Revoltant~

Sadly possessing a black thumb, I wouldn't be able to say with any authority whether roses are in season right now. Perhaps they are, as there's a Rose Festival going on down at Ark Hills today. It started yesterday and ends today (quick festival!).
Aya asked me if I had any ideas for a Roppongi-based Dream Church gathering. This Rose Festival seemed like a good occasion to invite people to come here, so that's what Aya and I did.
Ken and Aya came first, around two. Ken kindly stayed here in the room with Koji, who was meant to be taking a long nap (but actually only slept 15 more minutes after Aya and I left...). Meanwhile, Aya and I made a break down to the plaza to listen to some kind of lecture on roses.
The sound system the lecturer was using wasn't very good though. And the lecturer really was lecturing. So, for a black thumb like myself, it was a hopeless case. I was bored within nanoseconds of arrival. My reaction got me thinking about what an attention span-less modern girl I've become. I asked Aya rhetorically, "why isn't she using Power Point? or at least taking questions so it'll be more interactive?".
Fortunately, we had Plan B, which was to take advantage of The Body Shop's Reflexology room Rose Festival special(contact/location information in Japanese here). A 20 minute hand massage that normally goes for 2000 yen (about $18? I'm not in touch with recent exchange rates) was half price. That's my favorite price, next to free!
We were ushered into a thickly carpeted, dimly lit room that contained six Lazy Boy-type chairs. My masseuse guided me to the nearest chair and asked me to put my bag in the basket next to the chair. She then provided me with a separate small basket for my watch and rings, and then covered me with a blanket, gave me some kind of sand pack eye mask thing to wear, and reclined me in the chair, all the while apologizing profusely.
Though I expected just a hand massage, bonus! It turned out to be a hand + arm up to the elbow massage, which was great. When the twenty minutes that felt like two were up, the masseuse told me that the side of the palm opposite the thumb is connected to the shoulder and she sensed some tension there. Have I been stressed or tired lately, she wondered.
I told her that I have a two-year-old son who is the likely culprit, and we both laughed, though I laughed louder because I knew exactly what I was talking about! She wasn't surprised to hear that I had carried him, and his little friend Megu, around Costco quite a lot the day before.
Fast forward to dinner because this is getting too long!
We had planned to have dinner in an Italian restaurant one floor down from the plaza. Turned out some large group had first dibs, so Mr. Ohuchi, who was making the dinner plans, decided we should go to a French restaurant next to the plaza.
In principle, a great idea. I had wondered what the place was like, since we walk by it nearly every day. In practice, revoltant (French for disgusting!)!
The menu didn't appeal to me much but I had to order something so I finally went with the same thing most everyone else had ordered, Steak Tartare and Frites.
At some point, the waiter came out with a pile of raw hamburger on a plate. I thought that was our meal and I freaked! Fortunately, he had just come to demo our meal in its pre-cooked state, for some reason. Eewww.
Finally, the food came out, and I don't know what took so long because it wasn't much more cooked then it had been during the raw display. The outside had a thin cooked crust on it but the inside was still quite RAW (which is what tartare means, so I don't know why I was so taken off guard). And the frites were just a huge bowl of French fries, not the worst or best I've had; I felt like they had been run over from the nearest Mickey D's!
I picked some of the crust off the outside of my "Steak" and managed to choke it down with aid of the fries, but it smelled raw, so when there was still about half of it left, I couldn't take it anymore. I gave it to my friend down the table, who was still hungry because she had ordered a "Pot-au-feu" which is a fancy way to say "vegetable soup".
Most of you know I'm the queen of extreme reactions, so you can just laugh when I say I feel like I don't ever want to go a restaurant again. How can I say that when there are so many delicious offerings in Tokyo? It's frustrating to pay the price of three trips to McDonald's and get basically the same thing...not even as good because at least a cheeseburger would have been well done!
Also, I've been saying this to awhile to anyone who will listen (thanks, all you patient friends!), but it feels like a waste to go to a restaurant and eat something I could have made myself. However, I'm married to Mr. Gaishoku (eat out), so I'm sure that was not my last trip to a restaurant.
I hope the next one I go to isn't so revoltant!