Best Buys...So Far II

Wahey! I've finally got internet access in my room now, so this blog is coming to you live as opposed to typed up previously and uploaded via university computers! This is a quick follow-up to Best Buys I - just to cover a few cool items I purchased, as well as telling you how fantabulous my mobile phone is.

HOUSEHOLD GOODS

You will have previously seen cameos of my cool little glasses from the 100 yen shop. For no particular reason, they have AoB written on them, with a coloured circle and a character - like a piece of punctuation. I've got an exclamation mark with an orange circle, a plus sign in a red circle, Baptiste has one with a percentage sign in a blue circle, and there's also one with a yellow circle with an @ sign. They just look...kinda neat, s'all.

I also got a mug as part of the British Bistro Bear range, with the following enscription, which is also my mad phrase of the week:

Bistro bear is the best gentleman of a British tradition. He is cleverly refined, is very stylish and kind. Ladies enjoy conversation with him.

If this is what Japanese kitchenware manufacturers have been saying about 'gentleman of a British tradition', I'm going to disappoint many resident mug enthusiasts.

As for other goods, very little exciting; I still need to get a frying pan to expand my meal options a little more, and a household plant would complete my room (as would a couple of posters to brighten up the rather drab walls - household department store Loft currently has these great Halloween posters dotted around, but I don't think they're for sale - I might try and ask nicely after October).

MOBILE PHONE

Now I'm not exactly technologically-savvy or up-to-date on new mobile phones, but the features on my Sanyo A5514SA blew me away. And what's more - it was free! Of course, it's all part of a special student contract and as it was the only English-language mobile offered by AU (the service provider), so everyone has the same model - but who cares?

Features include:

• Camera - vary picture size and quality from the little pics I've already shown here to some pretty impressive quality big snaps, with all sorts of special digital camera effects you'd never expect a mobile could achieve. Plus up to 3 mins of video footage.
  
• GPS navigator and map system for when you are really lost.
• Radio channels - but not really any worth listening to.
• Internet access - perfect for quick headlines, weather, info searches. Also can download pics, music and episodes of Oh! Mikey.
  
• E-mail - without SMS texting, there's C-Mail (for phone-to-phone messages) and E-Mail for between phones and between computers.
• Infra-red - for uploading pics and videos to computers, exchanging address book info.
• Japanese - English / English - Japanese dictionary - by no means comprehensive, but useful for on-the-go translation.
• Photo-mixer - make bizarre little movie shorts with photos you've taken.
• Optical Recognition - this is amazing - you can use the camera to recognise kanji written on signs, packets, etc., and it will translate it for you! Plus it can recognise addresses, emails, notes, and such as well. Not perfect, but fun.
• Plus...calculator, alarm, remote control, calendar, journal, memo pad, pocket money log, and more!

It feels like such a special treat! A shiny new phone! And if this is what they offer to dumb foreigners like me, what do the top-of-the-range ones offer? It seems the most popular model at the mo is Docomo's Foma SH903i and other similar models, which seem to be a stylistic step backwards, looking chunky, blocky, thick and heavy. But I bet they're stocked to the gills with 3D holograms, virtual future predictive capabilities and every book ever written. Oh, and a little hole to put your 'strappers' (or 'danglies').

Best Buys...So Far

Another double dollop of blogs, you lucky people!

We’ve dwelled too long on the negative purchases, so let me tell you about some of the choice products I have bought recently. With all of these things, there are equivalents in the UK, but in Japan, it’s the little differences that…um, make…the difference. The bread’s a little sweeter, the Coco Pops (or Coco-kun’s Choco Kurisupiisu) more chocolatey – but my market research has turned up some interesting results…

FOOD

Japan loves snacks – FACT. Aisles and aisles devoted to all kinds of snack foods, crisps, sweets, nuts, dried fruits, chocolates, biscuits. And then all the strange region-specific bite-size nibbles that I haven’t explored in full yet for fear of munching on octopus beak when I was expecting cashew nut.



