飲み物 Nomimono II: The Overflowing Finale

Drinks. Beverages. Libations. Potables. These bring me more joy and excitement than I should be comfortable admitting. But sadly, I neglected my duties as chief drink scientist while in Japan. The research was there, but the publications were not. I should be at Anthony Fauci levels of popularity for my work on a pop task force. Instead, I made just one nomimono post in 2.5 years while racking up a new drink count that would outpace the amount of original Netflix releases that nobody will ever see.

But I took pictures. I chronicled and catalogued. And even though I can't sip from the fountain of truth and give my immediate thoughts on each drink's bouquet, viscosity, density (uh...what's that one great wine word I'm forgetting? LEGS!), I can rummage through very arguably the world's greatest non-eidetic memory for that immaculate wit and whatever the opposite of brevity is (longevity?) to bring you the final collection of memorable drinks from a country where most people literally only drink different forms of tea.

 

So let's start with the category that has the most variance in terms of my enjoyment: The Vitamin Drinks.

All of these drinks have anywhere between a hint to a haymaker of that chalky, bitter flavor that invokes Flintstone's vitamin tablets or that old Allsport taste. I truly cannot understand how Allsport was a drink I tolerated or even thought I enjoyed as a kid when compared to Gatorade, Powerade, a shared Capri Sun juice box with a notorious straw chewer, grass-laced water that got into your mouth while you were going down a slip and slide, or even just plain water itself. Unfathomably, Allsport products still exist in the form of powdered drink mixes, so now you too can taste what it's like to drink a rainbow pack of sidewalk chalk tossed into a blender and liquefied if you so choose. Japan's vitamin drinks have the most in common with vitamin/energy drinks like Red Bull with varying degrees of sweetness. So here are four more beverages that I would absolutely still drink over Allsport.

• Dodekamin - This is a pretty standard vitamin/energy drink and probably the one I have the least to say about. Does its name imply that it has been infused with 12 different vitamins? Could be. I had it only a handful of times, despite it being one of the more ubiquitous energy drinks in conbinis, drug stores, etc. Blame it on the packaging maybe. It just didn't sell me visually. Taste-wise, it had a very chest-filling kind of thing going on. Or like bottom of throat, top of chest maybe? Is that just me trying to come up with another way to describe the vitamin sensation? Get it if you're a completionist, but I don't think there's anything memorable about it.

• Lifeguard - If the eyeballs with wings or the manic rabbit who just rolled a blue shell and is gaining on you in an off-brand, drug-induced version of Mario Kart didn't sell me, then "royal jelly" absolutely did. This is something you drink to see how strong your immune system is and if you can survive it, you can probably survive anything. If adult swim created a drink label, it would look something like this. I was super excited about this insane looking packaging and it was one of the first drinks in 7/11 that made me think I should find weird drinks and write down some stuff about them. Despite that, it wasn't until months later that I actually bought one to give it a try. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the expectations the imagery gave me. Lifeguard's color was surprisingly that same mahogany that Dodekamin was. I felt it had more "pop" qualities though, likely having some fruit flavors added to it. It's probably a decent vitamin/energy drink, but because I was expecting flavors so overwhelming and confounding, I didn't return to this one all that often.

• Match - Not to be confused with Japanese "matcha," which is green tea. Although for the longest time, I did debate with myself as to what kind of drink this was, if it was more closely related to a tea drink, and if it was going to be something worth getting. And now that I'm seeing the names of these drinks together (Dodekamin, Lifeguard, Match), it probably would be super fascinating to look into the reason these names were chosen or if they have any meaning beyond being a random English word. Match is also a bit harder to find than the others from my experience but eventually, I pulled the trigger on this semi-opaque yellow-green beverage (do I dare call it chartreuse?) and found a really good vitamin drink. Its smell was more sweet and fruity than vitamin-y which was encouraging. The first notes I got when I tried it was that iron, metallic taste. But as the drink hits the back of your tongue and goes down your throat, there's a pretty sugary, syrupy fruit flavor and aftertaste and the vitamin tinge all but disappears. For me, this drink provided a nice break here and there when my favorite drinks started to dull and lose their impact a bit. Perhaps the Dr. Pepper of Japanese vitamin drinks.
  

