Icky-Butts-Row. Skirls. Very Salty. Good with Wine and Beer.

Can You Repeat That?
Because Japanese is such an unfamiliar sound to my ears and nothing in the foreign language part of my brain can process it productively, I am very hesitant to ask questions that require me to understand the response.  Oh, sure, I've got pretty good at interpreting how far to walk before making a left or a right--distance is measured by the height of the hand thrust forward, times the number and length of grunts the kind stranger is making.

Audio recordings of each Metro station are announced first in Japanese and then in English.  The name of the station in Japanese never sounds like the English version, which I still don't hear correctly.  Internally, I've Americanized the names of the important stations so that when I see their names crawling across the arrival sign, regardless of what I hear coming out of the speaker, I'm ready for action.  For example,  Omotosando is Oh-no-my-honda;  Shimbashi becomes Shimmy-knees; Asakusa is Ass-kisser;  and my favorite, Ikebukuro to my way of thinking is Icky-butts-row.

Couple my inability to  process the language with the Japanese sensitivity to ensure that all exchanges end with courtesy, grace and perfection and you have a set up that should be avoided for good reasons on both sides.  But there are times when one just wanders into this landscape littered with language barriers and bad hearing.

Gummy Worms Make a Comeback
I happened to stop by one of those upscale supermarkets buried deep in the bottom of the Tokyo Metro Station on my way home yesterday where a very nice man invited me to sample a bite of what I think were salmon eggs.  He promised me they were a "little salty" but very good.  They were. Glorious little salty balls bursting with a hint of whatever ocean, creek or river from whence they came.  Their locavore status probably  matters; but not to me.   At his suggestion, I could take them home, ($15/100 grams) and eat them with beer or wine.  If only  he knew I eat most everything with beer or wine.  If only I knew what 100 grams looked like, I might even have bought some.

Grannies' Alley Gummy worms make a reappearance

Then, suddenly, I saw them.  There, behind the container of little salty salmon eggs that I could eat with beer or wine was a familiar-looking stack of small, pink, worm-like forms that looked suspiciously like the mound of mystery I sampled at Sugamo's Grannies' Alley earlier in my visit.

"What are those?"  I asked, pointing to the slithering pile.


"You want to taste those?"  he inquired, rather incredulously.

 "No, thanks.  I've already tasted them.  I just want to know what they are."

"Oh," he replied rather slowly and cautiously.  "Those are squirrels."

"Squirrels?" I repeated.

"No, skurls," he responded.

"Skurls,"  I tried, mimicking his pronunciation.  Still not there.  One more try, bigger smile.

"Skirls,"  he beamed, certain that I now understood.

So as not to completely ruin his day or allow this exchange to disintegrate any further, I smiled back my biggest smile, nodding as though we had arrived at a break through moment and said, "I didn't like them."

"Oh, very nice.  Salty too.  Good with beer and wine," he added.

"Do you cook them?" I pressed,  knowing I was pretty much nearing the limits of his patience and any further promotional efforts he could provide about skirls.

"Oh, no," he chuckled, as though I had suggested cooking a pan of candy gummy worms.  "You eat just like that.  Very good. A little bit salty.  Good with beer and wine."

No doubt they are.

Thanksgiving in Kyoto
Tomorrow I head off to spend Thanksgiving in Kyoto.  There is no turkey in Tokyo so there is no reason to stay here.  Well, there's turkey but it starts at $85/person over at one of the big hotels in Roppongi  (Rip-on-these), so,  to my way of thinking, there is no turkey.

I don't expect to find turkey in Kyoto either, but my daughter convinced me to ride the Shinkansen (Japan's bullet train that goes 198 miles/hour) because this is probably the only time in my life that I'll ever be in Japan, so if not now, when?  And so I have my round-trip reserved right-side-window seat ticket (the better side for viewing I'm told) and a hotel room for two nights.  I hear Kyoto goes good with beer and wine.