I belong to the Officers' Spouses' Club here in Sasebo. As a member of the OSC, I also have the opportunity to be a member of the International Ladies' Club. I take advantage of that opportunity. We take a trip the first Thursday of each month. Many times, we just go to lunch somewhere, this month was the same, but special. We took the train up to Hirado to have lunch at the famous Ryanpu hotel. What fun! When we got to the train station on the mainland just across from Hirado, we got on buses to the island. Before lunch, we stopped at a lookout. Japan is a place of beauty! No matter where you are, there's a beautiful look-out spot.
After stopping for photos, we went to lunch at the hotel. I wish I could have taken a photo of the hotel, but the bus was moving too fast for me. Oh well. We all sat at long tables for the meal, and had good conversation. There was a man singing Japanese songs for us during the meal.
The meal was so good, and so big that I could not finish it. We had a salad, tempura fish and vegetables, Japanese pickles (tsukemono), rice - of course, fish cakes - basically a fish omelet (it sounds gross, but it's good), a hot stone with yaki-niku (grilled, finely sliced meat and vegetables), various marinated veggies (I don't know how to describe them, you have to try them, but I love them), chawanmushi (steamed tea cups) - this is a savory custard of egg and broth with little vegetable and seafood "treasures", o-cha (green tea), coffee, and finally - desert of gelatin with fruit in it. I need to explain about Japanese gelatin. It's vegetarian. They take the agar (our Biology majors will know this one) which is an algea, and they process it into a slightly sweet gelatin. It's a slightly different texture from our Jello, but it's wonderful! They almost always "hide" little fruits inside it. Luckily, a very nice Japanese lady had seated herself beside me to hep me navigate my tray. I needed help and explanation several times! I enjoyed everything on my tray, but couldn't eat nearly all of it.
After lunch, we got back on the bus to the train station and returned home. It was a wonderful day of food, friends, and Japanese culture.
