Pork Belly + DS + PSP

Last night I was lucky to join Kitaoka-san, Shigeo-san and Tominaga-san for a home-cooked motsu-nabe (pork intestine hot pot) dinner. I’d met Kitaoka-san and Shigeo-san briefly in Kurama (blurry photo) and hadn’t talked to them much, but we’d found out that we all worked in design-related fields and lived near each other. I appreciated the chance to get to know them a little better and to meet Tomi-san, a video game designer, for the first time.

After we finished the delicious pot of vegetables, pork, noodles and broth, Tomi-san introduced us to two little friends — a Nintendo DS and, fresh from the store that morning, a Sony PlayStation Portable. We spent the next hour or so playing. For historical perspective, Shigeo-san brought out some Nintendo old-timers — an original GameBoy and a Super Famicom with add-on
battery-powered disk drive. I’ll leave more detailed reviews of the new units to others and just say that the DS was cute and fun and the PSP was sleek and sexy (and fun). I was left wanting a PSP, if only so I could show it off back in the U.S.

Thanks to Kitaoka-san, Shigeo-san and Tomi-san for their hospitality and for speaking English / teaching me Japanese. Next time, Filipino cooking + games + karaoke?