Some other photos

This seems unnecessarily aggressive.

Sale once a month. "Everything must go!"

Western cartoon characters Japanese people have deep and inexplicable love for: Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, Miffy, the Moomins. They were having a "premium Moomin exhibition" in a department store we were at recently, so we went to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out it's just a shop that sells a bunch of Moomin merchandise. People were real excited about it though. You could buy the Moomin DVD discography for $500 if you felt so inclined!

"An 18 meter tall statue of a manga robot that was built to help rebuild the Nagata ward of Kobe both financially and morally after the great earthquake."

i met the colonel!

Misc Japan photos: 30 April - 2 May 2012

I don't know what this is, but I think I want to be a part of it.

Sports!

Nagasaki has one of those fancy bridges! Pretty fancy!

While in Nagasaki we went to this cool island that used to have thousands of people living on it but has been uninhabited since the 70s. If you want more photos than this you will have to wait until Shara uploads them because she takes good photos and I do not.

Some of the fruits and vegetables in Japan are so tiny! I wonder if Japanese people come to Australia and freak the fuck out over how huge the watermelons are.

Kawaii!

This is me doing my best impression of Fuji-san.

The local baseball team in Hiroshima are called the Carp (they are apparently not very good). The upshot is that it is possible to buy shirts that just say "CARP" on the front. Unfortunately none of the available sizes would have fit on my fat western body :(((

would u like an egg

"I'm reading Underground again while we're here because I want to make myself really scared" - Shara

Kobe Beef Adventures

One of the things I really wanted to do this time in Japan was eat Kobe beef. Since it is impossible to get outside of Japan, and I friggin love steak, I felt like it was one of the things I had to spend a million dollars on at least once. We had read that Mouriya is one of the best known places in Kobe for Kobe beef, and it was my birthday, so we decided to go.

The restaurant was set up so that diners ate at a counter right next to the chefs. This dude grilled some garlic for us to have as seasoning.

The first chef was replaced by another guy when it came time to cook the steaks, for reasons unknown. I asked the first dude if it was okay to take photos, and he said yes but was really awkward about it. I figured out why when I asked the second chef the same thing and it became clear that he thought I was asking if he could take a photo of us, rather than me taking a photo of him with the meat. This is because I had forgotten that when Japanese people say "take a photo", what they mean is "take a photo of me with something in front or behind me". I have never really understood this phenomenon, because surely the thing I am trying to take a photo of is more interesting than my dumb face superimposed in front of or behind whatever I am trying to take a photo of? I don't know, enjoy this photo of my dumb face behind these steaks that we later ate.

First up was the steak Shara ordered. It was slightly less fancy (only marble factor 8 or something), and marginally cheaper (only $130 or so). 

The steaks came with "baked" (grilled) eggplant, baby corns, mushroom, and zucchini. 

The seasonings were grilled garlic flakes, salt, pepper, wasabe, soy sauce and miso sauce. This steak was off the chain. The best steak I have ever had in my life, not close. I found the garlic too overpowering, so I stuck to a combination of sauces and salt and pepper.

Cooking the second steak, which was a bit fancier (marble factor 10-12 I think?) and more expensive.

This was still insane, but Shara and I actually both found that the fattier cut of meat had slightly less flavour, and preferred the less marbled one. 

Shara also got dessert, which came with a weird square spoon. Side note: the butter knives in Japan are super weird. They have very short blades, which is fine for spreading butter, but I'm not sure how you are supposed to use them to cut things. 

All up this was a tremendous meal, and although it ended up costing about $330, add another n=2 to experiences over possessions.

Food and Drink Review

Mochi Choco

Sara gave us this when we met her. It's mochi covered in chocolate with chocolate inside it. Tasted like a marshmallow egg but with a firmer texture. I am on-board with all marshmallow egg-esque things, so would eat again. 4 stars.

Orion beer

This is apparently an Okinawan beer. It had a stronger flavour than seems to be typical for beers in Japan, but was pretty good. I am bad at describing beers. 4 stars.

Kirin Chu-Hi (green cherry?)

I'm not real sure what flavour this chuhai was, but it tasted of cherry? I assumed it would be lime or apple but it definitely wasn't either of those. Anyway this tasted better than many chuhais (other than Cocktail Partner) I have had. 4.5 stars.