• Dekavita - My undisputed king of vitamin/energy drinks. Pronounced day-kah-vee/bee-tah and not dee-cav-ituh, which I learned the hard way when I tried to model an English conversation with the Japanese sensei talking about our favorite drinks and nobody knew what I was talking about until I wrote it on the chalk board and the sensei laughed and got the students in on it too about how hilarious it was that I would come up with such a ridiculous pronunciation. But not even that traumatizing experience could sour my feelings for this ultimate drinking experience. To be honest, if this picture is accurate, I had no clue that Dekavita had honey, lemon, lime, and other citrus flavors in it, but *chef's kiss* that makes so much sense now in retrospect considering I love those flavors and was drinking one of these pretty much every day. Its color is perfectly in between the mahogany of Dodekamin and Lifeguard and the dull yellow of Match. A sexy, honey bronze. And this baby hits your mouth with a crisp melange of vitamin and sweet flavors. Where does the citrus end and the vitamin begin? I don't know. But drinking Dekavita after a meal would give me that same "drink, drink and don't even think about breathing until your eyes start to water or your brain starts sending signals to your body that it thinks you're drowning" desire that so many of my other favorite drinks give me. Don't just send this down my esophagus into my intestines and kidneys, get this in my lungs and all the organs that can hold it. Highly recommend. No other vitamin or energy drinks here can compare.
  

Before going to the next category, I realized I have a handful of random drinks that don't neatly fit into any category, and I likely wouldn't ever post or share these pictures anywhere else. So I'm just going to throw out some pictures of other fun drinks I tried in Japan. Here are . . . The Piebald Potables.

• Gabunomi Blue Hawaii - After melon soda, I feel like blue hawaii is the next most common flavored soda you might be able to find at the drink bar in a restaurant or karaoke place in Japan, ignoring dark cola drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Mets, etc. Several brands have a blue hawaii flavor they offer. A valiant #2 to in color and flavor to the vibrancy that is melon soda. Blue Hawaii in Japan would essentially be like a "soda float." The generic flavor of "soda" in Japan is kind of like a bubblegum flavored carbonated beverage (if you've ever tried the standard Ramune, it's that flavor). So a bit of a creamy-infused bubblegum soda. Also, there must have been some marketing crossover with something that had a "sumo mouse," since that picture on the label says as such. A blue hawaii was a nice break from the standard flavors every once in awhile.
  
  

• Vanilla Cherry Cola - I shouldn't have to explain much about this one. Not as good as I was hoping when I randomly found this in a nearby Don Quijote and was prepared to make frequent trips to regularly get some cherry flavored pop, which otherwise didn't exist anywhere that I could find. But either the cherry flavor wasn't as noticeable as I was hoping or the above vitamin drinks had dulled my taste buds to it. Later, there was a Vanilla Float Coca-Cola that was available for a few months and seemed to be the equivalent of Vanilla Coke from home. Now that rocked hard. This one, not so much.
  

• Pokemon Soda - The Pokemon tie-in is the only good thing that I remember about this drink on the left. Maybe I'm being influenced by its color, but I'm remembering that it just tasted like flat, non-alcoholic champagne. Like the lightest pear flavor or something. Sadly, not a good drink. Don't remember the drink on the right at all. I think just standard ramune flavor.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mountain Dew Violet - A special inclusion. I never drank this rare Mountain Dew flavor and regret it deeply. Now personally, I'm not a fan of grape flavored drinks, and I recall having just drank something before stumbling on this vending machine in Kamakura. So I made the poor decision to pass on this. I had never seen it or heard of it before, and I don't think I'll ever see it again. I assume this is the only evidence that such a drink exists and refuse to research it any further and realize others have tried a flavor of Mountain Dew that I haven't.
  
  

• Mets Samurai Blue - Perhaps this was just the Mets brand marketing a ramune flavored soda to promote Japan's soccer team during the 2018 World Cup, but the handful of Samurai Blues I drank during the week and a half or so when I could find it were really good. And my drinking these was also very likely the reason Japan's team did so well, advancing from the group play and having a surprising lead for most of the match against heavy favorite Belgium (who went on to finish 3rd), before being handed a stunning loss as Belgium scored a go ahead goal on a counter attack in the very last minute of stoppage time. But look at the navy blue, almost purple tinted color! I definitely remember this having some more flavors than a standard ramune soda and would love to drink it again. It was a great drink and reminds me of some great memories watching World Cup matches at 3am and the Cup Final at a packed bar in Roppongi with great friends.
  
