Nogata

Katsu Don

Today is Respect for the Aged day and a national holiday. It wasn’t a school holiday for my seminary students so we had seminary this morning.  When I got home Rick had planned an outing.  We took an excursion to an interesting town called Nogata.  First, we had lunch at a little restaurant there, Rick had his and Leigh’s favorite, katsu don (breaded pork cutlet on rice with a fried egg on top) with soba noodles on the side and I had Ebi Tendon with soba (shrimp tempura on rice).  We went to an English performance of Rakugo which is Japanese Comedy theatre.  We only stayed until intermission because the first half lasted 1 1/2 hours and the second half had more performers.  Rakugo is one performer at a time kneeling on a cushion on a red platform in the center of the stage.  They are in traditional Japanese dress and they may only use two props a large handkerchief and a fan.  They tell a long (15-20 minutes) story that is supposed be funny.  Although they were speaking English, I only got one of the the jokes. 

It was about a man going to the eye doctor because he couldn’t see and the doctor told him his eyes were dirty and he popped them out with a fork (the fan) and sent his assistant to boil them.  When he tried to put them back into the patient they were too big after being boiled.  The doctor had his assistant put them in the sun to dry so they would go back to their original size, but the eyeballs disappeared.  So, they took the eyes out of a dog and put them in the patient and he could see really well.  When he came back for a check-up he reported not only improved vision, but sense of smell and also hearing.  His only complaint was that he had the urge to lift his leg whenever he saw a pole.   Heheheheheh! Yeah right!

I know that something was lost in the translation in the other 4 stories that we saw.  I listened to the last one about money and a lottery ticket carefully because the Japanese women performing spoke beautiful English.  I was really disappointed at the end because I didn’t get it.  It was a great day.