And Sometimes Why

Category: Japan

  • It’s the Little Things #7

    It’s not unusual for me to go a day or two without using “regular” utensils.

    We were out shopping a couple days ago and Yuko asked me a question I never imagined I’d hear-
    “Do you think we need another fork?”
    -and it reminded me that until last weekend we had exactly one fork and exactly one (table) knife.

    In our “silverware drawer,” there’s a section for cooking utensils (including two pairs of 30cm chopsticks and standard slotted spoons and whatnot), a section for chopsticks (filled to overflowing, in fact… just counted, eight pairs), and a section for miscellaneous utensils (including a couple muddlers, four full size spoons, a few dessert spoons and dessert forks, and the utensils you see pictured here).

  • Thanksgiving dinner

    Here’s my Thanksgiving day turkey dinner.

    You probably won’t be surprised to hear that turkey is an uncommon meat here in Japan, let alone whole turkeys. Whole birds are available from a select few mail-order importers, but they run close to $50 each. And that’s assuming you have someplace to cook the thing, as “full size” ovens are also rare.

    With the double meat I got, this is easily the most turkey I could get in a reasonable meal.

    Oh, also note the wet towelette (御絞り - おしぼり - oshibori) in the plastic wrapper. This is Japan, after all. 😉

  • Glucose

    I present to you: a bag of glucose.

    None of that mamby-pamby table sugar here, this is the pure stuff: bane of diabetics and enricher of their doctors, this is pure dextrose, or grape sugar as the bag says.

    I found this in a regular supermarket, in the baking aisle as I recall. This 150g bag will set you back a little over $3.

    Let’s make our own Pixy Stix!

  • Ice buckets

    Here’s another “Hey, that’s a good idea” moment.

    Convenience stores in Japan often sell small buckets already filled with ice, as well as individual plastic cups filled with ice (including lids and straws, if you look carefully).

  • Dessert sandwich?

    Have you ever seen a dessert sandwich?

    Here’s a sandwich made of a cinnamon danish bun with fruit, chocolate, and whipped cream filling.

    Call me crazy, but even if you love desserts made with fruit and cinnamon, when packaged like this these sandwiches do not look appealing in the least.

  • Japanese stroller for preschoolers

    What do you do if you run a preschool and you want to take your charges out to the park?

    Why, you pile them in one of these, of course.

    Our school doesn’t use them because we don’t take kids to the park until they can walk properly on their own, but I seem to recall seeing them pretty full with about eight kids in there at a time.

    If you look closely, you can see there are separate bicycle hand brakes for each of the large wheels on the sides, and the four small wheels are just swiveling casters.

    It also looks like the center piece opposite the handles opens up to let kids in and out, but I’ve only seen kids lifted in and out, so I don’t know for sure.

    I took these two pictures last week at the park near MSP, when another local preschool brought a large group of kids at the same time our bilingual classes were there.

    I don’t really know for sure, but if I had to I’d guess that preschools in the US don’t take their kids off premesis at all. What do you think about these things?

  • Extinguisher in a can

    Here’s a neat idea that may have you wondering why no one thought of it before: a small fire extinguisher in an aerosol can, for those small, not-yet-out-of-control fires.

    Seriously, why did no one think of this before?

  • Sliders

    This is a photo of the instructions posted on the inside of a sliding restroom stall door in the Takamatsu airport.

    Believe it or not, the (not-pictured Step 2 of the) instructions were actually useful because the lock was like some sort of logic puzzle where you have to figure out the exact direction and angle at which two pieces of metal engage and disengage.

    While conceptually a good idea to save space in those tiny airport restrooms (when was the last time you saw a stall as big as the one in the diagram?), this door proved more novelty than useful.

  • Oh, Billy!

    This pair of courtesy phones (look closely for the other cord hanging down on the other side of the glass) is at the Takamatsu airport, on the glass wall separating the pre-security check-in area and the post-security boarding gate area.

    It’s basically a prison phone so you can talk to people on the other side without having to deal with going out of and back into the secure area.

    Neat idea, eh?

  • Coins of the United States

    I took this photo at an airport Pizza Hut in Guam that is frequented by throngs of Japanese tourists.

    The names of the coins are on the left, and the values are printed on the right.