Choccie biccies are the order of the day, my favourite being Graham Biscuit, “Chocolate Cream Sand Biscuit”, which I believe is supposed to be more like Golden Grahams than Graham le Saux and more like Sandwich than Weston-Super-Mare Sand (though the Digestive-esque quality of said biscuit lends it a gritty texture akin to that of beach dust). At first, I wondered why each biscuit was individually wrapped in plastic wrapping-conscious Japan (a treatise on Kyoto’s recycling system coming soon), but it perfectly rations them out, unlike the tube of mini choc-chip cookies I ate in one go while lying on my bed after a long tiring day.

Crisps are more of a mixed bag, with unusual flavours turning up some nice surprises (Baptiste’s curry flavoured maize puffs were addictive) and more traditional flavours disappointing (Chip Star’s lightly salted tube were somewhat flat and uninspiring). Jagareto (I think), the crisps with the ad as seen on Adam and Joe Go Tokyo, are pretty tasty, but my favourite so far has been a big bag of Mexican Chilli Tacos.

Ice cream, on the other hand, often scores highly. I’ve had a choc-chip ice cream crepe (crepe in general are very popular in Japan, though they fill them with anything – natto crepe anyone?), ice-cream filled waffle, crushed cola ice (which caused minor gum damage trying to extract from the bottle), some delicious fruit ice creams with bits of pineapple in, and Giant, a brand of ice cream cone not too dissimilar to Cornettos, but at only 80 yen a go (about 40p), they always do the trick.



As for actual meals, there’re all the various kinds of quick and easy noodles (but they pretty much all have the same flavour). Boil in the bag curries aren’t too bad with some microwaved rice (it seems that there’s a curry endorsed by pretty much every kids TV character – yes, even Thomas the Tank Engine), but pasta remains the top student dish. However, I recently prepared a meal of mini hamburgers, chips and mixed veg. The hamburgers were each about the size of my thumb, and came in a little plastic dish for being heated up in the microwave. Though the package advertised 100% beef, I think that really meant that the beef was 100% beef and not, for instance, beef-flavoured tofu, as there was some other filler ingredient of which I couldn’t quite ascertain its origin, but they were fine in a late-night burger van way. The chips were also microwaveable, in a little red box. They stuck together and were a bit greasy, but actually tasted like less salty McDonald’s fries, but like the small ones at the bottom of the carton. The veg was Jolly Green Giant-branded, though a little flavourless – but I was just happy to have some actual vegetables.



DRINK

Ion supply drink Pocari Sweat is a beverage “that smoothly supplies the lost water and electrolytes during perspiration” and is a somewhat confusing creation that is instantly refreshing but tastes a bit like an anonymous vegetable. It served me well on my previous travels, and continues to do now – though the fact that it is made by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, they of Calorie Mate infamy, makes me a little wary. Calpis has a comparable taste, though it is distinctly white in colour. Plus, in a country where the Nintendo Wii doesn’t produce a snigger, having the word ‘piss’ (or ‘sweat’ for that matter) in the name of a beverage is not considered odd.

Also returning from my previous Japan adventure is Lemon Water, similarly refreshing, but tastes good even after losing its chill carrying it around in your backpack all day temple-hopping. And good old Qoo, though the white grape flavour I love has only recently become readily available in nearby shops – and I’m not completely sure it is the same taste as the drink I’ve had in McDonald’s.

Bubble Man and Bubble Man II are space-age bubblegum flavour soft drinks and can therefore only be consumed by 7 year olds at the risk of descending into a sugar-induced twitch. Suntory’s C.C. Lemon claims to have 210 lemons’ worth of Vitamin C in every 1.5 litre bottle, though every lemon-based beverage makes similar claims (probably because fresh fruit and vegetables are so pricey). Fanta R18 is another Red Bull style sugary fizzy caffeine gurana enamel-remover, almost fluorescent yellow in colour – but I had to buy a bottle if only because R18 is the certificate the BBFC classifies porno.



