June 5th

Last night Craig and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. It was actually on Sunday but, it being fast Sunday and us not having a method to cook food, decided to postpone the festivities to Monday. In the US we could have seen fireworks but the 4th of July passed by without notice here.
While we were still living in MT we discovered a blog run by gaijin which rates various foods/activities in Japan. They have a whole series on hamburgers and, in their opinion, the best burger in all of Japan is only a few train stops from our house.
http://www.stippy.com/japan-eating-and-drinking/awajishima-burger/
We were a bit nervous because a while ago we had decided to try Mos Burger, a Japanese burger chain. We'd walked past it a bunch of times and never gave it a thought, we didn't eat fast food in America so why do it in Japan. However, we've been listening to a podcast series designed to teach Japanese and during their lesson on how to say you like something they couldn't stop talking about how great Mos Burger is and that if you're in Japan you have to try it. We're in Japan so we decided to give it a try. It is not very good and you do not have to try it.
That being said, we were worried that the bar for burgers is so low here that even the best burger in Japan wouldn't measure up. No need to worry, it was delicious. The place is a hole. I think the owner literally built an overhang onto the side of a building, hung plastic curtains from that to create walls, added a long bar with room for 8 chairs and declared the spot a restaurant. We wouldn't have known it was a restaurant instead of a storage shack if it wasn't for the blog. I brought the camera, with batteries this time, but the batteries died before a could get a picture, but we'll be back. According to the blog the owner has the buns specially made, cures and smokes his own bacon, and the beef and onions come from near by Awaji Island. The bar is built really high, sitting in regular chairs it came up to our shoulders, a brilliant design because the burgers are piled so high you can rest your forearms on the bar and barely have to lift the burger up to get it to your mouth. Just like the Indian place, if you come visit us you too can try the best burger in all of Japan.