What's the difference between a chicken and a horse?

One of my fondest memories of Japan was when my boyfriend and I took a tour of Japan. During my last year in Japan, he came to visit me in the spring and the cherry blossoms had just came out that morning. We were to stay a few days in my house in Sasebo before going on our journey. From Sasebo to Nagasaki, then to Hiroshima, then up to Kyoto, over to the base of Mt Fuji then going to Tokyo staying in each spot for just a few days each. The whole trip would take two weeks and we would be following the blooming flowers. I will probably write more about it later.

As I've mentioned earlier, the bad thing about dreaming of learning Japanese and living in Japan is the ability to become lazy. Working with English speakers did me no credit and even the Japanese there spoke English to me because I looked American and was assumed to speak no Japanese.

This laziness and stuck in the mundane of everyday life got me into some fun adventures when I actually needed my Japanese and failed. A prime example would be when we went to a restaurant in the small resort town of Kawaguchiko near Mt. Fuji.

The menu unfortunately was all in elaborate calligraphy. Not having studied Kanji for well over three years, I was a little rusty. I pointed to a kanji I was sure I knew and told him it was chicken. It surely looked like chicken to me. 鳥

What we received however was not chicken. It was some sort of sauteed red meat that was actually quite tasty. (It was much better than my earlier attempt at ordering salmon and getting "salted salmon livers" let me tell you!) I had brought a dictionary with me but was back at the hotel. I wrote the kanji down on a napkin and would look it up later.
Turns out what I ate and the kanji that was on the menu was horse. 馬

So be careful studying Japanese or you will not  know the difference between a horse and a chicken!