  

During this past week, I thought melon soda had finally made its way to the States, only to find that Mountain Dew choosing a poor name for this new drink—"Major Melon"—wasn't even their biggest mistake. No, instead of creating a melon flavored Mountain Dew like I expected, the new drink was watermelon flavored. Probably the Pepsi company's worst decision since marketing Pepsi Blue under the Pepsi label instead of under the Mountain Dew label where it obviously would have been more well-received. Still miss you Pepsi Blue, even though I'm almost positive that Mountain Dew Voltage and Revolution were very close variations on it.

 

But while I feel Mountain Dew missed satisfying my own greedy desires with this NOT-melon flavor, they have been doing one thing I loved about food and drink in Japan. Seasonal Specials.

Seasons are very influential in Japanese culture. Seasonal motifs aren't just important in dictating certain festival periods and the kinds of activities or gatherings affiliated with them, but are also incorporated into Japanese arts and crafts, clothing, and in the kinds of ingredients or food available. If you've watched any cooking shows that have covered Japanese cuisine, you're probably familiar with that concept of seasonal influences in dishes. And for sure, you would absolutely find seasonally inspired meals at classy restaurants. But like clockwork, on the first of every month, even the fast food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC would roll out new monthly specials. From the addition of eggs on the burgers during September to represent Tsukimi, or the "moon viewing" season, to special Hawaiian influenced burgers, to my absolute favorite: the spicy chicken mcnuggets AND spicy sauce. I was always super excited to check out what new specials were added each month.

And while not as routine as the fast food restaurants, I could often find new seasonal pop flavors. So here are some of my absolute favorite drinks from Japan for their thematic dedication: The Seasonal Specials!

• Halloween Pepsi - My favorite season. My favorite holiday. I only got to drink this once, maybe twice, but I don't remember it being as good as I hoped. To be fair, this was the first seasonal Pepsi drink I tried, so I didn't know at all what to expect. But when I saw this awesome Halloween themed label and the pink, fruity looking drink sitting in a store, I was so excited and knew I had to try it while it was still around. At the time, I felt like Japan didn't do as many fruit flavored sodas, so was it just colored pink and going to taste mostly like Pepsi? Was it going to be strawberry lemonade flavored or something that I pictured might match the color of the drink? Honestly, I don't remember it having any particular flavors or tastes that I could describe here. It definitely wasn't just a colored dark cola and for sure no lemonade flavors. Possibly strawberry. Could it have been lychee? Lychee was a pretty popular flavor at times during the year for drinks, but I never tried one, and I think lychee drinks typically look pretty milky or yogurty. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to solve this spooky mystery of just what flavor Halloween Pepsi was. Give it a try and tell me. Better yet, give ME one to try, and I'll tell you.
  

 

• Midnight Pepsi - I'm typically opposed to grape flavored anything, but after drinking this special Pepsi flavor, I'm considering softening my stance. It's probably the case that I liked this grape pop because it didn't use artificial grape flavors, or at least was imitating a different kind of "grape" taste than from what the American grape flavor is like. I actually think you're more likely to enjoy this if you're not a grape drink fan. I could see it being a let down for anybody that loves grape flavored stuff. But that is precisely why I came back to this drink often while I could find it for those few weeks it was around.
  
  
  
  
  
• Pineapple Pepsi - Midnight Pepsi is debatably seasonal. I'm not even sure what time of year I was drinking it. But the only time I found Pineapple Pepsi was a week or two before I was leaving Japan in August. This picture may very well be the last day I had my car to drive around in and went out and across the bridge over Lake Kasumigaura to the town on the other side for the first and only time. So mark this bad boy down for your summer drink. Does Japan have a split on people who think pineapple in pepsi is great and people who think putting pineapple into pepsi is absolute heresy? I don't know. But pineapple in pepsi is not as good as pineapple on pizza.
  
