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

Misc Japan photos, 27 April 2012

 

This dog is SO EMBARRASSED about taking a big shit in the street. Luckily you are cleaning it up for him. Good work, Responsible Dog Owner!

We went to a ninja museum. I'm not sure how one should enjoy something in the style of a ninja but I assume it involves rolling everywhere (we did not do this).

This is one of the seven main disguises that ninjas used.

Two of the other disguises. WATCH OUT THAT CANE PROBABLY HAS A BUNCH OF NINJA SWORDS IN IT

In Soviet Japan, life lives you

lol flapss

Which one of these should I have bought? Sadly I bought neither :(

Misc Japan photos, 26 April 2012

We got this from a capsule dispenser. Only ¥200!

Someone was just giving away this Fullsesh Nail Rub! Anyway now we have a Fullsesh Nail Rub.

This was on the ice bucket in our hotel room

(._______.)=={

Latest fashions

When you take photos from a moving shinkansen they turn out crazy. Also sakura~!

Misc Japan photos, 23 April 2012

Today we went to this shrine that brings good luck for love (I think Shara wanted to go there so Shinee would fall in love with her). Anyway they also had a million Maneki Neko there, including two giant ones.

People had written their wishes and tied them up. They were all from Japanese women wanting to get married. Rows upon rows of them. If you know a Japanese woman WATCH OUT SHE WANTS TO MARRY YOU

Would you trust this ape with your pet?

AT LAST, MY SEARCH FOR CHAIR SOCKS IS AT AN END

This was where we went for dinner. It was a sushi train, but in addition to the conveyor sushi (which not many people seemed to be interested in), you could order whatever you wanted using a touch screen, and when it was done, it would whizz to you using a separate conveyor belt above the regular one. BUT the best part was that when you were done, you put your plates in a slot (shown just at the bottom of this photo), and then after it registered five plates, the screen would show a small pachinko-style game, and if you won, you would get one of the capsule toys shown at the top of the photo. THIS IS THE GREATEST IDEA OF ALL TIME. The toys are super cheap but they definitely kept us eating in order to get another shot at winning them, and it was tonnes of fun. Whoever thought of this is a genius.

:(

 This guy is on all the subway trains. You are very stern, Mr Agent!

Food review

Fanta (melon Calpis)

Karaoke came with all you can drink soda, which was pretty awesome. The only soda I hadn't already tried was melon Calpis Fanta. Melon Fanta is already by far the best Fanta, and this tasted as you would expect it to, like a combination of melon Fanta and Calpis. Basically like a ice cream soda but with melon Fanta. I think I prefer regular melon but this was a nice change. 4 stars.

Crunky

I got this mainly because of the name. It's just chocolate with "malt puffs" in it. I think there's a candy bar in Australia that is the equivalent of this ("Crunch"?). 3 stars for the candy, add an additional star for the name.

Pocky (nutcream)

Haha okay I definitely bought this for the name. Nutcream Pocky is very delicious. I guess it's just Pocky with peanut butter on it, but I liked it more than regular Pocky. Would buy again. 4 stars for the candy, add an additional 2 stars for the name. YES THAT IS SIX STARS THAT IS HOW FUNNY IT IS TO SELL YOUR CANDY AS NUTCREAM FLAVOURED.

Okonamiyaki

I had this for lunch. This was a pancake type of thing with pork and plum in it. It was pretty good, but there were some bites that were very plummy and then other bites that weren't plummy at all. We cooked this ourselves but the restaurant lady was the one that mixed up the batter, so that's on her. 3.5 stars.

Pancake thing (chocolate)

This was a pancake filled with chocolate. Shara thought this was delicious but it was a little rich for me (plus I was still full from lunch). 3.5 stars. 

Crepe cake

This was Shara's dessert at dinner. It was a cake made out of alternating layers of crepe and cream. I had some, but again, a little too rich for me. Still good though. 3.5 stars.

Icecream sundae

Oh man this was delicious. This was my dessert at dinner. Icecream sundae with strawberry topping BUT the entire bottom half of it was some sort of strawberry froyo/gelato type of thing that was v. delicious. I was pretty full at this point but I would eat again. Also it was 200 yen. 4.5 stars.

Being a tourist in Japan

One of the weirdest things about being in Japan is the constant feeling you have of being this stupid loud lumbering giant. On the train and what have you everyone is real quiet and well-dressed and knows exactly what they are doing and you are sitting there towering over everyone else with all of your ridiculous baggage and your stupid jeans and sneakers trying to figure out what the hell is going on because you took a holiday to a country without learning to read any of the language, you monumental dickhead. I just want to apologise to everyone all the time.

I should note that everyone is actually super friendly and accommodating and no one actually makes you feel like this, it's just the self-conciousness that comes with being surrounded by people that seem to have their shit together. That everyone is so nice almost makes it worse, because you know if some Japanese dudes were trying to get around Sydney, bogans would be yelling at them constantly.

Liquor review: Slat (Grapefruit and ???)

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that chuhais own. My preferred Cocktail Partner was not available at our hotel's vending machine, so I had to make do with Slat. I had a choice between a Slat that was clearly lemon, and one that was either grapefruit or blood orange. I went with the unknown. Looking more closely at this can, it appears to be grapefruit and something else, but I'm not sure what. Orange maybe? I am a huge antifan of grapefruit, but it was actually pretty good here. You could taste the grapefruit but it didn't have that horrible bitter aftertaste, it was just sweet. I later found out that Slat's gimmick is having chunks of fruit pulp in their drinks. It's pretty great, but it was a bit of a surprise to start with. Anyway this was pretty good, but my aversion to grapefruit still knocked it down a few points. Give me Cocktail Partner any day. 3.5 stars.

Misc Japan photos, 22 April 2012

heh, butt

#unintentionalpoetry

Don't put this orange juice in the microwave okay?

Oh we missed the Happy Thanks Fair! :(

This is a statue of a lady we found. Not sure why she is doing that sexy pose.