02 - Thai Food & Beer in Yokohama
We talk a lot about our studies, our jobs, whatever.
But let's be honest--what we're really thinking about... is FOOD!
Mankind's greatest pastime.
You may or may not know that last year Rei and I lived in Thailand for about 4 months:
(Me chilling with Thai Ronald McDonald)
During that time, we developed a serious addiction to Thai food.
As a result, we now do things like what happened last night:
Taking the train 30 minutes to Yokohama just to get down on some legit タイ料理 (tai ryouri), "Thai Food:"
(Rei with her soup we bought to take home with us... (don't tell her I sent this photo; I'll probably get in trouble)).
By the way, you can attach 料理 (ryouri), "cooking," to the names of a number of countries in order to say that country's cuisine:
韓国 (kankoku) is "Korea."
So 韓国料理 (kankoku ryouri) is "Korean food."
フランス (furansu) is "France."
So フランス料理 (furansu ryouri) is "French food."
イタリア (itaria) is "Italy."
So イタリア料理 (itaria ryouri) is "Italian food."
There are a couple of exceptions, though.
中国 (chuugoku) is "China," but "Chinese food" is 中華料理 (chuuka ryouri).
日本 (nihon) is "Japan," but "(traditional) Japanese food" is 和食 (washoku) (Literally, "harmonious food").
So we're at this janky little Thai restaurant in 日ノ出町 (hi no de chou), "Sunrise Town" (which is actually just the name of this station):
(that shiny store on the right)
The shop is called J's Store:
That sign says ２４時間営業 (nijuuyo jikan eigyou), "Open 24 Hours."
Note that "24" is にじゅうよん (ni juu yon) (literally, "2" "10" "4"), but that final ん (n) is getting chopped off when saying "24 Hours," ２４時間 ＝ にじゅうよじかん ＝ ni juu yo jikan.
I don't know when I even learned that... but apparently I did. And I'm pretty sure that "n" will always get dropped.
営業 (eigyou), by the way, is a really interesting word in Japanese.
営 means something like "occupation," or "business."
業 means something like "profession," or "industry."
Put them together, and we get a word that can mean anything from "business" to "sales" to "(hours of) operation."
For a business that's not 24 hours, you might see a sign outside that says 営業中 (eigyouchuu), literally, "in the middle of business," but translated to "open" in English. In other words, it's OK for you, Customer-san, to enter:
The opposite of this is 準備中 (junbichuu), which means "in the middle of preparing (to open)," which I guess we can just say means "Closed" in English.
営業 (eigyou) can also be used to refer to someone's job.
It's weird, because the word kind of means "business," but it also kind of means "sales." So...
営業の仕事 (eigyou no shigoto) is "a sales job."
And by adding the katakana for "man," -マン onto the end, we get 営業マン (eigyou man), a "salesman."
And...
Uh...
Oops...
The entire reason I wanted to talk about this Thai restaurant was a conversation I had with one of the Thai ladies working there (in Japanese).
But we'll just have to save it for tomorrow, because this is getting too long.