Sand Storms, Star Wars, & Shark Fin Soup

Today's experiences were varied to be sure. After yesterday's dust and sandstorm, I spent the morning vacuuming up red sand, mainly from my kitchen. Wow, if it wouldn't have been so bad for my camera, I would've taken some pictures. The sky turned reddish brown as it was rolling in. The wind was horrible! I've since learned that the DSS (Dust and Sand Storm) phenomenon is a growing problem in Japan. The dust blows in from China and elsewhere. I woke up this morning having a horrible time breathing. After cleaning up the sand, we headed out to church, and then on to lunch with friends. (I'll leave out all the details in between...although church was inspiring and had a good message.) We headed back to our favorite restaurant in Chinatown. Thanks to the nice Japanese lady next to me, I learned a little more about their menu. Most notably, shark fin soup. I'm familiar with shark fin soup and have been outraged in the past about the collection of shark fins. Though I have felt morally opposed, I wanted to see what the rage is all about. Japanese people love this soup. I'm skipping to another paragraph because shark fin soup needs to be set apart, it was just that unique of an experience. The fin itself was not overly apparent in the bowl. In fact, when I scooped up a bite, it appeared to have some sort of rice noodles. Using chopsticks, I lifted an opaque clump from the broth. I studied it a bit and noted that the shape was consistent with a shark fin. This particular one was about two inches tall. That was a small shark. I could not bring myself to put the whole fin into my mouth, so I decided to break off a piece. What I found was that the fin was easily pulled into strings, similar to string cheese. What I thought had been rice noodles were actually strings of the fin. Upon trying my first bite, I concluded that the "shark noodles" had a texture similar to a very al dente noodle. It didn't have much taste. The broth contributed most of the flavor, which was mildly fishy. I feel as though I have a better understanding now of the draw for shark fin soup...though I must say I'll never have it again. It was interesting, but I'm mostly disappointed in myself for having this culinary experience. I will say this, I'll never try turtle soup. On a slightly happier note, Koen watched Star Wars today for the first time. After investigating which order is the optimal order to view them in, we opted to start with episode IV, the original movie. Some of the plot has already been spoiled though since he just finished reading the book for episode I. That's okay though, he's still hooked. I think he understands now why his friend Micah loves Star Wars. Now they'll have more to talk about. Overall it was a good day. The coming week is sure to be full of fun and adventure. We'll be going to a couple museums this week, which should be lots of fun. We're heading to the Anpanman Museum and the Ramen Museum. I'm looking forward to seeing what fun and adventure those have in store for us.