Morning service in US VS Morning service in Japan
When I was at University student, I used summer vacation or winter holidays to visit some of my pen pals from abroad. My very first overseas experience was at age 16. I visited Bellingham,Washington state for 2 weeks as home stay during Christmas holidays with other high school students.That particular program was for high school students lived in our prefecture and director of the program picked one student from each high school and I was one of them.
Since the first experience of home stay program, I started visiting pen pals in US,UK,Australia,France,Holland.. It
was very interesting to experience different culture, sceneries, and
ordinary life in each countries. I visited US second time in 1995.I
visited host family I stayed when I was 16 years old and my pen pals.
Often times,people ask me “What do you call this in Japanese”. So,I tell them what it is called in Japanese,but sometimes, what we call in Japanese and what English speaking people call in English are similar or same.With some words,just accent to pronounce it is different.
Here are some examples.
We say “Coffee” as “koh hie”, “Beer” for “Bi-ru”,”bell” is “bell” in Japanese…”morning service” is “morning service” in Japanese,”tea” is “tea” in Japanese . Some words,we pronounce very similar or same. So,even if you don’t know any Japanese,if you ask for “Lemon tea” for example, Japanese people would understand what you want and will bring “Lemon tea” as per your request. Lemon is lemon in Japanese too.
I wrote “morning service” is “morning service” in Japanese. It is true but,in this case, it means different things in Japanese.
In English,I think people point out service at church. In Japanese,morning service means, morning menu at Cafe. Japanese restaurant or Cafe offer drink,toast,salad as breakfast with lower price.In English speaking countries,same thing will be called breakfast specials.
In Japan,restaurants open at about 10am,so for business people who needs breakfast outside the hotel,Cafe started offering breakfast special til noon with the name of “morning service”. With this offer,business man can sit at Cafe,reading newspaper to catch up latest news and can enjoy breakfast with lower price.
According to Wikipedia Japan, one cafe in Nagoya city offers unlimited toasts and boiled Egg,one cafe in Okazaki city offer Udon (Japanese noodle),drink,desert. If curry restaurant offers morning service,they give you Chapati in morning service menu.
Look at particular cafe menu (click here to see menu.Menu is in Japanese but you can see pictures)
This cafe offers morning service
*Coffee,toast or sandwich,egg,salad,and juice (such as OJ) is $4.80
I think average cup of coffee at cafe in Japan cost about $3.5 so,it is very nice price for breakfast.
If you visit Japan and stay in Business hotels in big city,you maybe maybe not get free bread and drink.
Some business hotels in big city offer free meals for breakfast to compete with other hotels surrounding them.
When I backed to Japan last year and when our family visited Hyogo prefecture to visit Himeji Castle, we stayed in Business hotel and they gave us free breads and free coffee.
Japanese language sounds difficult to learn for some people but,some words are pronounced same,and most people in Japan would understand you say “Sorry,Thank you,Ok,Hello,good bye,yes,no” .
If you visit Japan, talk to Japanese people. You may carry interesting conversation with them. 