  

• Sakura Pepsi - In Japan, sakura or "cherry blossom" items are very prevalent during the hanami season. The time of year when the cherry blossom trees bloom gorgeously pink thumb sized flowers, which turn pure white shortly after, and only days later, will all drop off the branches in near perfect unison; a swirling blizzard of petals. A reminder of the briefness of beauty and perhaps of our own lives. Hanami typically lines up with the last week or two in March through the first week in April. Sakura flavored desserts (like mochi or ice cream) and alcohol (like sake or champagne) are the more common items, but I was glad to see that pop wasn't neglected. Sakura flavor is light, sweet, and could call to the mind the melted juice at the end of a strawberry freeze pop or at the bottom of a cherry snow cone. Like a slightly desaturated version of those flavors. I remember this Sakura Pepsi being just that taste-wise, with the added zing of carbonation. Much like the hanami season, this drink was there and gone in a blink. I'm not sure I saw it more than a couple times, and I only tried it once. Gone from my mouth too soon.
  

• Christmas Pepsi -Woo baby! Christmas Pepsi truly knocked it out of the park for me. This is my #2 Japanese pop and very arguably a top 3 drink, period. I must have first found this in the winter of 2017, but I definitely remember being able to find it into January of 2018 as well. Sadly, despite absolutely looking for it in the late months of 2018 and the start of 2019, I never found it again. I still rue only having about 2 months to enjoy this fantastic representation of winter. The clear color, like an icy, cloudy winter day. Gray and atemporal. Still and chilly. On your tongue, the taste crisp and biting. Any tangible flavor or notes gone in a flash, leaving only the ghost of something that once was there. A lingering frost at the back of your throat for an aftertaste. Like the air of your first breath when you step outside into sub-freezing weather. I cannot stress enough how well this drink replicates winter in your mouth. Simultaneously tasteless but tangible. The best comparison is like a Sprite or Squirt with the fruit flavors just barely present. I just hope they are still producing this magical formula. A perfect winter pop!
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Peach Coke - You'd think it couldn't get any better after that last description. But have you heard about our soda lord and savior, Peach Coke? This should be everywhere, all the time. To lock this majestic beverage to a season is bordering on cruel. Peach Coke was a staple in Japan from late January through the hanami season, which is a good 2-3 months. Now, I know there's like a "craft" Coke in glass bottles you can find here that is called like Georgia Peach Coke or something. I haven't tried it. It could be similar. But I'm going to assume that even something so similar doesn't match the euphoria a Japanese Peach Coke can give. This pairs with any meal, any triumph or tragedy, celebration or chill time. Peach Coke is perfection in a bottle. The flavors are what you would think, but meld together so much more wonderfully than you'd ever possibly imagine. If you've ever wanted to relive the first time you had that insane concoction called "Cherry Coke," this will absolutely take you back there and then some. Peach Coke is a religious experience and after you drink one, you won't see the world in the same way.

Japan is a bit lacking in drink variety compared to the U.S., but where they are really missing some more options is in sports drinks. But maybe it just seems that way to me. The first time I went to a basketball club practice at the school I was teaching, one, I didn't bring anything to hydrate with and two, was very out of shape but tried to pretend I wasn't struggling hard. The students noticed I didn't have anything to drink during a water break and ran off to get me something because not drinking during a drink break just wouldn't do. They returned with a liter bottle of something that did not look like it was going to be thirst quenching. It was a brown color and did not seem light or fruity at all. It was barley tea. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad. But it seemed strangely grainy and not refreshing at the time. Maybe cold teas serve as the only kind of refreshment people in Japan need after a good exercise. But lucky for me, there were at least two decent options for beverages in Japan that I would call Sports Drinks.

• Pocari Sweat - You may recognize this photo from my imaginary Pocari Sweat endorsement. Pocari Sweat may be a terrible name for pretty much anything, but it is a pretty good thirst quencher after an athletic activity. Yes, it is actually a bit musky because of the grapefruit flavor (or possibly just because the name conjures those tastes and your brain tells you really are detecting a hint of human sweat), but it's very hydrating, refreshing, and isn't overly syrupy or loaded with artificial flavors like a lot of other sports drinks here. It's something you should try just for the name alone, but odds are you'll probably find it pretty tasty as well.
  
