Life as Usual

They say.
Back to the piling assignments, to the traffic, to the rusty routine. For a moment you expect, without really thinking, that something may have changed. And yet nothing has. Not percievably.

Today.
Came early and at this time of year, at this age, you meet less friends at the campus café. They’re either gone and graduated, are doing internships, or slaving away in the library doing their Thesis. (Oops! I just said the “T” word. *shudder*)
But food is a necessity people cannot avoid, and so are friends…and so if you persevere long enough in the humid café, you would manage to meet a few fellow necessity-seekers. Today was a good day. I met a someone who just came back from a Euro-trip, someone who just came out of an internship at a VFF (Very Famous lawFirm ;p), someone who just got married, and someone planning to get married. As the stories unravel, the mind goes into overdrive. I could almost hear the “creak-creak” sounds of a CPU processing in there somewhere. Jigsaw pieces being put together. Plans. Shapes.
So I found that life is not so usual after all. It seems my todays are filled with thoughts about my Tomorrows.

Allow me to describe my breakfast, acquired after an hour of solitary walking and searching. I was intent on enjoying my last day here with the perfect meal. It finally came in the form of a bowl of udon, called *something something* and ends with “pukkake”, that is, if I can trust my hiragana capabilities.

Ordering is always fun. Armed with my Lonely Planet phrasebook, the conversation went like this:

Me: korewa kudasai… *pointing at the picture with the bowl of udon that I wanted*
Him: $*&#$%(@#$*
Me: wakarimasen… *with an apologetic bow*
Him: *using gestures this time* E… choisu… serecsion… co’…or… hotu ? (which, miraculously.. I understood to be a question of whether I wanted it cold or hot, there being a choice, or selection of either)
Me: Ahh… cold, err.. kudasai.
Me again: Soshite… wakame kudasai. (and to this he added a handful of gorgeous seaweed in to my bowl).

See. When it comes to food, no linguistic problems are a problem.

Anyways.
So the udon was served cold on a shallow pool of mild soy sauce. In its simplicity, the texture of the udon is enhanced, which, unlike most udons I have encountered in my life, is soft and chewy with a tinge of resistance, almost elastic. As he was preparing, he slipped a half-poached egg on top of the udon, half poached to perfection. A perfectly round egg held together with a translucent layer of white. But as you take your chopstick and pierce it, the yellow yolk comes out and melts into the noodles, coating it and adding another layer of texture to the udon. Scattered on to this mixture is wakame, spring onions, and wasabi, each ingredient adding a new zest. Not too much, retaining simplicity. Zen.
I then pour myself a cup of hot ocha, and settle down to a perfect moment in Tokyo.

New York was snowing :)

...and I tilted my head back, arms spread, mouth wide, and caught a drifting snowflake on my tongue.