I think this is a very rare case that I can see my friend, who has not come to Dayton just to see me but for some business here. One of my old friend gave me an e-mail and told that he was going to have a business trip to the United States and also going to Dayton. I was glad to hear that, and I went to see him on Saturday.
His name is Mr. Kuribayashi. He and I were in the same student activity in our university. I think it is almost ten years since we met last time. This time he was traveling several cities in the United States and Canada, visiting some companies and convention with his colleagues.
On my way to the hotel, I was wondering where to take him. You know, as I am living in suburban area of Dayton and just moving between campus and my apartment everyday, I am not familiar with "fine" restaurants in downtown. I was remembering a very nice seafood restaurant in downtown area, where Dr Flach once took me, and decided to take him there. "It is almost only one 'fine' restaurant I know there, but it must be OK!"
Once picked him up in the hotel, we went straight to the restaurant. But I was too optimistic. It was Saturday evening and it was almost eight o'clock! The waiter told us to enjoy some drinks in the bar. I asked how long we are expected to wait and he answered 30 minutes. But people are overflowing from the bar into the floor and I could not believe that we could take seats after a half hour. We could wait there, but we decided to change the place.
However I did not have many alternative idea at that time. I went down to the area close to our campus and tried another restaurant I knew. When we arrived, some people parked just in front of the restaurant and dropped their family. "Oh, they are very generous to drop their family first at the entrance and then drive cars to parking", I thought . But when we reached to the door, I knew I was wrong. A girl was sitting outside the door, holding waiting list. They were just giving their name to her, asked the approximate waiting time, and went to other places, maybe shops, to spend their time. She told us that we should wait for a hour. Again we just left there.
When we arrived to our third restaurant, I was already thinking about 'next'; "Where should be the next? ... Isn't it so bad to treat my guest in KFC?" Fortunately, really fortunately, this time we could take our table and got our late dinner. Since then, we talked about various things -- our business, our common friends, our own lives -- and had a great time.
It was almost 11 o'clock when I saw him off at his hotel. He was going to leave Dayton early next morning and I just prayed he was not going to miss his plane.