Slat (peach flavour)

[No picture]

I thought I had taken a photo of this but apparently not. This was super delicious, and probably even better than Cocktail Partner. The only downside to this is that as I remember it only has 3% ABV, so it's not going to get you super drunk. All the stars.

Orangina

Sara was excited about this because I guess this is a UK thing that maybe isn't around anymore? I guess this never came to NZ (or is before my time), because I had never tried it before. My first impression was that this tasted basically the same as those flavoured Deep Spring sparkling mineral waters. They are pleasant enough, but nothing to write home about. However, as I drank this, it became steadily more and more bitter. It got to the point where I could barely stand to drink the last fifth or so of the bottle. Orangina's gimmick seems to be that it contains bits of orange, but I guess it's the rind? All of the bits seemed to have fallen to the bottom of this bottle (and it didn't tell me to shake it before opening), so the end of this drink was just the pits. Not even its funny name could help it. First 20% of the bottle gets 3.5 stars, the last 20% gets 1 star. Average 2 stars.

Coffee (ice)

We got breakfast at one of the faux-European cafes that seem to be reasonably popular in Japan. Meals are commonly sold as part of a "set" that includes toast or whatever and then a drink. However, the only available drinks are coffee or tea. They wouldn't give us a green tea (even though surely that's the cheapest option? They only have to provide water and a teabag), so I decided to get a cold coffee that also seem to be pretty popular in Japan. I am not a coffee drinker, so this was not a good idea. The unsweetened coffee was so disgusting, I cannot believe that people drink this shit. The container on the right of the photo was filled with sugar syrup. I dumped the whole lot in and it got a lot more tolerable, but it still had an aftertaste that highly resembled butts. I gave up halfway through and had the coffee taste in my mouth all day. Coffee is gross zero stars.

Dragonball Z soda (Trunks flavour)

I think the gimmick of this soda is that there are nine different cans you can get, and you're supposed to collect them all? I was hoping for Vegeta but sadly I got Trunks, the most boring character. I'm not sure if all the cans are flavoured differently, but Trunks actually tasted not too bad. It's been a while since I had this, but as I remember it tasted basically of Fanta? Not nearly as bad as what I was expecting. Oh also this had a bunch of vitamins added to it, so I guess you're supposed to power up after drinking it? I did not, but it was still reasonably pleasant. 3 stars.

Gokuri (peach)

It is this. This is the best drink in Japan. 5 stars.

Japanese TV: Travel shows

Right now it is Golden Week in Japan and lots of people are going on holidays, so travel shows are perhaps more common than they are ordinarily. Some observations about travel shows:

• As with all other Japanese television, travel shows seem to be 85% about food. The remaining 15% is about buying souvenirs (most of which are edible).
• The way they exhibit this food is pretty weird. They typically go to a hotel or restaurant, and have a table laden with an absurd number of dishes, and then the presenter will speak to the chef/server briefly (presumably about the meal). Then they will show some close-ups of the food. I feel like this is where an Australian broadcast would end, and they would just tell you how to go there and how much it costs etc. But in Japan they then show the presenter eating the food for a minute or two and then expressing how delicious the food is, all the while the chef is just standing over her shoulder watching her eat. I can't tell if this is a trope of television or just what happens at very fancy eating places. As such I am pretty scared to go to one!
• The closeups of food are also pretty weird. They typically have a portion of meat on a fork or in chopsticks and do a closeup of it, but then for some reason they jiggle the fork slightly so that it is quivering in the closeup. I'm not sure if this is meant to make the meat look more appetising but it is the creepiest thing.
• The other night we watched a variety show that had a segment about travelling to New Zealand. Here are the quintessential New Zealand things they did:
• Bungeed off the Sky Tower
• Went luging in Rotorua
• Took a mud spa at Hells Gate which consisted of them shovelling mud down one another's pants
• Dressed up as Maori warriors and learned how to do the haka (this segment seemed a little culturally insensitive but who am I to point fingers, this blog is about making superficial observations of cultures I don't understand on the basis of a cursory visit)
• Attempted to catch a rugby ball which had been kicked by some random New Zealander on some random high school field
• Ate worms

In conclusion Japanese travel shows are super great.

An example of Japanese TV