Today is May 7th, two months to the day since my arrival in Japan. I knew I’d leave behind major comforts in America, yet I wasn’t ready for the blow I received the very first night.
It was March 7th. After an exhausting journey, our trainer Kyle took my co-trainee and me to a grocery store in Osaka, Japan. Looking around at all the food, thinking of the reasonably comfortable hotel room waiting for me, I felt safe at last. Proceeding to the open refrigerator, I grabbed the first plastic container of a beige substance I saw. “Great,” I said. “Hummus. Looks like I have breakfast for tomorrow.”
“Hummus?” repeated Kyle. “Yeah, you won’t find hummus here.”
Horrified, I dropped the sweetened soy-paste.
Won’t find hummus?
I thought this was a metropolitan country. There’s an Italian restaurant on every street here, and there’s not a corner in Italy – or any Mediterranean country for that matter – without a kebab stand selling hummus for an extra euro.
“Japan is different,” explained Kyle. Mercilessly I might add.