  
  
  

• Aquarius - Not just a horoscope sign that I find very compatible with this Swagittarius, but one of the most refreshing drinks in Japan. Like Match, I held off on drinking this for awhile, because was this just water? Flavored water? The name made me think so. I didn't think I'd get much out of it. Kind of looks like Propel, which is the 2000s of version of Allsport. Get that trash out of here! Aquarius is Pocari Sweat without the musk. Incredibly smooth and and clean flavor. But I noticed something really strange about Aquarius as I started drinking it more frequently. It definitely seemed to hit the taste buds different depending on if I was just drinking it with a meal versus drinking it after running or on a really hot day to cool down. It was just average if I had it with food. But this drink is absolutely the most amazing thing to hit your tongue after a run or work out. I am convinced that Japanese scientists studied dehydrated tongues and determined precisely what flavors and electrolytes would send signals to the tongue to make it feel as hydrated and quenched as possible put them in this drink. I've never had something so perfectly seem to satisfy the exact taste or sensation I needed. I would often find myself wanting a second bottle after the first. And sometimes I would indulge, but it always seemed like that first bottle was the perfect amount to completely rehydrate and replenish whatever I needed and the second didn't hit as hard. This drink is the either the product of science or witchcraft and truth be told, I don't care which. It's amazing!
  

I've got one final drink I must discuss. This may come as a big surprise, but I sometimes drink healthy beverages too. There are tons of great options for healthy drinks in Japan. From the myriad kinds of tea (green, black, oolong, barley, milk tea, lemon tea, peach tea, etc.) to yogurt based drinks to juice. And as I was looking for some healthier options, I found one that I must heap limitless praise on.

• Acerola Juice - A fruit closely related to the cherry, acerola juice is an option I truly wish we had available here. It wasn't until at least a year after I had been living in Japan that I finally gave this a try. The color of this humble hero is clear and modest. But the smell and taste is sweetly divine. Perfect for sipping on a lazy, sunny day. Perfect for drinking to feel refreshed after exercising. Perfect for drinking with something savory like sushi, gyuudon, korokke. The picture above is the exact brand/type of acerola juice. There are some other acerola juice options, but they did not come as close to the divine as this one. Sweet, tangy, a tiny bit of sour, rejuvenating, and intoxicating. I imagine nothing less than kings and queens in the throes of young love sharing this hallowed juice in an act of eternal communion. Put me on record: acerola juice is the best juice, bar none. I love acerola juice.

Life and Death; Honor and Ox Tongue

There is a saying in Japan: "好きな物も嫌いな物も食べたい (Suki na mono mo kirai na mono mo tabetai)," which means "I want to eat it whether I like it or hate it."

During the short training period before I started teaching, it was stressed that school lunches would operate under that one simple rule. "Students are expected to eat everything served for lunch, and you are too," I was told.

And while this saying was maybe supposed to only apply to classroom lunches, I wasn't about to take the risk and not eat every single piece of food and last rice grain in front of me no matter where I was, so long as there was any Japanese person around to see. I didn't know what kind of message I could be sending if I didn't eat everything.

Oh the horrors and culinary atrocities they had seen committed by some American, they would tell their friends after watching me discard a few scraps of food. "Our food is gross and disgusting to him. He must think only American food is worthy of his high and mighty taste buds. Another American with no respect for our values and culture."

Okay, so I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek, but understand where I'm coming from: I've got to worry about acting my best all the time to try to make a good impression on behalf of all Americans; to make all of you look good and be thought of highly in case you ever visit Japan, and that's no easy task considering you're all giant losers and terrible people. It's a lot of pressure. And trying to smear blush and lipstick on you pigs almost got me killed.

It happened one night at dinner within my first month of being in Japan. I was going to meet my Japanese friend, Nozomi, for only the second time. Here's some facts about Nozomi: One, her name means "hope." Two, she likes American Pop Rock/Punk bands like Fall Out Boy and New Found Glory. And three, she thinks the American accent is really cool. She also spoke much better English than I did Japanese, so it was nice to that we were able to communicate in my mother tongue without any issue.

The original plan was to meet her in Odaiba, the island playground I wrote about in a previous blog, and go to an Onsen (hot spring) themed park. But I also decided to tell some students I miiiight go to their basketball club practice on that same Saturday.

Having half-committed to a basketball club practice, my sense of having to meet all expectations kicked in, and I felt like if I didn't go now after that promise, the students would never trust me again. "Oh he must think our Japanese basketball isn't as important as American basketball," or isn't as important as whatever else they imagine a strange American guy living in Japan who can't speak Japanese does on weekends. After letting them down, they'd decide to shun me and ignore me at school. They'd start tripping me when I walked by their desks and pretend it was just an accident. They'd teach me the wrong way to play their crazy, Japanese games and laugh at me when I followed their fake rules like I was some kind of idiot. They'd make fun of me in Japanese and would all giggle about it, and I wouldn't even understand I was being made fun of (this probably happens anyway). I'd smile and laugh with them like I "got" the joke, making an even bigger ass of myself, all because I didn't just bite my tongue when a student asked if I'd ever come to a Saturday basketball practice.