Tea and coffee drinks, both hot and cold, can be found everywhere, with vending machines on every corner, advertised by Meg Ryan and Tommy Lee Jones. As booze goes, Asahi’s the obvious (and nicest I think) choice of beer; can’t say I’m a fan of Kirin. Haven’t gone down the sake root just yet – beer’s expensive enough as it is.

That’s it for food and drink for now. Next time – household goods, plus my mobile phone!

The Following Takes Place Between Taste and Nutrition

If there is one food I had been itching to try while in Japan, it would have to be Calorie Mate. Pete had previously shown me a crazy sketch on iFilm from Fuji TV’s One Night, one of Japan’s biggest live comedy shows, involving Carlos Bernard reprising his role of Tony Almeida and doing very bizarre things.

Well, as we had a look for more Japanese 24 videos, we came across a series of advertisements for Calorie Mate featuring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer on some anti-terrorist mission in Tokyo running around the subway, involved in high-speed chases and riding in helicopters. And in all this, he snacks on Calorie Mate, which appeared to be some kind of tasty energy snack.

Japan is currently in the grip of 24 fever. The fifth series is being released incrementally on DVD, so there are banners and posters in every DVD store (and it means I get to see the final episodes at last – I think I’ve already mentioned this), there’s a 24 magazine which comes with a couple of episodes of the first series every week or two, and then there’s big Calorie Mate ads, such as this one in Shijo underground.



Mmm…Situation Free…whatever that means. And I assume the rather camp Japanese gentleman next to him is from a TV ad I have yet to see. So I decide to go out and buy some Calorie Mate for myself. And, inspired by the excellent (and stomach-churning) Steve, Don’t Eat It, it’s time for the first edition of Steele, Don’t Eat It!

Now, we all know Jack Bauer never eats, sleeps, or makes toilet, so surely Calorie Mate must be some kind of wonder food, divine ambrosia or heaven-sent mana if it breaks the habit of a man who frequently saves the world on an empty stomach? The packaging doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, being in an anonymous yellow box, heavy on (English) text. What’s more, there’s a problem of which flavour to choose. But when a particular foodstuff as such varied taste options as Chocolate, Cheese and ‘Freshness’, I start to worry about what the Calorie Mate ‘Block’ might entail, so I go for the safe option of Chocolate – they can’t screw up chocolate, right?

Reading the blurb on the box suggests it’s much like any energy bar:

“CALORIE MATE BLOCK is a nutritionally balanced source of the energy needed for daily activities. CALORIE MATE BLOCK is naturally suited for people on-the-go who need an easy source of energy and nutrition – at breakfast, work, sports, study, or any busy time.”

Fair enough, though the spiel and the classification of ‘Balanced nutrition food (solid type)’ doesn’t suggest that taste factors into the equation in any regard. The fact that it’s produced by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and not, say, Mr. Chef’s Yummy Scrummy Treats Kitchen, only adds to my trepidations. Ingredients include 40g of sugar per 80g serving, edible vegetable fats (better than inedible ones I believe), almond, nonfat milk and soybean protein. Oh, and chocolate and cocoa powder, which is reassuring (do the other flavours have cheese and ‘freshness’ powder then?).

Opening the box reveals two sachets with two fingers each. Two dirty brown stubby powdery fingers, like dried turds doing their best Bourbon biscuit impression. I decide the best way to taste it is to dress up like Jack Bauer on the billboard ad, so I put on my jacket, stick in an earphone and look angry, frustrated, concerned and desperate.



And then I take my first bite. Which coincidentally also turns out to be my last. Unlike Steve, Don’t Eat It, I’ll give you a picture of my immediate reaction (again using imageshack as it seems Blogger doesn't like me using pictures anymore). Suffice to say, I’d like to see Jack Bauer pull this face in the commercials...



