destinations, three ways of talking, three kinds of food[4].

Translator's Notes

[1]: Northern part of the main island of Honshu, the area where he's just been.

[2]: Pancake like fried food made from eggs batter and other ingredients (such as pork/cheese/prawns/onions fried on a hotplate.

[3]: A concert venue/entertainment centre.

[4]: As each place has a distinct, or semi distinct dialect and regional character, and also different characteristic dishes (or at least he ate different food at each one!)