On Saturday, I started out going south. I was headed to an outlet mall basically to buy a tie or two that would match my shirts, since I don't have a good match and the ties I've seen here in the Japanese stores just don't work. I was told of a Brooks Brothers clothing store at this outlet mall and roughly where it was. On a map, and based on the directions I got, it seemed easy enough to go there, so I headed down the road at 11:20 am. By 12:10 pm, I had arrived in the general area and actually saw an English sign indicating that I had to make a right turn 250 meters ahead. I made the turn but now was on a small, two lane, curvy road going through some residential and farmland areas. Pretty but no outlet mall. I kept going and ended up at what they call the "seawall" here - basically a concrete structure akin to a dike that prevents large waves from coming ashore during typhoons or tidal action. 

I got out and looked at the water - nice and clear; an aquamarine color. There was a small island just off shore with a white, sandy beach. If I had a boat, that would have been a nice destination. However, I knew that at this point based on my previous outings, that that is where I typically panic and call someone. Most consistently, I call a very kind Japanese lady who works at my office, explain my predicament and ask her for directions. Typically, she provides accurate directions, which I appreciate.   But, this week, I promised her I would adhere to a self-imposed 20-minute rule since, in the past, I've consistently found the place I was looking for just after calling her or someone else and so I promised her that if I called today, I would really be lost. So, I observed the 'rule' and drove around looking for the outlet mall, found the seawall, drove some more and then I called her. I was lost once again. She sounded like she was expecting my call but hadn't been to the outlet in a year and so all she could counsel me to do was keep looking. She described the outlet mall building and said I was close but couldn't offer me any more help since I had followed her directions up until this point. She didn't know where I was and neither did I. Nonetheless, I lived up to my rule, didn't panic and waited until I got really lost to call her. I'm making progress at least on the panic part.

So, I didn't find the outlet mall store. For the first time since I arrived, I gave up on finding my objective. I saw a road that would take me directly to the Okinawa Expressway and decided to drive back home that way due to its quicker speed. Who knows, had I not given up looking for a tie, I might still be there looking around every small, twisty road in southern Okinawa.

On the way, I stopped at a little rest area that is a part of the expressway and that's where my real story begins. So, here's the story:

This rest area had a little restaurant in the rest area building and I decided to eat lunch. In Japan, the eating-places always have colorful, and accurate, plastic displays of their food entries and so I studied these and decided to have the bowl of noodle soup with two pot stickers on top. There were other soups with other meats but I wanted the pot stickers. The cost was reasonable at 500 Yen or about $5.00 US. Inside the small restaurant there were stools to sit on next to small counters plus the cooking area but no waitresses. Instead, there was a vending machine with the name of the food item, in Japanese, the price, a button to push and a place to deposit coin or bills. So I couldn't conveniently ask a waitress to come to the display and just point to what I wanted, which is my usual practice at restaurants. I had to make up my own mind and communicate that somehow to the cooking staff.

I didn't know how to do that and almost left but then in came a crusty truck driver who put a 500-yen coin in a slot, pushed a button and got a receipt. He then took the receipt to the counter and gave it to someone who was cooking. After this, he sat down. He looked pretty grumpy.

“Aha!” I thought, “I'll just follow his example and act like I know what I'm doing!” The trouble was, the names of the food items on the vending machine were in Japanese. So, I studied the Japanese characters by the plastic display for the soup I wanted and even wrote them down on a slip of paper. There were all kinds of soups, some with pork, chicken, pot stickers and one with mystery meat. I only wanted the pot stickers version of the soup, so that's the one I studied. After several trips between the plastic display and vending machine to try and compare the writing on the display with the characters on the vending machine, and after studying my version of the Japanese words for this soup, I thought I located the listing for this particular soup on the vending machine. Yes, it was 500 Yen, so the price matched. Yes, the characters seemed to match as well. Confident in my decision that I had the right vending button, I put in a 500 Yen coin, pushed the button and out came the receipt.

All too proudly, I gave this receipt to the counter attendant and sat down after getting some water. I was doing everything the truck driver did. As I sat there, I watched the attendants prepare the food for those who ordered before I turned in my receipt. The Trucker got his order and gruffly sat down at the end of the counter to eat it. He surely was what I'd call a "Jackie Gleason" Japanese character. A little overweight with a double chin and a bit of a belly plus, it seemed, an attitude. Maybe his name was even "Jackie-san" but I, of course, didn't ask and didn't know how to anyway.

So here I was, an older American at a Japanese truck stop who seemed to know what he wanted and was waiting along with others in the diner. This pretty boring picture was about to change! Soon, another guy got his order of soup and my order seemed to be next. But as I looked at it sitting there, I wondered, “Where were the pot stickers?” Suddenly, the attendant added the mystery meat and, looking at me, nodded, thus indicating that this way 'my' order. I stood up, no doubt with a grimace on my face expressing my alarm at the failure of my efforts to get the soup with the pot stickers. I took the tray she pushed towards me but just stood there and stared at it and then at her. No doubt another ‘lost in translation' episode. I started to speak, in English of course, but the attendant more firmly indicated that I should go sit down by politely pointing in the direction of where I had been sitting. I dare not look at the Jackie Gleason truck driver for, if I had, I knew he would have that famous Gleason smirk on his face. I also felt that everyone in the restaurant was watching my every move.  Time had stopped. The others in the truck stop wanted to know what I would do. “How would I handle this situation?” they obviously thought.