Hey, guess who figured out how to get the photos off his mobile phone! Yes, M. And wow, I’m so jealous now of his eight megapixels… His photos are gorgeous.
So remember that piggy-looking pork bun I was talking about yesterday?
Well, if that isn’t just the definition of kawaii.
And his little piggy tail!
Straight from Japanese combini (circle k, seven eleven, family mart, etc.) to your computer, it’s more fabulous Japanese junk food! (See previous junk food here)
First up, it’s a wafer cookie with pop rocks inside. Or at least, that’s what the packaging seems to by indicating to my uncomprehending gaijin eyes. I mean, isn’t that what’s suggested by that inset that says “soda” and shows lots of bubbles coming out of the blue pebbly things? Assuming I’m right, this candy gets a 9/10 for concept, but the execution was a disappointment — I didn’t get that tell-tale poprock fizz at all. Maybe the concentration of rock wasn’t high enough? I’m not totally sure of the physics here.
Shrimp burger! They sell these premade in little bags, the way we sell twinkies — but they’re actually good. Talk about convenience food! Also confirms my theory that everything is better with a ton of Japanese mayo.
More hot burger action! Except not hot, and in fact, only resembling burgers.
Tiny burgers, made of cookie and chocolate and a layer of peanut butter “cheese”. These are freaking adorable. Also, the “bun” tastes like toasted sesames.
A mystery. In America, marketers are always insisting that chocolate is for the ladies, so I’m not sure what everyone’s favorite Japanese stick treat is getting at here, with their “male only” candy. You might assume there was another box on a nearby shelf containing “Women’s” pocky, but no.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand my number one favorite combini snack is not featured here. The only picture I have is currently (and tragically) trapped on M.’s phone, so you’ll have to make do with someone else’s depiction:
It’s a warm pork bun… shaped like the world’s most adorable little piggy!
This article talks about the reactions of Japanese customers to the item:
Shiori, age eight or nine, and her grandmother, who was over 60, were two of the more vocal purchasers. Shiori, spoke first, “That pig is just so cute!” They talked at length about the cute floppy ears, the cute snout, and the cute pig shape.
That describes pretty accurately the conversation M. and I had when we saw it, so I guess we’re turning Japanese.
Happy New Year! I still have more Japan for sharing.
Much as Americans have a fetish for Japanese video games, anime, and manga, the Japanese also flirt with American culture… sometimes in unpredictable ways.
This department store had a really vast t-shirt collection on display. Some of my favorites:
Hawkeye: The Outdoor
The Mushroom Is Delicious
Let’s make a delicious stew from pork and the mushroom!
S in D muchroom, SinD canned food company
Rock Don’t Stop Music, Rubber Soul Crusing
Yeah, pretty unfathomable. And check out those fedoras! Those were really big, in fact — not just on the mannequins. There was a huge display with all kinds of fedoras, from gray to polka dots to furry and orange. Did they really expect people to buy and wear these? I saw people in some pretty goofy outfits, but nothing like that. And suspenders, too… I felt like they were really pushing a mid-80’s, post-punk, Ducky-on-Quaaludes vibe. Not sure anyone was buying.
At the Emperor’s Birthday dinner the other night (boy, that sounds impressive, doesn’t it?), we were asked what we’d seen of Kyoto so far. I mentioned a few shrines and temples… “You haven’t been to Nishiki Market? You must go to Nishiki Market!” And M. was promptly given the following day off for this purpose. So we went.
Nishiki Market is a centuries-old covered market in downtown Kyoto, filled with tiny stands selling all the various ingredients that show up in the Kyoto style of cooking: pickles, dried foods, fresh seafood, and vegetables mostly, plus also an apparently famous kitchen knife store that was founded by Aritsugu Fujiwara, a master swordsmith, over 400 years ago. (I just found that out via wikipedia, but we did visit the store and it was pretty amazing.)
Things we saw:
Fish for sale. Those are splayed-out eels up top, with their spines all swirly. The pink blobs in the foreground are fish ovaries, still filled with millions of fish eggs. It seems a little weird, yeah, but if nature gives you a perfect carrying case for roe, why not use it? And of course oysters to the left. (Does anyone know what that white, brainy looking stuff behind the ovaries is? I haven’t a clue.)
Octopus tentacles.
And fresh eels! Ooh, squirmy.
