The first day I taught at Toyonaka branch, I had no idea what to get for lunch or where to go for it. The staff just cheerfully shoved me out the front door. Here, go fend for yourself, you greenhorn. Get all that wet out from behind your ears.
So I did what anyone else would do. I aimlessly wandered. Lunch time came and went without sustenance and I flatlined around 2 PM.
The next day – Thursday, since my weekend was Monday and Tuesday – I didn:t1 want a repeat. If wandering in the desert was my fate, at least I needed some manna. So I went around the corner and across the street to see what I could smell.
A tiny shack of a storefront smelled great. Wood shake siding around a low, tattered awning with kanji characters, nothing much to look at. Just a counter with 3 stools. Sit, eat, get out (politely). That udon shop became my daily ritual.
I always got kake udon. It:s the simplest, cheapest option. Delicious. It was just noodles in kakejiru, a broth made from dashi, soy sauce, and mirin, with chopped spring onions.
I know now that kake means “to pour over” in Japanese. And that:s what the old woman behind the counter did. Just poured a ladle of broth over a bowl of cold, drained noodles and dropped a handful of chopped onions on top. Fish flakes too if I wanted to spend the extra ¥90.
It:s a good thing I liked it, because I didn:t know how to order anything else.
01 • Waka words are air with weight as they leave me so does strength. exploring at lunch i smell strength in a small bowl— revival served with old hands 02 • Kouta at the shop i bend beneath the banner, bend in greeting and at the low countertop bend again to eat 03 • Dodoitsu today at toyonaka the udon has fish flakes tomorrow at tennoji i might as well starve
Colons are apostrophes in this series as a reference to the : key being in the spot on a Japanese keyboard where the ‘ key would be on an English keyboard. Other keys were placed differently as well, but my writing from that time has lots of colons.