Post by Ella
Kagoshima is a small town of 600,000 people. Compare that to Osaka city with nearly 3 million and Tokyo city with 14 million.
Our hotel in Kagoshima is not in an area with many restaurants so we relied on google maps to locate a few choices. We walked into a tiny place with three tables and three chairs at a low counter. “Small bowls delicious” was the tag on google. Amen to that we said after we finished.
This was a two man outfit. One chef and one waiter / chef’s helper. Neither spoke any English but were very friendly.
No English on the menus so it took a minute to decipher with Google lens which was being fickle. It would translate and then change the translation a second later. We thought we figured out our selections when the waiter brought over a small white board with today’s specials. More google translating.
We ended up ordering dumplings, seared shiitake mushrooms and a stir fried ramen with seafood. The waiter brought an appetizer, on the house, of sashimi and something I can only describe as marinated ground beef (cooked) mounded on a small half pepper. I had iced plum wine and soda to drink and Grubb had iced oolong tea.
You guys are so brave. I get frustrated here in Portugal not knowing the language even though (1) we share the same alphabet, (2) a large percentage of the words are English cognates, (3) probably a majority of words are Spanish cognates, and (4) many speak English here. I don’t think any of that is true for you guys. But it’s cool Google has gotten so good at language translation.
Since Google translate can use the camera to view and translate, it makes it at least possible to figure things out. And for conversation, being able to talk and have it translated instead of typing is great. Having a long, deep personal conversation though would be painfully slow and perhaps the translation not as nuanced as one might like.