The summer holidays descended like a pack of hungry hobos on a cheese sandwich; fierce and agile not out of sporting nature but out of necessity, bellies three quarters primed with the anticipation of dairy fat. Afterwards, even those who failed to sooth their lonely stomachs breathed a sigh of relief. The hottest Tokyo summer on record has finally broken. The cicadas, with new life, seem to have taken up the symphony of a wedding march instead of a funeral dirge. The birds are laughing again and the produce venders have an extra day to sell their fruits and veggies. People everywhere are emerging from their air-conditioned caves to greet the autumn. Once hibernating kids, on fresh spring legs, have sprung up to repopulate the playgrounds. I’ve taken to walking beside the tree-lined canal in the evenings, going over the day’s Japanese words and ever searching for a tasty morsel of the abovementioned cheese.
There are two edible substances in this world that are impossible to hate; bacon and cheese. Now some might protest that because of religion or health reasons, we should avoid these things at all costs. But who can honestly say when they walk past a pan full of frying bacon that they don’t have the slightest inclination, even for a fleeting instant, to put some in their mouth? Cooking bacon is an olfactory Siren irresistibly calling out that it wants to be in your stomach. It’s spotlight sunshine on a grey day. Its message tiptoes through the air to plant joy -scratch that- the potential for joy on your brain with the grace of a ballerina and the nervous urgency of a mousetrap. There are certainly many people out there who can resist the pull better than I, but Oscar Wilde put it best when he said, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” Much in the same way, cheese seems to be so guiltily pleasurable it’s blinded the tongues of 130 million Eastern Asian island dwellers. Seriously, I can’t figure it out, cheese just doesn’t factor into this culture, which is strange because Italian food is hugely popular. Chain “Italia Tomato Jr. Cafés” can be found in nearly every part of Tokyo, but they specialize in the cheese-less meals like Spaghetti Bolognese, and Japanese-inspired shrimp/mayonnaise pasta. Being such a virile supporter of Lasagna, I always feel as though I’m about 7 beers and 700 Japanese words shy of starting a revolution. Rest assured I’m doing my part to support these flagging industries, eating all things cheesy. Hakuba, in addition to inspiring pristine peaks and swimable lakes, brought the dankest Mexican food I’ve yet eaten in Japan. The blame for such a gastronomic indulgence rests squarely on the shoulders of my vibrant (and drink-inducing coworkers) but I digress…
The reason so little heed has been recently paid to this virtual receptacle for my mental diarrhea is that I’ve been on a paid vacation for nearly a month, logging the fifth country with my ever-sunny, firecracker of a girlfriend. She was out here for only two weeks but we managed an incredible amount, hiking through forests next to waterfalls hundreds of feet high, sampling the sexiest sushi in Tokyo (yes it was indecently good), and museum/shrining until our eyes rolled into the backs of our heads. The time together always seems to slip by unabated by the friction of everyday life. Now I find myself wondering how the next meeting could possibly follow suit and be better than the last.
