food faux pas

Today we took a short bus ride to our hotel in Mito, Ibaraki. Mito is the capital of Ibaraki prefecture and we will be visiting Ibaraki University tomorrow. On the way to the hotel, we stopped by Kairakuen Park which is 1 of the 3 most beautiful gardens in Japan and was built in 1841 by the ninth Mito Clan Lord Nariaki Tokugawa. The park contains 3,000 plum (ume) trees of 100 varieties. The name of the garden, Kairaku, means "to share pleasure with people". I had some plum ice cream that was delicious! We then dropped off at our hotel and then went to eat dinner. This posed a challenge as we had no idea where to go so we just started walking. Some people stopped at a cafe with hamburgers and pizza, but I wanted real Japanese food, so Stacey and I found a cute little restaurant. We were a little apprehensive to go in because no one was in there, but a woman came out so we sat down. The menu was in Japanese and it obvious that there was not an English version. Most menus in Tokyo had been in English & Japanese, so we knew we were in trouble trouble this time. The lady pointed outside, and we followed her, where we made our selection from the glass case of plastic food by pointing. I had read about this happening in books, but I never thought it was for real. It was so funny to communicate only through hand gestures and nodding our heads. She brought our food out in a bento box (see pic of Stacy with our lovely mean) which was so neatly prepared. It was obvious we didn't know where to begin eating the soba noodles as there were so many containers and sauces and we weren't sure what dipped where. She showed us what to do and told us in Japanese, though that didn't help at all. I shook my head like I understood so she went away, and Stacy and I just looked at each other and laughed hysterically because we didn't know what else to do. She came back and did the same thing again, but gave up and just poured everything into the correct bowls for us. She laughed at us for quite some time and sat down to drink tea and watch us at the next table. It really was a funny spectacle and I'm sure she told everyone about the "stupid Americans". Who knew eating could be so difficult?