Language problems...

The further away from the major cities the more you feel lost no to understand Japanese. My experience was however that this is never a real problem, the Japanese are very kind and try their utmost to help.
At the fish-restaurant in Matsushima kaigan I was given a menu card, the letters were Japanese and Romaji but the language was still Japanese! There were pictures to help, but I wanted a dinner with Sasakamaboko as one course so I had to order a la carte...
To order a Miso soup seemed simple enough until the waitress tried to find out what kind of soup I wanted, She pointed out the different ingredients, which did not mean anything to me, still she wanted me to make a choice although I would have tried with pleasure any of them. Once she saw that the written words did not mean anything to me she started to make drawings of at least 3 different types of shellfish but I was just as much puzzled. Now the Chef entered and tried his very restricted English on me. I am sure they would have thought of other means to help me understand, but I decided to put an end to it, I knew I would enjoy any of them. I pointed to the first name on the menu, and this is what I got: