Monday, November 13, 2006

Funny food

To be quite honest, half the time I'm not sure exactly what I'm eating. The Japanese have a habit of putting really badly translated English onto damn near everything, but still, going to the grocery can be a difficult, frustrating and endlessly amusing task when you don't know what the hell it is sitting on the shelf! Often I take things home and try them out without knowing the name or the ingredients. Sometimes it tastes good... Sometimes I'm not sure what it tastes like... Sometimes I throw it away. No wonder I'm losing weight!

Anyways, because I always carry my trusty digi-cam around with me, I recently snapped some pictures of some funny food that I thought you readers might appreciate.



This is a bottle of ume (plum) salad dressing. Note at the top, it says, 'Food, for ages 0 - 100'. Apparently ume dressing is appropriate for both the pre-natal and the ancient. But once you turn 101, you better stop eating it. Or you die.



This stuff is actually a pretty tasty treat, and yes, it does have whole fish in it. Pop the whole thing in your mouth. Crunch crunch crunch!



Ever wondered why Japanese people are so slim? Two words - portion control. A 'loaf' of bread ONLY HAS 6 SLICES!



This is again portion control - EACH COOKIE is individually wrapped! In fact, this is quite normal in Japan, every damn thing comes hermetically sealed three times over. I am sure they would shrink wrap each peanut if they could. I'm not sure what it is, this obsession with individual wrapping, but it sure does cause a lot of waste.



Ok ok... So this isn't food at all... But I thought it was quite amusing anyways. I saw it in the 100Â¥ store today. Apparently it's for women whose husbands and sons keep pissing on the toilet seat -- you put the sticker of the fly or the bullseye to train their aim! Note the angry housewife, and the apologetic husband and son. Also, at the bottom you will see they have a visual of both types of toilets - both the sitting type, and the squatting type, the same kind I encountered in Turkey!



Ah heck, since I've already deviated from the topic of food, I'll just keep going. This is a shot of my laundry machine. Please note the brand name. ''Fuzzy Logic''. That sounds about right to me!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow Ems, awesome pictures and I loved the impromptu phonetic lesson. MACDONARUDO HAMBUGA!

One of my friends in England did the same thing as you and taught English in Japan for 2 years. She went to a small village where she was even more of a oddity and was referred to as a Gai-Jin.

Recommend you read Shogun by James Clavell.

I'll keep checking for updates!

Tantie said...

Thanks Deano!! Yes all of us foreigners are referred to as 'gaijin' which means 'outsider', roughly translated. Luckily there are lots of foreigners and tourists in Tokyo. I still get stares sometimes. But that's just because I'm gorgeous.