"Jona-san"

On Monday, I had a day off (because I had to work over the weekend for the school festival). I had to go into Kofu to get my re-entry permit. So, when the school secretary overheard that I’d be in town, she insisted on having lunch with me – even though she doesn’t speak any English (it took forever for her to communicate that she wanted to get lunch). So, we met at a chain restaurant called Jonathan’s (which is very similar to Denny’s – they even have Denny’s in the this country). (Why call it “Jonathan’s”? No Japanese person can pronounce that name. They say “Jona-san”. If Kae hadn’t’ve stepped in to correctly pronounce it, I would have spent an entire afternoon looking for “Jona-san”.) Lunch actually went ok. She brought an electronic dictionary. So, with that and my tiny bit of Japanese, we could sort of communicate. The food wasn’t terrible either. I got pasta with “American sauce” (which is like a red cream sauce with crab in it). I think its hilarious that there are American style chain restaurants all over Japan.