More vegtables for breakfast

Shortly after my oldest son was married, he and his wife moved to Tokyo. This brought about a great adventure for me, the kind of adventure I had never expected to have. I had grown up believing that only rich people and missionaries travelled overseas. But now I found myself first visiting Tokyo and then travelling with my husband, two of my sons and my new daughter-in-law in the north of Japan. We had all decided that we would try to be good guests. My daughter-in-law had found that a travel agent was reluctant to book us at a small rural inn. The innkeeper had never had American guests and was afraid that we would be dissatisfied, especially with the food that she served. We were determined to be undemanding and to enjoy the meals. And for the most part we did. What they brought us we ate, and with chopsticks too. It seemed to us that no one at the inn spoke English. We had read that it was the duty of the lowest ranking female of the family to serve at family style meals. My daughter-in-law was the last to come down for breakfast one morning. We all mock scolded her for shirking her duty of serving us. A very distinguished looking, middle-aged Japanese man sitting at the table with us was taking all this in. A little while later his wife came down. He made a point of serving her with a sly grin on his face. I think that he knew a little English. It was by watching him that we learned what we were supposed to do with the raw egg that we had been served that morning. He broke it into the small bowl that it had come in, beat it with his chopsticks, added some thin brown sauce that was on the table and then added it to a bowl of rice. It was ready to serve--to his wife first, of course. Except for that egg, I didn't notice that the breakfasts in Japan had foods that were different from lunches and dinners, as they are here. Usually there were sea creatures and seaweed, vegtables and soups and rice three times a day. After a few days we left the little inn and travelled on. The next morning, in the large dining room of a fancy hotel, a waiter asked if we wanted a Japanese or an American breakfast. The men in our party stuck with the plan. "When in Rome...." But the women couldn't resist a chance for a little break. We ordered the American. Sure enough, we were soon served orange juice and toast and scrambled eggs AND a great big tossed salad. Surely Americans must eat some kind of vegtables for breakfast.