Japan Adventure #4

Had lunch at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, which was called Unkai. It was on the hotel’s 5^th floor, and the interesting thing about it is that they had a lovely Japanese garden on the roof, so that the windows of the restaurant overlooked the garden. In another “hi, I’m a tall foreigner” moment, I had to duck to enter the restaurant due to a curtain hanging from the doorway, and then the relationship between the base of the table and the height of the chair (which was still too low for me to be comfortable) caused me to have to sit with my ankles crossed, because if I sat with my feet flat, my legs hit the base of the table. All of the waitresses were dressed in traditional yukata or kimono, and I had some soba noodles in broth, some tempura, and some Japanese pickled vegetables.

Tonight was the IETF’s welcome reception. The hotel put out all sorts of food, some western, some Japanese. It was all good, but nothing overly notable or out of the ordinary. I did get a chance to try several Japanese desserts, which are typically rice balls with different types of flavoring, as well as a cup with a coffee-flavored gelatin, some cream, and a bit more either strong coffee or coffee liqueur on top. Since I’m not a big fan of coffee without lots of sugar, it was a little bitter for my taste. I was able to enjoy some very nice sake. One of the host sponsor’s representatives gave a toast, which in Japanese is “kanpai!”

Was examining my JPY coins last night, and was struck by how light the ¥1 coin was. I had to go look up the coin composition, turns out that the coin weighs 1 gram (vs other coins weighing 3-7g), and is made of 100% aluminum instead of the more standard brass/copper/nickel alloys. It almost feels and sounds fake (like plastic). I have had Yen coins in every denomination (¥1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500) including both versions of the ¥500 coin. The newest version of the ¥500 coin has ridges in the zeros of 500 on the face of the coin, and if you hold it just so, you can see "500" and the Kanjii character for Yen printed in the ridges. Wondering how they strike that with any level of repeatable success.