Goodbye University... and off to the south!

Here I am now with my JR Railpass and my backpack on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, and I somehow can't believe that my 3 months at Todai, Tokyo University, are already over...

The time has flown by and towards the end I felt more and more comfortable. I made good progress in my work and Prof. K was a great host, who was hardly in Tokyo in the last few weeks, but always made time - whether by email or with a meeting on Saturday. I also got to know the other colleagues better and went out for a few drinks after work with Victor, Sobhan, and their girlfriends a few times in Izakayas, the after-work locations. We usually had various small dishes to share, such as small plates of different meat skewers, salads, (wasabi) fries, ... which everyone took with their chopsticks - which is both sociable and allows you to try everything 😉 in the end, the bill was divided evenly - which surprisingly worked quite well, even though you have to pay per table and tipping is frowned upon, so everyone had to search for their share exactly down to 10 yen (8 cents). The only annoying thing: you can smoke in the bars. And my French office mate and his girlfriend are not exactly averse to it, so after such an evening, the jacket is banished to the balcony (ha, it was finally used!) and the hair has to be washed... and as I just saw, there are also separate areas in the Shinkansen where you can smoke 😳 maybe I should consider myself lucky that it is not allowed everywhere like in the bars...

Prof. K also invited me to dinner twice: once for sushi 🍣 (actually the only time so far that I've been to a sushi restaurant 😄) and yesterday for Korean BBQ 🥓 (which you would expect from a Korean host). Both really delicious. With the sushi, we felt like we tried a little bit of everything, although there are usually no rolls like in Germany, mainly Nagiri - but with a better fish-to-rice ratio (in favor of the fish) 😉 While I knew that I would like Japanese omelette and shrimp, the eel with sweet sauce really surprised me (well.. sweet sauce and Tina, that shouldn't really surprise me 😅). For tuna, the middle price range is the best, the more expensive version was quite 'fatty' and therefore quite soft. And Uni is absolutely not recommended. It may look pretty, all fluffy and orange, but the texture... ughhhh 🤢 My opinion on it was probably clearly visible when I had it in my mouth... and then it felt like it was getting more and more in my mouth, because you can't really take a bite out of such a sushi bite, everything has to go in at once 😅 When Prof. K then showed me on his phone what kind of creature it is.. well, I probably wouldn't have tried it myself 🙈 Sea urchin. I can do without it.

There were no surprises like that at the Korean BBQ. The tables, which were all in small niches, were partially separated from the neighboring table by blinds and all had their own exhaust hood. Underneath them was a construction reminiscent of raclette, heated with a gas field, in which meat and vegetables were cooked and a rice dish was made. With chopsticks, you then take some of the freshly cooked meat, dip it in a sesame dip, and wrap it with the vegetables into a lettuce leaf. Oh, and because it splatters so much, there are gigantic paper napkins 😂

Now there are still 7 days of vacation - the classic Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto - and then another night in my swaying bunk bed, a washing machine, packing, and then in a week it will finally be Sayonara Japan 😢