Here’s a picture of some bento my wife made for me. I love the variety of food and the presentation! I feel bad because her food is delicious, and that causes me to eat every meal pretty quickly instead of taking my time to enjoy every bite.

We were doing some traveling so I we hit up a mall for some shopping and some food. That’s when I ran across this beast! For ¥390 I could have eaten two feet of egg rolls! These are the most awkward egg rolls I’ve ever seen, somebody could use them as weapons.

For people living in Japan that miss the taste of Dr. Pepper, Pringles, M&Ms, Gummi Bears, and other snacks, you can find some in Japan! I might sound a little too excited, but it’s not every day I get to enjoy some American style junk food that doesn’t taste like fish, rice, or soy sauce.

This was a surprise gift from my wife this evening. The story she doesn’t know is I spent a over half of my day on the phone today with people in the U.S. and one of them was snacking on some jelly bean during our conversation. I go “My god man, are you eating M&Ms?” and he’s like “Nah, they’re Jelly Beans a al Costco” It made me a little jealous… but not anymore! I didn’t tell anybody about the conversation so it kicked ass when I opened my eyes to these.

My DR Pepper is in the fridge, M&Ms are in the freezer, “Goldbaren” are on standby, and half of the salt & vinegar chips are “in mah belly”, ah yes, good times.

This is one of the gazillion reasons I love my wife. One afternoon while I was working I mentioned that I was hungry and was thinking of eating a snack. About 15 minutes later BIZZAM! snack in my face! The food was excellent, and she is awesome! Her food is always the best and the presentation is wonderful, it makes it tough to go to restaurants. I’d post every meal but hey… I don’t want to make you too jealous If she didn’t make this my original plan was eating some rice… with milk… and sugar…

For just 298 yen you could be enjoying some watermelon Kit-Kat candy right now! When I think of candy in Japan I think of Kit Kat because it’s popular here and comes in a variety of flavors. Skittles needs to launch a world wide campaign! Everybody should know that Skittles it the #1 candy, great for all occasions, and they should be sitting here hanging out with the Kit Kats!

That’s right, eel is all the rage this summer!! At least it was in July. Here’s some eel I feasted upon at a restaurant that serves mostly eel! It’s squishy, kind of like soggy fish, but not like ludafish. I was hungry, at ate this meal like it was my last, and it was good. If you haven’t tried it I recommend doing it at least once. If the taste reminds you of a dirty hippy, you know “earthy”, then you lost the unagi lottery my friend… so try again! If you’ve never had the earthy flavored eel, it’s like eating good eel with a handful of dirt (give it a try!).

Hiding Unagi

Unagi Uncovered!

Unagi Close Up! Delicous!

This is my first experience with Chugen. Chugen (also called Ochugen) was originally a day that people gave gifts to the ancestral spirits. Shopping at Iwataya was amazing, there was one huge area dedicated to picking out gifts and a waiting area for sending them out. We sent the gift of… fish eggs! I took this picture with my camera phone. I didn’t think of taking a picture of the entire store, doh. The first picture were the choices we used, the 2nd picture are the eggs and fish stuffed with eggs.

The first Friday this August we went to a summer festival. I don’t know the official term besides ‘awesome’! Most people wore a yukata (looks like a kimono) or jinbei (shirt and shorts outfit), Fireworks lasted about 90 minutes, and the vendors sold crazy foods. It was about hot, about 85 F (29.5 C) with 90% humidity.

There were breaks between some of the firework explosions to announce sponsors of the event on a loudspeaker. I’ve never seen this before. I wonder how much an ad placement costs. One sponsor was Coca Cola and a big bottle of coke lit up near the end, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

Kids were using a flat paper net to catch goldfish, and turtles! It was ¥100 per try and they were doing great even though the net break easily. Food like grilled meat on a stick, takoyaki, dangly tentacles, and other mystery meat ran ¥400-500. Here are a few pictures.

Summer festival fireworks

"I like Turtles!"

Mmm... grilled tentacles

Takoyaki aka Octopus

I was craving a bubbly soda and I’ve hit the jackpot! I’ve seen soda in the (estimated) 16oz/500ml plastic bottles just like the U.S. but they run about 150 yen. A while ago I went from convenience store to convenience store to see what the different stores offered and I found a 500ml can of Coca Cola at the Daily Yamazaki for just 100 Yen!

I’d say it’s smaller than this huge Coke I saw at a crepes store. And it’s only 47 yen more than the 160ml can of Coke I found at Sunny (a grocery store chain).

First of all before your journey you’ll need 100 Yen. That’s right, tax is already included in the price!

 Next, you’ll need to find a Daily Yamazaki convenience store. It looks like this (I got the picture from Wikipedia)

And here are some pictures of the beast of a drink!

For the ultimate cheap snack I recommend this 100 Yen Coke and the 105 Yen Tiramisu. Both combined are cheaper than the Ishiyaki Imo from the back of the traveling guy’s truck.

If you’re ever in Japan and you’re craving something cold, sweet, and cheap I highly recommend the Tiramisu which you can find at Family Mart. This inexpensive Tiramisu is made with one layer of chocolate cake, one layer of vanilla pudding, and coffee + cocoa sprinkled on top.

The price… 105 Yen.
The satisfaction… 80%

It seems to have more pudding and fluffier cake than the 300 Yen Tiramisu’s at 7-11, but it’s nice because it’s light, sweet, and delicious.  I took some pictures so you can see it in action!

This what 105 Yen looks like. This is all you need to get this party started. Reminds me of a quarter and a big penny with a hole in it.

And this is what a Family Mart looks like (picture taken from Wikipedia)

And this is the Tiramisu. The conbini clerks also give you tools to conquer your quests. Today’s weapon of choice is a tiny tiny spoon.

As I open the container I see it has Japanese writing on each side. I can’t read it so I assume it says “Tastes great! Only 105 Yen hellz yeah! Fat free and calorie free, just like the State Fair food you eat once a year back home! You should try to put it on a stick and deep fry it some day. Enjoy! / 140ml”

And here it is in the final stage of life. It took 2 minutes to devour with the tiny spoon. I like the spoon… it forces me to slow down and enjoy things.