Sunday, Dec 1
- woke up early (~6:30am rip) for the drive to niihama, where we were at a handicrafts/food market!
- i sold HK milk tea and also somehow japanese-ed my day through serving customers LMAO rip at all the customers who might’ve been offended at my insufficient humbleness and who didn’t know I was from HK (there was a sign but ofc not everyone saw it which is 普通だよね)
- talked to several other shop owners (over the heaters we had because cold!) and had great conversations (with my deteriorating japanese as the day went by) plus one couple bought me bag of mikan at the end of day why so nice i have no idea cry
- drive back playing dif music, introduce Yさん to florence + the machine on the way there, on the way back, he wanted tunes to keep him out, so all sorts of tunes from across the world lol, finished off with introducing him to music in arabic haha
drive there, many tunnels, one side of tunnel mountains and valley, other side lots of fog! the scenery here is just so refreshing 
Yさん was like we passed THAT tall mountain and got to the other side i’m like holy i did not realize how tall that was wow 
our stand: Yさん’s veg and foods + me in the corner with milk tea. i asked why he didn’t put a sign to say all his produce is organic and he said it was a point of pride not to, but from what i see, he works extra hard to be able to stay organic, convinced him to put up a sign that says he doesn’t use pesticides etc (he still didn’t plainly just write ‘organic’ but i’ll take my wins where i can) 
make little teabags of black tea, with the kettle, prepped cups of evaporated milk and sugar; so happy to have been entrusted with so many bags of black tea from Kさん ~! 
charcoal heater 
lunch: two salmon onigiri + a konbini sandwich 
Yさん gave me some money to buy whatever snacks i want for me, him, and his wife; got them dif pastries and mikan daifuku which i found intriguing (and glad he did too!) and for myself, ofc, earl grey chiffon cake 🙂 (at night he gave me the daifuku, i was like nah it’s for you, he was like oh! i thought it was for you! he looked so excited lol 🙂 
sold until we ran out of cups whooooo! still had a bit of evaporated milk left, so i guess i can use it later 🙂 
Yさん dumped out the burning charcoal then poured water during take down 
didn’t even notice the palm trees until next door store lady was taking pics and we talked about how i think it looks like california and hamamatsu too lol just random parts of japan 
shio ramen gyoza lunch, Yさん knows i’m a slow eater now, he’s like srsly just take your time, so i eat a little slower, was a good chill clear brain dinner 
the bag of mikans that the other couple gave me 
i don’t even know why and they are just so nice and i’m cry 
drive back singing + playing dif rock/kpop/ballad/indie etc music to keep Yさん awake, asked to make sure he’s chill w the music, and he’s like yea i actually find it really interesting so that was good
little anecdote from the market:
the couple in the store behind us, they shared their gas heater with us before we pulled out the charcoal one, she was surprised to know i was 23, she said she thought i was 19 lmao. tbt to the time in high school riding the lifts and one of the chinese teachers was like uh are you supposed to be here i’m like yes i have a pass i’m 11/12 grade, she’s like wow i thought you were grade 8 rip
anecdote 2:
bless the woman who came up, said ‘excuse me’, talked to me in eng the whole time while i tried to talk in japanese, and was very respectful
bless the last four guys who came by, wanted 4 cups but i only had 3 left, and were really nice and came back to say it was delicious as they threw away the trash
anecdote 3:
the woman who was waiting for her tea, made me feel so awkward because kettle was still boiling (she came just right after i filled the kettle with water thinking not many people were around…), then turns out gass was low so it barely boiled, but i poured her a lukewarm cup (which we later shared together with the couple running the store behind us by warming it on their gas heater), this is how i learned the word for ‘lukewarm’ in japanese, then Yさん helped to replace gas, she kept opening the lid no joke every 5-10 seconds at the most frequent and i’m there like lady the more you open the slower it’ll take to boil… finally gave her a piping hot cup of tea, she seemed to enjoy it, when she finished and threw the cup and left i sat down in my chair with relief
anecdote 4:
the man who was looking at the stuff next door but had this cute pug and usually i’m not a sucker for dogs but idk this pug was just so affectionate and i pat him and he turned over and just looked so hap and it was nice and in that moment i got a bit closer to understanding my american friends who are so big on dogs
anecdote 5:
the store next to us (with just one woman, not the couple) turned out to be of chinese roots, and so we spoke some mandarin which REALLY messed my head up and we would switch in and out of mandarin/japanese and at some point i was like jk let’s choose one because my brain is not working lmao
by the end of the day, all the japaneseing with customers and good convos with other store owners (including the strawberry farmers who bought me the mikan and we talked a lot!) got my brain so dead i could barely talk simple sentences with Yさん during dinner and the drive back. but he gets it (re: his own exps with eng) and i’m glad for that.
chloe eats 
You must be logged in to post a comment.