It's a meme by this point, and lazy bloggers keep going back to it.
My wife and I went to Japan, and while the convenience store food was good and there were lots of options, it still wasn't up to restaurant food quality. I was actually disappointed after hearing people rave about it for years before we went.
OTOH, some of our best memories were from restaurants that rarely get foreigners, or not at all. I knew just enough Japanese to get my point across, and watched their faces light up when they realized I spoke any Japanese at all was always fun and heart-warming.
My favorite story: We went to a small restaurant in a mall. Aqua City mall, IIRC. (May have been Diver City mall, though.) When my wife ordered something off the menu, the waitress held her hands together and then stretched them out horizontally and said, "Eee-aa". She repeated that a couple times, and I realized she was saying "Eel" in English. I turned my wife wife and said, "Unagi. It's got unagi in it." My wife nodded and we turned back and the waitress had a very shocked look on her face that we'd understand the word "unagi" and used it over "eel".
Now, that's a pretty common word in the US if you eat much sushi now, but it was still a lot of fun to see her shock.
My wife and I went to Japan, and while the convenience store food was good and there were lots of options, it still wasn't up to restaurant food quality. I was actually disappointed after hearing people rave about it for years before we went.
OTOH, some of our best memories were from restaurants that rarely get foreigners, or not at all. I knew just enough Japanese to get my point across, and watched their faces light up when they realized I spoke any Japanese at all was always fun and heart-warming.
My favorite story: We went to a small restaurant in a mall. Aqua City mall, IIRC. (May have been Diver City mall, though.) When my wife ordered something off the menu, the waitress held her hands together and then stretched them out horizontally and said, "Eee-aa". She repeated that a couple times, and I realized she was saying "Eel" in English. I turned my wife wife and said, "Unagi. It's got unagi in it." My wife nodded and we turned back and the waitress had a very shocked look on her face that we'd understand the word "unagi" and used it over "eel".
Now, that's a pretty common word in the US if you eat much sushi now, but it was still a lot of fun to see her shock.