Of Ray Charles and the factory of sperm

So I find myself at school today with a raging hangover courtesy of three elderly students of mine. A few weeks ago, I began teaching a private lesson to 3 doctors in my town. They decided to throw me a little “welcome” party, so last night, in lieu of our regular class, the doctors (whom, for the sake of privacy, I’ll call Dr. I, Dr. H, and Dr. M) took me to their favorite tempura restaurant (and in case you don’t know, tempura usually consists of fish and little vegetables that are fried in a light batter.) Since it was a school night and also because the all the doctors are in their 70’s, I wasn’t expecting too much insanity.

The doctors are part of the local chapter of the “Japanese/French Culture exchange” (which is basically a bunch of old Japanese men sitting around drinking wine) so they were eager to share their knowledge of the vino...from the moment I sat down until the moment we left 2 hours later I don’t think my glass was ever empty. Now as I mentioned, tempura is usually fish and vegetables that are battered and fried, so immediately you know that everything’s gonna be good (one wonders how can anything fried not be good?) In this particular restaurant, we were seated around a bar where the chef was working, so as the food was fried it was placed directly on our plate. We started with the basic shrimp but as the meal progressed, both the fish and vegetables got increasingly more obscure and strange...

Here I will interject with a word of caution for anyone visiting Japan: if a Japanese person tells you to eat something while laughing, but won’t tell you what it is until after you eat it...it’s safe to assume that: A) you’ll probably be completely disgusted, B) you’ll probably have nightmare flashbacks about eating it, which may cause you to gag at inappropriate times, and C) it’s probably some sort of fish genitalia. In my case last night, I was given the deep fried delicacy called tarako, which literally means “children of cod”. However I prefer the description the doctors gave me last night: “cod sperm factory”...yum! I bet your mouths are watering right now just thinking about it! Here is a better description that I found from Wikipedia: Soft Roe, also called white roe is the male reproductive glands and their contents. Ugh! Even just seeing that description in writing is giving me the chills!

Well, needless to say, I could not drink my wine fast enough to try and get rid to that “unique” flavor and texture. After dinner, the doctors suggested that we go out for more drinks. Even though it was late, I had to accept...I wasn’t about to let some septuagenarians out-party me! We went to Dr. M’s favorite jazz bar, which was pretty rockin’ on a Thursday night (and by “rockin’”, I mean as rockin’ as a place can get where the average age of the patrons is around 65).

Somehow the topic of conversation drifted to Singapore, so from then on the doctors insisted I drink Singapore Slings for the rest of the night. And much to my humiliation, I was also forced into singing a karaoke rendition of “Georgia on My Mind” with Dr. I accompanying on the maracas and the bar owner accompanying on electric guitar. I guess a night out in Japan wouldn’t be complete without a least one embarrassing karaoke experience...

Anyway, there are plenty more amusing antecdotes from the evening...but I lack the energy to describe them at the moment. Also, I'm still feeling a bit queasy from thinking about the sperm factory that I ate. I suspect that I shall be haunted by this unholy, spectral fish gland for weeks to come...out, damn'd tarako! Out I say!