Ramen Sweaters

At this point you should have figured out that I like to eat ramen and fried rice. In fact, I know that I like to eat it a little too much. Also, you know that my favorite place to go for ramen and fried rice is Eigi san's. If you noticed that the title of this blog is ramen sweaters than you are probably wondering where the whole sweater part comes in.

One day a group of us from the Lighthouse were planning on going to Eigi san's. Before we left I went into my room and changed my sweatshirts and when I came out people asked me why I changed my sweatshirt. I was a little embarrassed because it is was a stupid reason, but I told them "I needed to put my ramen sweater on." I was thinking that I would receive some scrutiny from the rest of the group, but before anyone could say anything Rebekah blurted out, "You have a ramen sweater too!" For those of you who don't know Rebekah, she is Hope and Jenna's teacher. She lives on the fourth floor of the Lighthouse and has become my big sister here in Japan. She takes good care of me and has been a great fill in for Sara for the time being. We've had some really good conversations and it has been a blessing to live in the same house as her, even if she does pull some pranks every once in a while.

I didn't specifically pick my Hume sweatshirt as my ramen sweater, it happened by default. You see, here in Japan it is not impolite to slurp, as a matter of fact, I think that you are considered more Japanese if you can slurp. I've been eating ramen for the past 8 months now and I still haven't perfected the art of slurping; my ramen sweater is proof of that. What happens is when I slurp and when Rebekah slurps and most other foreigners slurp, the ramen tends to swing up, hit your chopsticks, and put a nice dark stain on whatever you are wearing. Most Japanese come into the restaurant in suits and walk out without any sort of mess, but I always seem to come away with more spots on my sweatshirt. These spots don't come out and so it’s always a bummer when you get ramen spots on whatever you are wearing. That is the reason that Rebekah and I have ramen sweaters. I think both of us thought that we were the only ones and so we both agree that it’s pretty cool that we have them. Its will be a great souvenir to bring home and I'm planning on showing it off (along with my slurping skills). The pictures are from a recent visit to Eigi san's.