Becky Selengut - Not One Shrine: Two Food Writers Devour Tokyo

Becky

I was standing in my tiny Seattle kitchen looking out at a gray sky, running my fingers idly back and forth over the latch on the window. My grandmother had recently died and I was wanting to travel, out of my body preferably, but out of the country would do. I needed something to look forward to, and being a lover of Japanese cuisine, Japan has always been on my list. Can I go with you next time? My words hit the phone before I realized they sounded a bit desperate. Ha ha, I mean, you know, theoretically.

Sure, he said, I hate traveling alone.

And that was that.

I met Matthew eight years ago. I had cooked a fancy multi-course dinner party with a pastry chef friend at a secret dinner club. He was one of the guests, a food writer whose name I recognized from his columns. Since that dinner, weve connected in a way that can only be described as sibling-esque. Were linked by our love of food, humor, and a mutual butt-clenching fear of heights. Soon we formed a writing group. The members included me. And him. We took an improv class together and once we finished that we challenged ourselves to perform stand-up at a brutal open-mic night in front of a hostile crowd. We launched a comedy podcast whereso goes our taglinewe combine our neuroses like Jewish Supertwins.

So, yeah, we got along well. But thats in the context of our lives, where we go home every night to our families, see each other once or twice a week. Text each other when we see something funny. Sharing an apartment in Japan, I might see his underwear. Im not sure if hes a boxers or briefs guy andBLARGHI dont want to know.

Ive traveled a bunch in my life, more rugged travel in my twenties that found me straddling chickens on a bus in Guatemala with 10 hours left to go on some godforsaken highway in the middle of nowhere, little white paper barf bags shoved into the cracks of the windows for the millions of stomach-churning curves. I slept under mosquito netting in cheap roach- and gecko-populated motel rooms in rural Thailand and drank milky moonshine distilled from agave on the side of a dusty road in Chiapas, Mexico. My thirties found me more comfortably touring Italy, France, and Argentina, via rented cars and apartments, drinking moderately-priced bottles of red wine. Now that Im in my forties, my rugged days are firmly behind me. Ive also learned the importance of not stretching myself too thin. Save energy, cut plans in half, find a home base and branch out from there. Matthew was on the same page.

We rented a two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo through Airbnb. We wouldnt leave the city for the week wed be there. There would be no tours of shrines. No museums. We were there to devour Tokyo.

We had to remain focused.

Matthew

Why did I want to go to Japan with Becky? Probably to prove to myself that Im not crazy.

I fell into a relationship with Japan in 2010, when my daughter Iris and I spent a week in Tokyo for spring break. We spoke no Japanese and got around via the international language of hand gestures and plastic food.

Since then Ive been to Japan three more times. Ive studied Japanese, read it pretty well, and speak it pretty badly. So when Becky mentioned to me that she was thinking about a trip to Japan, I said, Sure, Ill come along and translate and tell you where to eat.

Then my burlap sack of Jewish anxieties popped open, and out came the flying monkeys of the mental apocalypse.

• Wait, I cant actually speak Japanese at the kindergarten level yet. In fact, kids in Japan always laugh at me when I try to talk to them. It must be hilarious meeting a grownup who talks like a baby.
• Becky is allergic to raw onions and garlic. There isnt a lot of garlic in Japanese food, but when there is, its probably enough to kill her. Raw green onions are everywhere. If I got Becky killed in Japan, where would my trial be held?
• Becky is a professional chef. Im a home cook whos happy to eat $5 Seattle teriyaki for lunch on a regular basis. What if we cant agree on what to eat?

And above all:

• You know, I think Japan is pretty great, but Becky is probably a more experienced traveler than me. What if she thinks Tokyo is boring, Westernized, and sterile?

Ive romanticized Japan to a humiliating degree. In 2012, I spent July in a tiny Tokyo apartment with my wife and daughter and wrote a whole book about the experience. The book can be summarized as follows: Tokyo has a jillion really good, cheap restaurants, and people who work in stores are nice to you. Repeat for 60,000 words. Also, I failed to include addresses for most of the restaurants I mentioned. Its like a guidebook with the useful pages ripped out.

So it was an absolute shock when my book became a bestseller in Japan. Yes, Im bragging, but I still dont understand why anyone in Japan would want to read it, except that I guess its nice to have some guy say positive things about you and your country. My next book will be called Indonesians Are Outrageously Attractive. Ive never been to Indonesia, but I know a quarter of a billion people live there. Maybe half of them would buy my book?

The trick with falling in love with a place or a person is getting your friends on board. This was my big question. Introducing Becky to Japan was basically like saying, Hey, you know how Ive been raving about this new person Im dating? Well, here she is! What do you think?

Becky is the least bullshit-tolerant person I know. Would she say, Yeah, uh, we need to talk?

Only one way to find out. A week before Thanksgiving, Becky and I hopped onto an ANA 787, nonstop from Seattle to Tokyo.

Matthew

This was my first time flying ANA, one of Japans two national airlines. The name stands for All Nippon Airways, which couldnt sound more 80s if they changed it to Culture Club Legwarmer Airlines. Remember how Americans were afraid of Japanese businessmen in the 80s? Can we pretend that never happened?

ANAs trans-Pacific flights are notable for a few features in addition to a general atmosphere of non-suckiness. In no particular order:

• Instead of window shades, the Plexiglas itself can be brightened and dimmed via magic.
• The in-flight entertainment system features seat-to-seat messaging. This was handy, since Becky and I werent sitting together. The interface is slow and clunky and prone to more typos than the crankiest iPhone. I really want to eavesdrop on drunken airplane sexts, which I assume is the main use of this feature. You can also assign yourself a nickname. Mine was Pulpo (octopus in Spanish). Beckys was Tako (octopus in Japanese). I neglected to test how dirty you can make the nicknames before the computer folds its arms and refuses. I apologize to our readers and promise to make this my first priority next time. Yours truly, MegaCock69.

Later, someone told me that the magic windows and crappy SMS system arent particular to ANA. Fine. But I bet you wont find the next two items on Delta.

• ANAs signature nonalcoholic beverage is Aromatic Kabosu Juice. Kabosu is a little Japanese citrus fruit, kind of like a cross between a lime and a mandarin orange. The juice is amazing. They will mix it with vodka on request.