What can I say?

20th May 2008

There's a little place near my apartment that I think of as My Local Diner.

Never mind that the word 'diner' seems all wrong when the menu is in Japanese and almost everything on the menu is soaked to the bones in dashi stock.

It's the place with the cheapest noodles and rice bowls in the area - and most of it actually tastes good. They seem to have won some kind of award but they've stashed the gold plaque high up on an ageing heater so it won't distract you from the food.

I started going there soon after moving in and, in time, the people there - Grandpa, Grandma and their middle-aged son - got used to my strange Japanese and occasional inability to read the menu.

I drop by on average twice a week though when I was careening through a mad busy period, I ate there almost every day. There's enough range for that if you don't mind dashi flavouring almost everything except the curry dishes. And you wouldn't think it given the hole-in-the-wall decor but the tea tastes great.

And last Thursday, I went there again. I can't remember what I ordered but at some point, I noticed that I had been served a cup of green tea while every other customer had a glass of ice water.

I wondered why - and then I remembered. Last summer, when Grandma had shuffled to my table with a glass of water, I asked for tea instead because ice can do terrible things to your insides even in the heat.

Months later, almost a year later, she still remembered.

I've encountered great kindness from a great many people in my one and a half years in Japan but there was something about that cup of tea put wordlessly in front of me that reached inside to the place where I keep gratitude and sorting through the thank-yous, found all of them wanting.