When we reached the end of the market street, we turned a corner and discovered that it ajoined with a much more modern mall-type structure. So then we wandered through past movie theaters and food courts and eventually wound up at…
Shakey’s Pizza. I had never actually seen a Shakey’s outside of that Southpark episode when Cartman uses stem cells to clone endless Shakey’s Pizzas. So it seemed appropriate to go for the first time in Japan.
We had the Lunch Viking (!) buffet. You’ll have to tell me how close this was to the American version, since I don’t know.
The pizza on the right is fairly ordinary pepperoni and green pepper. On the left is, I think, barbeque pork and corn. There was corn on a lot of their pizzas. Oh, and not shown is the surprisingly tasty custard and chocolate sauce pizza they served toward the end. There were also pastas and fried potatoes (which struck me as weird with pizza, but I gather they do that in the states, too?), and just in case none of this seemed like “real” food, they also had big pots of rice and japanese curry.
Ooh, I forgot, there was another sign I wanted to share. M. says this is an ad for a restaurant, and what else could it be? But it seems odd… I’ve never seen wild boar on any menus in Japan. I really wanted to investigate but could not figure out where it was directing us, if anywhere.
M. and I also disagreed a bit on the content of the image. I said, “aw, the cute boar is sleeping! While flying dreamily through the air!” He said, “the boar’s not sleeping or flying. Its eyes are closed and its legs stretched out because it’s dead and trussed.” So, okay. Still, as slaughtered game go, it’s pretty adorable.
Also for some reason I liked this sign, at one of the temples we visited.
I don’t know why, it’s perfectly understandable (and true!). I just thought it was cute… ’cause, where else would you keep your toilets? (It was a gorgeous bathroom, by the way! Huge and empty, way way underneath Higashi Hongan-Ji temple.)
“ladies use the word sweat when they feel it best for their best.”
I feel a little bad posting this, because there are whole corners of the web devoted to making fun of Japanese attempts at English, and they can give an unfair impression… Once upon a time, it might have been common to find signs in such garbled English as to be incomprehensible, but nowadays it seems as though nearly every English notice has been composed with great care.
Nearly every.
I have no idea what’s going on here. It’s a sign for a European-style coffee shop — why are we talking about sweat? Or ladies? The only thing I can guess is that this may be a common Japanese proverb or something which… just doesn’t translate.
Like it wasn’t bad enough that they named their cafe “DORF”.
It may be Christmas Eve Eve in the Western world, but yesterday was a national holiday in Japan — the Emperor’s birthday! I asked M.’s host how this holiday is traditionally celebrated, and he said, “Hmm. The emperor comes on TV. Everyone stays home to watch. It’s not very exciting.”
He made it much more exciting for us by taking us and another couple out to a wonderful restaurant meal — after first checking multiple times to be sure I was willing to eat traditional Japanese food. I assured him this would not be a problem. :) It’s a little tragic though, because every dish was beautiful — but I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to look like a total dweeb. I did, however, do my best to retain a detailed list of what we had:
We started with a little bento-style dish with six tiny aperitifs: mushrooms with I think red-bean-dyed tofu chunks? and little chunks of squid (ika), and half a brussel sprout with chopped red pepper, and daikon slices with sweet black beans. And I don’t remember the other two.
Then we had incredibly delicate thin sliced white fish in some kind of fruity marinade with chopped cucumber and shrimp. At the same time they brought plates of raw duck breast with sprouts, shoots, and a fresh tofu cube, which we dipped in a pot of hot oil to cook. The duck was delicious, and the tofu amazing — smooth and silky! Tofu is usually so dull in the States, but it’s a completely different experience in Japan. Not that I’m any tofu expert or anything, but in my experience.
Then they brought out bowls of fruit chunks (pear, plum, pineapple?) with a slice of camembert all in yogurt sauce. This actually worked surprisingly well together, and we all pretty much thought it was the end of the meal, because it was a sweet. BUT NO.
Because then they brought out little bowls with lightly steamed daikon, broccoli, and big fat oysters.
Then came little clementines that had been carved out and filled with shrimp roe, with a whole shrimp artfully capping the dish.
The came little ramekins filled with what can only be described as shepard’s pie. It was like a tomato-y vegetable sauce topped with mashed potatoes and maybe a little cheese and then baked. So like… western? But done in this incredibly delicate and delectable way that could only be Japanese.
And then, just when I thought things were winding down, they brought out huge plates of sushi! I mean, they were probably only slightly bigger than standard size sushi dishes in America, but after all the other food… wow. And the salmon, instead of being on a rectangle of rice, was draped over a little ball of rice and looked like an adorable little animal. And there was tomago (egg) and shrimp and mackerel and unagi (eel) and ika (squid), and a fried tofu roll. I managed to finish everything but the tofu roll… yum but also a ton of food! And then M.’s colleague’s wife was like, “yeah, I can’t eat more than a piece or two of this, do you want it?” and he wound up eating most of hers, too.
