10/17/08
Nakatani Apartment, Nagoya

Today was my host brother Seia's birthday, he turned five. On the way back from the Labo Center I stopped at an HMV and picked up a copy of Happy Feet and a Tom and Jerry DVD (it was on sale). I was looking for a copy of Ratatouille (actually titled "Remi's Delicious Restaurant" here), but it was pushing 40 bucks. 50 for blu-ray. No wonder broadcast TV is so popular here.

When I got back home, he was actually asleep on the couch. When he woke up, I presented (har) him with the gifts. I was braced for some kind of "I don't want it, wrong penguin movie" 5y/o melodrama, but he loved them. What took me off guard was that my host sister (the older one) broke down when she didn't get anything. She didn't speak to me for like half an hour. Her own birthday is in less than a week, on the 23rd.

We went out to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory, the same franchise from Portland and Sacramento. It survived the transition to Japan better than Denny's did; although there was a "Japanese style spaghetti" section on the menu, they had the same mizithra cheese special I ate two years ago in Sacramento. We got to eat inside a train car, and the staff even did the (very American) sing-to-the-birthday-boy thing.

After we got home at around 10ish, Seia convinced his mom to let him stay up and watch the Tom & Jerry DVD, four ~10 minute eps. After that finished, he managed to finagle in the penguin movie too.

2 comments:

Jed Sabin said...

Wait, what happened to Denny's? Did I miss a post?

Cordell Newmiller said...

I guess I've never mentioned it on my journal, but I bring it up whenever we go to a Denny's. Here, it's pretty much DINO.

First of all, the menu is completely different; it's a Japanese restaurant here. You can browse through some of the highlights on their website. Also, it's not cheap, it's a nice restaurant here. You can't get scrambled eggs, hash browns, or even (as far as I remember) bacon. Even if you get there before closing time. :p

~Cordell