It reminded me of the brownies Harry made years ago in food tech, when he forgot to add milk to the mixture. It was so dry, chalky and crumbly, like an old biscuit that had gone soft. And the yummy chocolate taste I had been expecting was conspicuous in its absence. I tried to finish one mouthful, but resorted to spitting it into my basin – the half-chewed mess would make good artificial dog mash for film and television. Jack Bauer is clearly a harder man than I for being able to stomach such a foul creation. Kudos, sir, kudos.

The bottom of the pack reads:

“Caution: To insure freshness, please eat as soon as possible after opening the package.”

Don’t make me laugh...Calorie Mate – you are no friend of mine.

Ball Ball Ball Footie Footie Footie

aka Doing a Lineker

My student volunteer Kenta had invited me to play a football match with him when we first met and game-day arrived. After meeting at Kyoto station, we took the trip on the JR line to Osaka, then on to Umeda to meet a few of his friends, before our final stop at Totsuyou. No idea where the hell it was, so don’t ask me to point it out to you on a map.

The pitch isn’t your typical grass playing field, but is actually a floodlit baseball ground with a goal at both ends and some basic football markings painted into the sand. As a result, the sand is somewhat slippery to play on in my trainers and there’s a big mound where the pitcher would be which gets tripped over a couple of times during play (but at least you get an advantage if you stand on it when going for a header).

We get changed into our assorted kits outdoors on a bench by the pitch and I don the clothes I hastily purchased the day before at the local sports goods emporium. Our team is a ragtag bunch of friends, acquaintances, locals and me. In particular, I get on well with Kenta’s pal, nicknamed Uza, who is quite the character. Dressed in hip-hop gangsta garb, I wonder if ‘Uza’ is actually short for ‘Yakuza’. Throughout the evening, he takes off his shirt, puts on a pair of boxing gloves, assumes a fighting pose, and then wobbles his knees in cowardice. He had just got back from the Philippines and showed me a few of his pics – including the Filipino girl he bedded, lying completely starkers (of course, I could see everything). He also has a copy of Playboy with him and later promises to take me to a brothel (at least, I believe that’s what he was getting at).

Our opponents are far more professional. Harder, better, faster, stronger. Hell, they even have their own kit – we just slip on some orange vests they brought along! They got here before us and brought their girlfriends along to watch them trounce us poor saps. As we wait for the rest of our team to arrive, we practice a bit and I’m not as bad as I thought I’d be. It seems the rest of my team are of a similar ability – bad, but by no means useless. At least we all know the ball has to get into the opponent’s goal and to do so it needs to be kicked.

The officials line the pitch; it’s time to talk tactics. No-one’s particularly forthcoming picking their positions, except Kenta going up front. I choose to play right mid-field, but it turns out I chose poorly; five minutes of running back and forth and I’m already knackered. I can’t ever remember being this tired at school! Regardless, when the ball does come my way, I do okay. Make a few good passes, keep control of the ball, with only a few slip-ups (including one literal slip-up, in which I tumbled backwards off the pitch, grazing my knee). However, once the opposing team get the ball, wrestling it off them is nigh-on impossible, as I fail to intercept every pass they make or time my tackles. Unfortunately, the ball keeps being played on the left – our opponent’s right, so they have little difficulty picking it up, making long passes and hitting the back of the net. A break after 15 minutes and a swig of Lemon Water does little to improve my condition, and after 30 minutes of play the score is 4-0.

We head benchwards while the other team continue to play amongst themselves. I examine my knee, but it’s not as bad as that of one of Kenta’s friends, bleeding away, so I don’t make a fuss. Then suddenly, it’s the second half – I thought that was it! Well, we’re more determined this time, and we create more opportunities and actually have some shots on goal and corners! This half we only let in one more goal, but it is clear that lack of ability, communication and technique are to blame for defeat and a final score of 5-0.

