Chicken by the gram

Now we know the street value of Origin's fried chicken.

Grand Canyon Pringles

Pringles went with Grand Canyon French Fries. Random, but better than the truth.

Surely the original flavor name was Highway Rest Stop Burger Chain. You know how those places always smell? Like they just used a mop soaked in fryer grease to clean up a ketchup spill?
These chips nail that. You can almost feel the slippery tiled floor and taste the flimsy wax cup.

What do you think the cowboy at the upper right is saying?

Space food

These patent-pending "weightless" jelly beans are rich in calcium and vitamins, nutrients "often lacking in a space diet." They also have "probiotics cultured on a Russian rocket."

Available in X-grape and X-muscat flavors.

Please note: they taste like they were cultured on a Russian rocket. Avoiod eating.

Hey, baby, I know this really great parasite museum

We finally made it to  the Meguro Parasite Museum, a staple of weird/free/weird-and-free lists of things to do in Tokyo. It's compact. A drab office building with a few rows of nicely lit glass jars right inside the glass front doors. 

There's not much English, so, beyond the obvious, it can be a little hard to tell exactly what's what. I heard one person say "That one looks like a big turtle head." It was a big turtle head. The parasites were in the eyelids. Without text, one illustration looks like it explains that matchbox-sized crabs could scrabble around inside human lungs.

On the second floor, there are black and white photos of people infected with parasites, a map of the world showing what kinds of micro-creepycrawlies are where, and more glimmering jars of parasites and infested tissues. There are life cycle diagrams that, as Jim pointed out, implicate the snail as the key vector for an awful lot of the parasites. Note to self: no more escargot.

The place was unexpectedly crowded, and it doesn't seem like a location that you'd stumble on accidentally. There were parents with kids - mostly boys - and lots of couples. Dressed up, datey, young couples. There's quite a bit of lore attached to date spots, like if you go on the swan boats in Inokashira park you'll break up. I have to wonder what an afternoon trip to the parasite museum foretells.

Visit the Parasite museum:
Open 10 - 5, Tues thru Sun.
4-1-1, Shimomeguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-0064 About a 15-min walk from Meguro station.

Let me emphasize that this is in Meguro, not Naka-Meguro. You might think this is obvious, given that it's called the Meguro Parasitological Museum and that would be clever to point out in the comments. You are welcome to do so, but know that it will not endear you to me.

Tickets for Sapporo Snow Festival still available

Hi. My name is Japandra and I'm a last-minute travel planner. I'm telling you how I got an air and hotel package for the Sapporo Snow Festival this February in case you are another one of those people who waits til the last  minute to buy tickets, even for things you really want to do - even for things you've wanted to do since you missed the JET trip in 1998.

I've been trying to find air and hotel packages (almost always a good deal) online for a week or two and running up against a different kind of obstacle on each of the many travel sites.

On one, I couldn't tell where any of the hotels were and had to skedaddle when I realized I'd almost booked myself someplace quite cheap that is in the middle of nowhere.

On another, I found something, but then had to fill out three pages of forms to register for the site so they could send me availability confirmation. It all timed out somewhere in the middle.

Another kept saying that the number of people didn't add up right and I couldn't find my mistake among the seven different drop-down fields for number of people, number of people per room, number of males, number of females, number of rooms, etc.

One had notation that I am sure is clear to Japanese people, but was worrying to me - how would a one-night, four-day package work?

A twitchy woman at the sprawling HIS in Shinjuku told me a week ago that they only had two openings left and that they were actually very expensive. I felt like she was trying to talk me out of it. She also was hesitant to give her name when I asked if I could check dates and call back.

I went to Yurakucho yesterday, which is lousy with travel agencies. A patient agent at JTB (the first agency I saw) walked me through lots of options. All was well until she got out the calculator - the total was about a jillion dollars per person. When I said that was over my budget, I swear I saw her mouth "Lord, help me not strangle this white girl."

