Pandas, Pangolins, and Scorpions... oh my.

Last Monday night I went to visit my boyfriend in Yokohama. We ate dinner at a diner near his apartment. The atmosphere and décor felt a bit forced, but it I suppose it generally captured the idea of the American diner. It was more expensive than the average American diner, and much classier and cleaner. It had booth seating, like in a real diner, except the booths were made of an antiqued wood that was painted white. It felt like I was in a fancy country restaurant in New Hampshire or Maine or somewhere equally as quaint. There were old-fashioned kitchen appliances lining the shelves on the wall, such as blenders and toasters. Even the floor was checkered black and white.

Most importantly though, they had every kind of food you’d expect a diner to have: Italian, Mexican, Greek, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, salads. The food I was most excited to encounter was a fabulous Oreo milkshake. Except for the smaller size, it was just as good as any milkshake back home. Oh, diners, how do I miss thee.

On Tuesday, I went to the Zoo in Ueno Park. Yes, that’s right. Adam and I went to the very same zoo that we couldn’t find the entrance of last time. I was so sure we needed to enter by some kind of magical wizarding process, but turns out, we walked right by the entrance. This time, of course, we found it right away.

Our main reason for visiting this particular zoo was to see its famous Giant Panda. Imagine our major disappointment when we read the following notice immediately after purchasing tickets:

Ling Ling the panda is not available today. On the morning of April 22nd,
Ling Ling the Panda had stomach pains and went to the hospital.

Boy, were we pissed.

Geez, Ling Ling, why did you have to have stomach pains on the very morning that we were coming to enjoy your company? (I’m sure I’m going to regret this statement when I read a news article about the tragic death of Ling Ling the Panda later this month).

Nevertheless, it turned out to be a pretty fabulous zoo. They had every animal you’d ever want to see, including elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, owls, and bears…oh yes. We even watched a lion roar. The most exceptional thing about this Zoo experience, however, was that I learned about the existence of at least two new animals. (That’s how many animals this zoo had).

Usually at the zoo I see the same old animals. This week, I learned that there exists a strange nocturnal animal called the Pangolin. It has large scales on its body and looks like this:



Woah!

According to Wikipedia, Pangolins are also called “scaly anteaters.” Pangolins are mammals. Pangolins live in Africa and Asia. If you want to learn more about Pangolins: click here!

The other animal I discovered was the Secretary bird. It looks like someone crossbred a chicken, an eagle and maybe a heron, or some other long-legged bird. The long legs really confused me. I was sure someone had taken an unsuspecting chicken and taped on a heron’s legs. It looks so out of proportion, and walks more like a chicken, well, than a chicken does. Anyway, a secretary bird looks like this:



After the zoo adventure, Adam and I checked out an area called Ikebukuro which, according to Bobby, the owner of Bobby’s bar in Ikebukuro, has the largest underground train station in… well, Tokyo, and maybe all of Japan. It's certainly one of the largest stations in the world. Ikebukuro is a big college town and has a lot of restaurants, bars, shops, etc. They have a great bookstore with a huge English book section, which I love. Anyway, we happened upon Bobby’s bar when a guy with a native English speaking voice handed us a Bobby’s bar flyer and begged us to come inside and talk to him. His name was Nathan and he was a friend of the owner. He was desperate for someone talk to, so we finally agreed. Inside, we met his family friend, Bobby. I’m not sure where Bobby was from, but he looked like he could be Middle Eastern, European, or South American. I honestly wasn’t sure. He had a thick accent when speaking English, though. Nathan was from Toronto apparently, and was visiting for a couple months while he helped Bobby out at his bar. We had a nice chat with Nathan and Bobby, and then went along our merry way because we had to catch the last trains.

Before meeting Bobby and Nathan though, we ate dinner at an Izakaya. As I was chattering away about work or something equally as boring, Adam suddenly had a funny look on his face. I looked around to find that he was staring at a platter on the table behind me.

“My God, are those scorpions!?” cried Adam in his splendid British accent.

“Hai. Yes,” replied the grinning middle-aged couple.

“Ugh! Wow,” we giggled in disbelieving unison.

The woman warmly gestured at the scorpions, “Dozo.” (Please, go ahead.)

“Um, really? Seriously?”

“Hai, eat-o.”

“Well, um okay.” Adam clumsily picked up one of the leggy creatures with his bare hands and brought it slowly to his face. “So… stinger and all?” he asked nervously.

“Hai, hai!” the couple nodded eagerly. “Dozo, dozo!”

He stuffed the scorpion into his mouth, stinger and all. “Delicious!” he cried after a moment. He pushed in a few straggler scorpion legs hanging awkwardly from the corner of his mouth.

Then it was my turn. I refused quite a few times. For starters, I couldn’t believe we were grabbing food with our fingers off of a strange Japanese couple’s table. Wasn’t that unbelievably rude in Japan? Then I noticed that neither of them had eaten more than one scorpion each. Maybe they wanted to get rid of them. Maybe this was a new, exciting food for them, too. “Really? Are you sure?” I asked repeatedly. “Dozo, dozo,” was the reply.

“Oh, what the heck.” I gave in and picked up a scorpion tentatively with my chopsticks. It was crunchy, and spindly like a spider. What if the stinger stings me as I chew?

In one hurried movement I flung it into my mouth and chewed vigorously. I felt the delicate spidery legs breaking off and pasting themselves to my teeth, my tongue, the roof of my mouth. It suppose it tasted okay; it mostly tasted fried. There wasn’t much to chew, honestly. There isn’t a lot of “meat,” per se, on a scorpion. Nevertheless, I took a large swig of water to clear out any remaining parts of this terrifying creature I had just consumed.

Throughout the rest of the evening, we periodically stopped and smiled at each other in astonishment.

“We ate scorpion.”