While everyone else smoothes the pitch with big brooms (this being sand, not grass, I didn’t know what was going on at first), I examine my shin injury (or shinjury). I picked it up in the second half, but can’t remember how – I think maybe from a tackle I made. It consists of a separate bruise and cut, which is bleeding profusely. As someone who doesn’t really get into fights nor have dangerous hobbies, such wounds are somewhat alien to me, so I try to mop it up as best I could with a towel, then roll up my sock to cover the damage and avoid running red all over my pantaloons.

Tired and aching, we make our way back to Osaka, and go our separate ways. It takes about two hours total to get back to Mukaijima after some train-hopping. After picking up some food and drink from the nearby convenience mart, I get to my room after 11pm, flop onto my bed, peel back my sock and clean the cut with antiseptic wipes. Over a week later, the scars still show, but are scabbing nicely.



Other than that, I’m ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Well, except for usual ailments and mosquito bites, that are fading away gradually now I have bought and applied Kayumi Bye Bye (though I must remember not after applying the tingly medicine to not rub my eyes immediately after). Plus, I still have these strange lumps in my armpits that won’t go away. The doctor I went to see before I left for Japan just said they were swollen glands under the hair follicles that will soon vanish, but if anything they’ve gotten bigger and increasingly tender. My armpit is looking more and more like Lemmy from Motörhead with every passing day.

And on that delicious thought, I bid you adieu. I will leave you with a quote from a French-style patisserie window nearby the football/baseball ground. Again, it’s not the spelling, but rather the grandiose wording that takes the crêpe…

“A completely new flavour combining in perfect harmony chocolate and custard.”

I’m going now, bye!

Worst Buys...So Far

One invariably makes some dodgy purchases when arriving in a new country, especially when you only have a partial understanding of the language (you try working out which cleaning product cleans what with only a name and fragrance to go by). However, sometimes the language barrier isn’t to blame. So here’s a quick rundown of them things I regret parting my cash over during the past couple of weeks (Blogger for some reason is being a big smelly uploading pics, so they are via ImageShack and poorly aligned).

APPLES
Finding fresh fruit and veg in Japan isn’t a problem – paying for it is. One apple can set you back around 200 yen (£1); a pack of grapes up to 500 yen. I did it multi-pack style, buying a bag of five giant apples for 400 yen. The thing is, they’re just too big, as if they were compensating for being so pricey. I don’t think I was buying them from the giant greengrocer’s section, but I can barely manage half of one. I’ve still got three left in my fridge a fortnight on. And chopping them up is a pain (see below).



KNIFE
The Daiso is a chain of 100 yen shops in which you can pretty much stock up for life. One such essential purchase was to be a knife for cutting up my brand new apples. I spurn the 100 yen knives on display in favour of a 315 yen model that looks the business. Wooden handle, made in Japan and it’s got kanji…on…the blade! Hell, it’s three times the price of the other knives, it has gotta be good. Wrong, wrong, wrong. No fancy way of saying it – it’s just plain crap. The wooden handle is splinter city and the blade itself struggles through the aforementioned apples – elephantine, they may be, but it has trouble piercing even the fruit’s very skin. And the less said about the carrot peeling fiasco, the better.



PIZZA
Now this might be a problem with my understanding of the inner workings of my toaster/microwave (I bought chips expecting to be able to cook them in some foil as the picture on the packet showed, but then I confirmed it was indeed a microwave, not toaster/oven, which scuppered my fries). But I bung in one of these frozen pizzas for the allotted time using the pizza setting on the device, and out comes a melty-topped burned-bottom pizza-pie for being to sup upon. However, every bite alternates between being ‘quite not bad’ to ‘vomit bread nastiness’. I finish the whole thing, but I wish I’d stuck to my poorly-chopped carrots (see above). I still have 2 remaining, but they’re going to be gathering frost for a while yet.

Coming soon – my Best Buys so far!