Then she pulled out the "o-toku," or "value," flier. She ran the numbers and got the same flights and same hotel for half the original price. She said it might not include amenities like a "snow festival lounge with complimentary coffee." I'll manage. Booked.

Once I knew what I was looking for, I found similar packages online easily. (Arrrgh.) Just for the hell of it, you know.

And so I could tell you: there are still openings. Outside of the opening weekend, Feb 5 - 7, there seem to be plenty. And there are still some then, too. (The snow sculptures are only viewable from Feb. 5 through 12. Would it hurt anyone if these festivals extended through the second weekend instead of always ending on Fridays?)

Either search  札幌雪祭りツアー and work through the Japanese* or go to a travel agent. (You can call, but I find it helpful to have them show you a brochure with a map of where the different hotels are, which have what amenities, and just how far one stop on the subway is.)

People say if you don't book this thing by the previous summer, it is no giant snow palaces and ice princesses for you. I'm here to tell you, my last-minute brothers and sisters, you can still do it. But do it now.

*There's a decent amount of Sapporo snow festival information in English online, but I couldn't find much English package info for people already in Japan. This is Sapporo tour package information based on US departures, but if you live in the US and are toying with the idea of a jaunt to Hokkaido in two weeks, you probably have people making these arrangements for you.

Say it with dried squid covered in chocolate

To show your valentine how you feel.

I found this in the temporary Valentine's chocolate section of Tokyu Hands, but it isn't new. They also have dried squid dipped in caramel, and cheese, and sweet green tea. (Here is a much nicer picture of the いかチョコ from a mostly defunct Japanese site called Junk Food Mania.)
Exactly what feeling does shredded dried squid coated in chocolate convey?
Lower right text: Sweet Dainty

Related posts on the Valentine's Day bunny, Tokyo department store Valentine's madness, and a winged chocolate teddy bear/devil.  

He did it at home!

Please do it in America.

Please refrain from throwing in-car Halloween parties.

Or maybe at work? The important thing is that he did it. Amazing work, @tomoakiyama, exactly what I was hoping for (and then some) in the original Hang it at Home contest.

Almost makes me feel like having another little contest... anyone else feeling inspired?

You say kabacha, I say kabocha

I went to a few nice restaurants in New York and New Jersey and they were all serving kabocha. Is it trendy? Do you know what it is? Japanese often call it "pumpkin," though it is much closer to an acorn squash with its dark green skin and yellow flesh.
I ordered it at The Orange Squirrel in Bloomfield, calling it ka-bo-cha. The waiter kind of rolled his eyes and said, "It's ka-BA-cha and it's a Japanese butternut squash."
I jumped up and threw my napkin on the table and said, "No, it's ka-BO-cha, and it's more like an acorn squash!"
Wait a minute. No, I didn't. I said, "Ah, I see. Yes, that."
It was a huge side serving, a thick slaw with ginger and almonds and plenty of butter. It was so good. I love squash. I appreciate how Japanese cooking brings out the natural unadorned flavor of foods and all, and I am always happy to get a chunk or slice of steamed kabocha served with the skin on and maybe just a little subtly sweet sauce.  But ginger and almonds and butter!
Another place, Flatbush Farm in Brooklyn, was serving it over ricotta gnocchi that had the consistency of marshmallow. They were calling the squash kobocha and mixing it up with chanterelles and pumpkin seeds. Delicious.
America can call it anything it wants, as long as it keeps making it so good.

The image is from Japan's Agriculture & Livestock Industries Corporation. The page will tell you everything you'd like to know about kabocha (in Japanese).

An emoji is worth a thousand words

I got a prepaid phone to coordinate the final, rushed days of my trip home. It was right after Christmas and the shelves at Walmart were stripped almost clean - the cheapest phones were all gone. Still, at twenty bucks (including ten dollars of air time), Verizon's phone was much less expensive than the lowest Softbank option in Tokyo. This phone was easier (for me) to use than an average Japanese cell phone.  The interface was intuitive and - hallelujah! - English predictive text.

