Day 17 (Osaka) : The manliest tofu!

Today was the second day of class. I'm starting to understand the teacher and topic rotation but not really. This morning we reviewed kanji and pronunciation. After lunch we covered some grammar topics. Both of the teachers today were older and not as fun as 辻先生 (Tsuji-sensei). 小幡先生(Obata-sensei) from the kanji and pronunciation lesson nearly killed me. I'm had to check for a pulse between exercises to make sure I was still in the land of the living.

Her teaching method for the kanji was incredibly redundant. The class had to read the kanji pronunciation five or six times, the various words it is used in five or six times, and the two example sentences five or six times. After that, each of the seventeen students in my class had to read the examples one at a time. The whole process made six kanji take the better part of two hours. I messed up on the examples when it finally got to me because I got so caught up in listening to people say them over and over again that I couldn't focus on reading at all. That's the level my Japanese is at, I can't listen and read Japanese at the same time. Oddly enough it's easy to write and speak at the same time though so I usually take notes while we're doing the speaking drills.

After classes I came back home to a nice Chinese dinner that I made. It's kind of an instant hybrid. You fry up some meet and veggies, throw in tofu, and the instant sauce then voila you have stuff to pour over your rice. It's pretty tastey so I don't mind eating it to break up the curry and spaghetti rotation.

For those of you still wondering about the title, this is what it's about.



That label has a big 男 (Otoko = man) kanji on it. All of the tofu at the grocery store is 92円 (roughly $1 give or take with the exchange rate) except for this manly tough which is 182円, almost double. I walked past it a couple of times before and I couldn't figure out why it was so expensive. Then when it came time to make some instant Chinese style food I had to buy it. Why? Becuase it seemed like a challenge to my manliness. If they have tofu for men, how can I not buy it? In the end it tasted like tofu but it did come in man sized portions so I have a full serving left over for tomorrow's dinner. Sweet!