Then came a very smooth, light pannacotta with red bean sauce, along with a teeny tiny scoop of matcha (green tea) ice cream. And kocha (black tea).
And with it all, we started with big glasses of Asahi beer, then moved on to many different kinds of sake… when M.’s boss found out we’d been drinking minimart sake, he insisted we try sakes from every region of japan, both cold and hot. Lovely!
And the whole thing was served on low tables and tatami mats and we exchanged gifts and talked about Idaho and bears and stuff. All in all, an amazing dinner… And now as I pack up to spend a very long Christmas day on planes and in airports, I at least feel as though I’ve had a real holiday meal.
It’s more likely than you think.
Japan is reputed to be one of the safest places in the world, and aside from the very occasional purse-snatcher, there is nothing to fear.
Except centipedes and monkeys.
Signs like these are up all over M.’s dorm. I particularly enjoy the image of a carful of centipedes, even if that’s not actually what they meant.
MONKEY WARNING: Be sure to lock your window. DO NOT leave food items/scraps on balconies or around house. DO NOT approach monkeys. DO NOT make eye contact with them. Monkeys will aim at your combini bag which you’d better hide from their eyes.
But wait, aren’t monkeys cute and friendly? Apparently not these guys — they’ll knock you over and steal your convenience store snacks without a moment’s remorse. M. says he saw one at the bank the other day (okay, near the bank — he wasn’t working as a teller or anything) and he was huge and grumpy-looking, like an angry old man. M. did try to avoid eye contact, but the monkey gave him a dirty look anyway. Here’s a picture of them hanging out in a hot spring.
Since undoubtedly you will have to handle monkey droppings at some point in your life, I consider this a public service.
(food, that is)
There’s a ton of delicious food here in Japan, but some of the cheapest and most interesting tidbits can be found in local “combini” — not an Italian term, as it might appear, but a Japanese corruption of “convenience stores”. This stuff may not always be the healthiest or most traditional foodstuffs on offer, but the combination of appealing salty/sweet flavors, idiosyncratic packaging, and wee prices make them hard to resist. Here’s a sampling of my favorites — I’ll try to limit myself to only a few.
Okay this is amazing. It a little double pouch of mustard and ketchup; squeeze it in two, and both condiments come out side by side — ideal for drawing perfect flavor lines along a delicious corn dog.
I’m always charmed by food that does what it says. This little cake is shaped like a banana, has BANANA writ large upon it, and is made of banana-flavored cake stuffed with banana cream filling. A semiotically brilliant deconstruction of the relationship between signifier and signified.
I’m mostly entertained by this because the name makes me think of something best drunk of a pimp cup. But it’s just a line of crunchy chocolate things.
I really really REALLY wanted this snack to be actual, chocolate-covered crabs. Sadly, it’s just a perfectly ordinary cake shaped like a crab. Which begs the question, why do you want your snack cakes shaped like crabs? It’s anyone’s guess, pretty much.
Think the combinis here have nothing but packaged junk food? WRONG. They also have junk food that sits in mysterious liquid all day under heating lamps. I got this because I thought it might be a vegetable — some kind of tuber, perhaps? — but M. insists it’s an animal product. Tripe, he says, but that’s a damn big intestine, if so. My best guess is that it’s a chopped-off, marinated Cthulu tentacle. Whatever it was, it was tasty.
Plenty more where that came from, but I don’t want this page to take 800 years to load. Stay tuned!
(Note: the previous entry has been updated to include a disclaimer about the snopes page I linked. After reading it more closely, I decided it needed to be addressed directly.)
When M. told people he was moving to Kyoto, a lot of Americans expressed dismay. “Japan must be so unpleasant,” they worried. “You know, it’s wall-to-wall people, there.” Okay, so… I know what they’re thinking of. They’re picturing something like the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, home to some of the busiest intersections in the world.
Well, Kyoto isn’t Tokyo, for one thing. And where M. is living and working hardly even counts as Kyoto. This is his office building:
(click here for larger)
And here are some views from campus.
(larger)
(larger)
The university is up on the hill; down in the valley, you can see the residential area, and then forested mountains beyond. Basically, this area is less hyper-modern city and more traditional Japanese nature landscape.
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