I also reasoned, they probably don't understand the American habit of kind of making a plan without actually being expected to commit. Okay, that's probably just a Matt habit. If you have to eat anything whether you like it or not in Japan, I figured if you bring up an idea for a plan, you better do it whether you want to or not. So I had to go.

I had been to the basketball club once or twice before after school and it only lasted about an hour and a half, so I let Nozomi know the time I could meet based on this while also hiding the fact that I was choosing this time because I had made this other plan. Instead, I told her the school needed me to help with English stuff (whatever that means).

But as it turns out, Saturday practice runs a bit longer. It was at least 3 and a half hours long.

When the practice finally finished, I messaged Nozomi and apologized, saying I had to stay longer than I expected and asked what she wanted to do at this point: stick to the same plan, cancel altogether, or alter the plan. She decided she still wanted to meet (what can I say, I'm a silvertongued heartthrob), but that we could just meet at a train station in Tokyo and get dinner somewhere nearby.

At this point, I already felt like I kind of owed her big time since I screwed up the timing of our original plan just to play basketball with some 14 year old girls—I taught them how to play "knockout," which they seemed to like, and made a half court shot (on the second try) for them since I can't dunk even though I'm an American—so I definitely didn't want to do anything else that might offend her or be considered rude, and I wanted to be extra mannered and cultured.

Once I met up with Nozomi, I graciously asked her to pick the place to eat, because crap man, I couldn't read anything in Japanese, and I probably couldn't tell a restaurant from a store just by looking at it at that point. She asked what unique Japanese foods I had tried. Ramen, sushi, takoyaki...kind of the usual stuff and nothing that crazy. She asked if I wanted to try 牛タン (Gyuutan), which is ox tongue. I said, "Hell yeah" to act like, "yeah, I'll eat anything whether I like it or hate it" in case that was the kind of thing that would impress her, and we went off to some restaurant where I could get some tongue.

Tokyo is a more vertical city compared to the major American cities from my experience. What I mean by that, is that in America, anything above the first floor in a large building is typically just going to be floors and floors of office space. Thousands of square feet of lifeless husks in identical cubicles—save for pictures of the families they never get to spend enough time with or trinkets that remind them of the happier things in life they no longer have time for—punching meaningless words and numbers into documents or spreadsheets to ensure good customer rapport or logistical efficiency without ever having to speak a word to another human being. Having whatever kind of joie de vivre they might have sucked out of them and turning to them into the sitting dead. NPCs from a video game set on an infinite loop. Everyday the same dream.

What I'm saying is, in America, you rarely have to go up any floors to get to a shop, restaurant, or the like. Not so in Tokyo. In one building you're likely to find Japanese restaurants on the first and fourth floors, an animal cafe on the second, a small bar on the third, a restaurant specializing in Korean food on the fifth, and karaoke on the sixth. Fortunately, you get to all these floors via elevator and not stairs.

So Nozomi and I hopped into an elevator and went up to get to the restaurant that served fresh, hot bovine tongues to customers.

We were seated in the back at a table between Japanese parents with a young toddler and the bathroom. Oh, and at most restaurants with servers in Japan, there's a button on the table you push that notifies a server when you're ready to order or need another drink or something.

I mean, how much more sense does that make than playing that ridiculous game of trying to flag down your specific server at restaurants in America? First, you think, "I'll be polite" and you try to use some kind of newly developed telekinesis like you're Professor X hooking up into Cerebro to send a message to your server to look your way when they're walking around to other tables so you can just make eye contact for a brief second and give a nod to let them know to come over. Your server even passes right by your table, but you can see that the server just took an order and think, "Well, she needs to get the order to the kitchen, and then she'll come back and I can flag her down." But now all of a sudden, you haven't seen your server for 5 minutes. Is she on her break? Can I just ask another server? Now, you start doing the head and neck crane kind of move. Leaning further out from your table to give that physical sign that clearly you're looking for somebody. You make eye contact with another server, but he just stares at you like, "Not my problem, bro." Eventually, after 15 minutes of being ready for the check or having two empty drink glasses on the table, finally you say "screw it" and when the next server passes by, say "Excuse me," in a tone ruder than you want it to sound. Can we pleeeease get the Japanese call buttons on our tables in America so I don't have to go through this all the time when I come back?!

