Another point worth mentioning is the hospitality of my host family, who went out of their way to make me feel like part of the family— a debt that I can’t quite repay unless they’d like to come to New Orleans and we all get drunk and show up late to work the next day. Maybe that’d get me close. Maybe not. Regardless they truly helped to make my experience what it was. We did all sorts of things which help ground Matsue is reality outside of the bubble that was the numerous, impossibly cool, and somewhat exclusive things we were allowed to partake in as TOMODACHIs. Whether it was Natsuko throwing a takoyaki (lit. grill octopus) party with Rin and Haruka—a house party centered around making, you guessed it, takoyaki— and allowing me to screw up a batch because, yeah, or taking what became a slightly awkward trip through the neighborhood cemetery and being J-checked by an elder with Grandma Setsu, my time with them had the most meaning.

Takoyaki balls at the Suzuki tako-pa (Takoyaki Party). The dish is made in a mixture similar to pancake mix and is fried and shaped in a table-top iron.

Segueing into another, and perhaps best day of the trip, was when the Suzuki’s eldest son, Daigo returned from university for a visit. Every one of the TOMODACHIs had the option on the penultimate day of the trip to do whatever they wanted. Personally, I had felt that as great as the trip had been, as many beautiful things as I had seen and experienced, I wasn’t connected with the city and beyond the well meaning bubble created by our hosts. More than anything, I wanted to see the city and the people of Matsue through my own eyes. One of the Japanese TOMODACHIs, “Saru” or “Monkey”—spirited as his name would suggest—kindly decided to join us as well. Over the course of the day I got to experience life from the perspective of a person living in Matsue and bump EDM, Hip-hop, and the Japanese folk band, Spitz on the streets. As Saru described it, we were going into “Deep Matsue” or “Underground”. With Daigo and Saru, I was able to see places and learn about things about the city and how it operated that I simply couldn’t get through the lens of a quasi diplomatic trip. I also got talk candidly and hang out with two cool guys in Japan freely and openly without expectations and formality.