I was at a loss to reply, though, when I got messages saying things like "I'll meet you at 8." Where was my thumbs-up icon and the face that breaks, again and again, into an eye-crinkling smile? And when I was running late, where were the drops of sweat and the frustrated face to show that I was hurrying as fast as I could? What good was writing "Happy new year!" without an animated pop of confetti?

I didn't realize how dependent I'd become on these little "emoji." Some of my friends scatter them willy-nilly as decorations. I use them sparingly, but, I now see, lean on them to convey a lot of what I say.

It was a relief when I got back to be able to send a message explaining exactly how I felt in just one character... an animated string of zzZZs.

The emoji screen grab is from Maho no Kan. There are lots more emoji there, too, and they're animated. Check 'em out.

An emoji survey translated into English at What Japan Thinks found that 72% of cell-phone emoji users were dissatisfied with the number of faces, critters, and pictures available on their phones. There are over 500 on my not-new phone. I wonder what kinds of icons people would still like to see?

Kindle: How to out-gadget the Japanese

Never would have guessed at the pointing and staring on the train. Hmm, I hope it is the Kindle they're looking at.

UPDATE, January 14:
It is.
Today, while I was leaning against a pillar on the subway platform reading Unaccustomed Earth, out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone turn around and look at me. I looked up, expecting to see that I'd imagined it, but there was a slightly older woman who had just walked past, stopped in her tracks, turned around and smiling straight toward me. I looked around, confused, then down to see if something was stuck to my dress. She shook and her head and bowed a little, which I took to mean, "No, you're not trailing toilet paper and I'm not insane, sorry to have confused you." Then she held her hands up as I was and pointed at her own imaginary little screen, smiling and nodding more.

This was in Roppongi and people skew a little wackier than average. I think this story sounds made up. I probably wouldn't believe it if someone told me. Especially because the Kindle, as amazingly functional a device as it is, doesn't strike me as quite as beautiful or eye-catching as some gadgets. But there's something about it that attracts attention every time I take it out of my bag.


A waitress at a Cuban restaurant asked me what it was and then asked if she could hold it. Everyone who touches it says "thin" and "light" and "sugoi." Except one lady. She said it was heavier than it looked and kept jabbing at the screen to drive home the point that it doesn't have a touch screen.

A couple on another train were poking each other and looking my way, too. I looked at them, like, er, problem, guys? But, no. They also pointed straight at the machine and cooed like it was a baby robot I was holding, and not a monochrome eBook reader with a slightly awkward keyboard.

Pancakes and greenbeans

I don't think there's much point in complaining about airplane food. It's airplane food.  What more do you need to say?*

I don't expect much. Claggy sauces, mushy veggies, uncuttable meat, and rock-cold rolls are barely worth mentioning. 

But this breakfast took it the extra step for me.

 

You've got the canned fruit cocktail with the standard anemic grapes, the pressurized yogurt that is just waiting to spit when opened, ho hum, but, what's that peeking out from under the pancakes? Why, it's a boiled carrot. And behind that?

 

Mmm. Green beans and onions. Just like... just like no breakfast ever served in the history of any country blessed with the wonders of air travel.

*My uncle, who is almost eighty, disagrees. He says, "They always give you a meal or two. It's always pretty good, isn't it?" He is an outstanding cook, so clearly something has changed. When he saw the photos, he agreed that this did not look "pretty good." "Gee!" He said. "Why would they serve that?"

Green Tea Kit Kats, put to good use

Dad reports they taste good even mashed into a paste that only a toddler could make.

I got to visit six little ones on the trip home.  Three of them adopted my wheeled yellow suitcase like it was a new puppy. Two tried chopsticks for the first time. One got a "sick baby" for Christmas that says "Mommy, I feel tewwible" when you press her stomach. All are adorable and delightful. None are getting any Kit Kats.

Sit on your suitcase at home

It so happens I took the Narita Express to the airport and the Limousine Bus back. Both have places for luggage. If I had had my wheelie suitcase with me on a subway, you can be sure I wouldn't have been sitting on it. That is just asking for a spill.