Delightful Friday Evening
Mood:  special
Now Playing: French cuisine in Osaka, ooo la la
First, some Osaka trivia:

Osaka is about 1400 years old. It is Japan's second largest city after Tokyo. Thirteen percent of all the people in Japan call this city "home." In 85 square miles live 2.5 million people who reside in 1.1 million households. Ok, you can do the math.
The main industries of Osaka are General Machinery, Electrical Machinery, Chemical Products, Metal Products, Iron and Steel. Osaka is the leading producer of manufactured products with 30.86 billion yen worth in 1999, out producing Tokyo by over 30%. Per capita income is 3.5 million yen, that's about $33,000/year.
So back to dinner...

I feel so lucky to have met this wonderful woman, Miki, and her husband last month. They are friends of my Spokane buddies, Ildiko and Wayne, who came for a visit in December. Miki is studying to be an English translator and her English is already really great. She invited me to dinner this evening. I haven't done much exploring in Osaka so here we go! I got on the train and met her in front of the "Biggu Manu" (that's Big Man in English) at the train station entrance. So what is the Big Man? It's a very large TV screen outside a wonderful bookstore that carries quite a variety of books in English. Yahoo! This is quite the phenomenon. The Big Man is an easy place to find and so to connect with people. On Friday night it is a major "hang-out" for many young people waiting to meet up with friends for a night out. Miki used to work in the downtown area of Osaka so with her guidance we got on a subway and headed out. We first tried to get into a "tofu" restaurant but Friday night was hopping and the waiting list was way too long. So we wandered down to one of her favorite French restaurants - what a treat. We had delightful hors d'eouvres, an oishii (delicious) seafood bisque, and other French/Japanese delicacies. I say French/Japanese because there were a few surprises like... the sausage was made of fish! Only in Japan. We shared some fine wine, and it was so great to just sit and chat about Japanese and American culture and just get to know another true gem in Japan.