random Japan

There were many things we loved about Japan. Here is a collection of random things we felt were unique to Japan:

1.  They have drink machines EVERYWHERE.  This is extremely fortunate as we were often in need of a cold drink!

This one was a frozen drink machine.  Yes!

We loved their English named drinks.  Matthew thought drinking Cool Men's would be very good for his image.

2.  They have very visual signs.  This sign is all over the train stations.  I'm assuming it says: Hold on to the railing, don't talk on the phone, don't bump people with your bag, and don't fall on people.

This sign was in a bathroom.  It is a map of all of the stalls.  With pictures of Western vs. Japanese (squatter) toilets.  With numbers.  I thought it would be helpful to let the girls know "hey I'm in stall 35 if you need anything!"

3.  They take extreme care in all of their food presentations.  Whether it was dinner, a snack or dessert - we knew our food would be beautiful.  This is a picture of a dessert stand in a department store.  By the way, they take the same care wrapping your purchases of any type.  One day we were shopping, it was raining.  Every store would carefully wrap our purchase in a shopping bag and then they put the whole shopping bag into a waterproof bag.  Very thoughtful!

4.  They love animated characters.  Hello Kitty is of course their favorite.  There are many anime characters that we do not know, but they are very popular.  Right now Snoopy is pretty big - I think because it represents the Olympics in Great Britain.

5.  There are lots of fun, quirky things to buy - especially in their toy stores.  They have hundreds of iPhone cases.  I loved these food ones, but unfortunately couldn't figure out anyone who would appreciate them.

6.  They love snow cones.  And so do we.  It was quite a nice relief to have a cup of flavored ice!

7.  Their snacks are quite different from ours.  The closest thing we could compare this one to is a giant Cheeto.

8.  They beat the heat with shade umbrellas.  And they have really cool rain umbrellas.  We had to bring a few home.

9.  They also beat the heat with towels.  Every woman carries a little towel in her purse.  She uses it when there are no towels in the bathroom, to blot perspiration and to keep cool.  Great idea.

10.  The older people are very cute.  I asked our friend why they all have similar postures.  He said that they have spent so many years bent over their rice fields, that they kind of permanently bend over.

11.  They have amazing skyscrapers.  They just look cool.  Andrew had to stop and take this picture because he loved this building so much.

12.  Getting a haircut in Japan is quite an experience.  They take such great care in giving you the perfect cut.

13.  Being in Japan with Jon is awesome.  Not only can he speak the language, but he understands the culture.  He spent so many hours preparing for our trip.  I really appreciated that we were able to have experiences where we actually got to know Japan - not just see it.  What a great trip.  What a great guy.

perfect last night

For our last evening in Tokyo, we had to go to Jon's favorite restaurant there - Okajoki in the Nakano area.  He tries to go every time he is in Tokyo.

In the restaurant, there are seats around a counter with a big fire pit in the middle.  When you order a fish, they place it on a skewer and stick it in the sand by the fire.  It is seasoned and roasted whole, and then they open it and place it on your plate.  It was very good! 

They have various skewers that they use.

The kids loved it and got quite good at digging out bites from the whole fish.

Great restaurant!

Here is what it looks like from the outside.

After dinner, we were looking forward to trying an interesting place we read about called Namja Town.  It is a quirky amusement park/ food theme park.  It is located on two floors of a shopping mall.    Most of the space is filled with various games and rides.  However, there are three food areas: Dessert Republic, Ice Cream City and Gyoza Stadium.  As we had just eaten, we were not interested in Gyoza Stadium.  We were not really interested in the desserts they offered in Dessert City except for one thing - the Miracle Fruit.  

There is a special fruit discovered centuries ago in West Africa which contains a protein called miraculin.  The protein stimulates the tongue's tastebuds and makes sour things become sweet.  This is the reason we wanted to come to Namja Town - to see if what we read was true.  The Miracle Fruit Cafe is located in a small corner in Dessert Republic.

The menu shows that they sell the miracle berry along with low sugar desserts.

So we ordered a miracle berry for each of us and a platter full of sour fruit.  Here is Andrew tasting a lemon BEFORE he ate the berry.

Here are the berries.  You place a berry in your mouth and let it sit there for three minutes.  After the three minutes, you spit out the pit.  

We were excited to see if it worked, so we all grabbed a lemon slice and ate it.  Amazingly, it was actually quite good.  It still had a little bit of sour, but it tasted very sweet and good.  We finished off that plate of lemons, limes and grapefruits quickly!  I don't know why this fruit hasn't been publicized more.  It is really amazing!  

We had to visit Ice Cream City next.  It is this bizarre collection of different ice cream stands.

One of the ice cream stands consisted of little ice cream cups in over 200 different flavors.  Some of them looked good (berries, cheesecakes) and other looked like this:

No, we didn't try any of those weird flavors...we settled for regular gelato.  After we had our treats, we headed off for some karaoke.  All over Tokyo there are these huge buildings full of little karaoke rooms.

We had our own little room, and after figuring out how to work the machine, we began singing.  At first people were a little shy, but they quickly found their groove and had a blast.

After every song, the computer gives you a score on how you performed.

When our allotted time was up, nobody wanted to go.  It really is a lot of fun.

We said goodnight to Japan and prepared for our journey back home the following day.