my journey: Celebración De La Descarga For Motoki

"Celebrar la aprobación de la gestión de Sato!"

Our plan after Sato

was discharged from the hospital

It means "Lets celebrate the discharge of Sato from the hospital!"

I guess this is the first time you see this much of Spanish words in my blog. But don't get confused because I speako no Espana; I just used my good friend a.k.a. Google Translate to help me out haha! Gracias señor Google Translator! One of our colleague recently was admitted to the hospital and underwent a surgery. We thought about having a small celebration for him after he was discharged, which we did on Friday night. It is always a tough thing to decide where to eat; so we leave the decision making to the boy.

Espero, an award-winning Spanish restaurant in the Ginza neighbourhood.

We were kinda early and the restaurant was still fairly empty.

Sato, who had studied and speaks fluent Spanish decided to bring us to try out some Spanish food, just a stone's throw away from our job training place in Ginza. This is the first time in my life to have Spanish food and I'm indeed very excited about it. My knowledge about Spain is kinda limited to Messi and Real Madrid only. Football fans should know what I'm refering to. To non-football fans, go Google for those two words. Not having any idea about Spanish food and beverages, the three of us - Suzuki, Samitha and myself left everything to the professional.

Here comes the funny moment. Before we drink, we do the common thing - kanpai or cheers. Since were were in a Spanish restaurant, we thought about doing it the Spanish way as well. So, each of us will say it out in our own language - Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and English ('coz Samitha said there's no such Singalese word for cheers). The Spanish version is 'salud', which I mistakenly heard it as 'saru'.

I went to the toilet haflway and when I returned to my seat, I heard them saru-saru-ing each other. Saru, in Japanese, means monkey. So, I asked them if they were imitating monkeys toasting to each other haha wtf!

Crab and avocado salad with tomato and olive.

Sangria, a wine punch typical in Spain and Portugal.

Suzuki, clearly excited with the cute jar, pouring us some red wine.

We spent the rest of the time talking craps (that's what the four of us are good at lol wtf!), while waiting for our main meal to come. We ordered two kinds of paella, a Valencian rice dish that originates from the east coast of Spain. It is a rice dish with green vegetables, meat, seafood, land snails, beans and seasoning, plus saffron and olive oil.

However, believe it or not, for a seemingly simple dish, paella takes about 45 minutes to be served. I have no idea what takes them that long to prepare this dish. Probably they need to go and catch the snails and harvest their green vegetables first before cooking the plate of paella haha wtf!

I'm not good in describing how food tastes like, but if I would say paella tastes something like nasi beriayani, with Spanish influence. The rosemary found inside gave the dish a wonderful fragrance. If only they can cut short the cooking time, it would make it a great dish. Imagine you are super hungry, then you order a plate of paella only to be told to wait for another 45 minutes. You'd rather have ten pieces of roti canai right?

Seafood paella, where the meat and snails are replaced with seafood and omits beans and vegetables.

Let the professional do the cutting as we looked and learned.

This is a mixed paella, with a combination of meat and seafood. That shell is escargot.

Then came funny moment number two. We decided to call for another wine, cava. In Japanese, it's pronounced as 'kaba'. Kaba has another meaning and guess what does it refer to?

Hippopotamus. That is when I began to wonder why Spanish words is all about animals haha! I can't stop laughing when Suzuki called the waiter and said "Kaba kudasai" (Hippo please) lol! And by the way, do you know elephant is called Alia in Sinhala? So better remember not to name your daughter Alia in the future. I'm sure not many guys would wanna have an elephant as his partner right?

Another kind of alcohol called cava, a Spanish sparkling wine, mostly produced in the Catalonia region.

It is quite amazing that I'm able to talk craps with this crazy gang and have them understand my cold jokes. Sometimes, due to the culture and background differences, the jokes will not sync with the other party. This however, is not a problem at all for the four of us. Whenever we get together, the whole place will usually suffer voice pollution haha!

Another thing which I find it funny is that whenever Samitha speaks Japanese in bullet-train speed, he will sound as if he is talking in Sinhala, with a thick accent. Furthermore, with his head and body movement and intonation, it makes him sound like a Bollywood movie star. Damn funny I tell you haha!

See, I told you. Suzuki knows it every time my camera comes to action haha!

We also talked about what we did to our first-month salary. Unfortunately for Sato, his already recorded a deficit in his account as early as the first month, as he had to fork out quite an amount for his surgery. So, he can buy anything for anyone including himself with his first-month salary, since his account is currently negative haha!

As Sato was counting the money before we make the payment, it reminds me of the various ways people from different countries count their money. I guess some of you have seen the video, but here is the link to the video. The one which I find it most silly is from Turkmenistan. Watch the video if you wanna know why lol! So, how do you count your notes?