Today's Lunch

The students don't come back until tomorrow evening, but the faculty and staff all ate lunch in the dormitory cafeteria today. Lunch was basically a big welcome party for all of us. As such, the lunch was unusually good.

For one, we had rice called "tai meshi," which is rice with tiny little sea bream mixed in. I think that was the first time I had it and it was pretty tasty. And the soup had a bunch of little chunks of chicken in it and also tasted good. And we even got a creamy, freshly-made dessert with some strawberries in it, which was a real treat.

Not all of the food was all that great, however, but overall, it was one of the better meals I've ever had here.

Considering the lunch lady is new, well, there's hope for better things to come. I'll find out soon enough.

One more note: I was surprised to see the women sitting separately from the men at lunch. I thought that rule only applied to the students (except for lunch time, when boys and girls are almost always mixed), so I was disappointed. I asked a teacher about it and he said something about Japanese tradition.

I guess for the Japanese, such behavior is normal, but for me, well, it's strange indeed!

P.S. Apologies for not having a picture of the food. I stopped taking pictures of lunch a while ago, so I'm not in the habit of taking my camera to the chow hall. Mistake.