So Nozomi and I eventually buzzed the server over (I believe I got to do the honors of pressing the button), I ordered the gyuutan, and I got ready to put...my tongue...where my mouth is.

After a short wait, it finally came.

The cow tongue didn't look particularly strange or off-putting. It's not like it comes out still looking like some pink, bloated tongue that's just been yanked out of a cow's mouth with combination pliers as the last strand of tongue muscle still connected to the hyoid bone and frenulum finally stretches to its breaking point, *POPS* as its disconnected from the rest of the mouth, and comes shooting out like a rubber band. It really just looked like small, brown, grilled pieces of meat. I mean, if i didn't know what it was before it came out, and you told me it was just some kind of normal meat, I'd believe you. There wasn't really any kind of smell to it, though I kind of have a dead nose that is terrible at smelling things, so who knows. There was a small dish of some kind of sauce (still have no idea what it was, probably a miso sauce) for dipping, and the meal came with soup, rice, and a small salad as well.

But as I was looking at the plate of cooked tongue (was it just one tongue or a couple different tongues?), I realized I might have bitten off more than I could chew. Sure, no matter how bad it was, I would be able to swallow my tongue and stomach at least one piece. But if I hated it, if it was truly horrible, there was no out like in America.

No, "Oh, I'm getting kind of full already from the soup and salad." No, "Actually, I kind of want ice cream now, so I don't want to get full on this food. Let's go after dinner!" And certainly no, "Wow, I wanna save some of this for lunch tomorrow, I'm just gonna get a to-go box for the rest of it" (considering to-go boxes for food left unfinished and that concept in general essentially do NOT exist in Japan). I was going to have to eat it all or face the indignity and shame of not finishing all my food (which I assume is basically like getting the scarlet letter in Japan). Because whether you like it or hate it, you gotta eat it all.

So, I grabbed my chopsticks, said my "Itadakimasu" (a ritual "grace" or "thanks" said before any meal in Japan), and popped a piece of tongue into my mouth. I waited for the smell and flavor to reach my brain and tell me if this was going to be okay. The texture came first: it was solid, not slimy or rubbery, though it was a little bit tougher than beef. A few seconds later, the taste came through. Essentially a meaty taste, though a litte more bland. A little bit closer to pork than beef.

Relief came over me. Even though it wasn't mouth-wateringly good, I knew I'd have no problem finishing it and relatively enjoying it, for what it's worth.

Nozomi was watching me and waiting for my reaction. Once I swallowed the piece, I looked at her, smiled, and sincerely said "It's good. I like it."

The next piece I grabbed was a typical-sized piece, but it had this kind of corpus-callosum thing going on, where another medium-sized chunk was connected to it. A bifurcated tongue. Two pieces in one. I dipped it in some of the sauce (which defnitely made it taste better) and proudly and confidently slipped myself a little double tongue. I figured I had chewed enough to swallow everything, and so I did. But there was a problem.

The piece I tried to swallow was still connected to the other part that was up in my mouth. The "swallowed" piece still tethered, dangling like some stupid adrenaline junkie hanging from a bungee cord in my throat.

My air passage was blocked and my breaths were more shallow, but I didn't panic. I tried to do a "high powered" swallow, as if that's some kind of thing, jutting my shoulders forward and my pulling my head and neck back, like some sort of popping dance technique. I forced all my strength into my neck and throat to suck down the two pieces together, or at least dislodge the piece in my throat from the piece in my mouth, but it wouldn't separate.

I took slow, deep breaths through my nose to make up for the lack of air I was getting, but even that couldn't stop that permanent tickle, that discomfort, like the cough that just won't break and you can't get rid of.

I didn't want to give the impression I had been lying about my approval of ox tongue, or worse, that I found it unbearably disgusting and was now gagging on it, so I tried a few light, gentle, ever-so-quiet, polite cough-slash-throat clear moves that wouldn't send the wrong signal to maybe bring the chewed piece back up into my mouth, where I could chew everything adequately or separate the pieces and swallow them without issue, but with no luck.

I wonder how I might've looked to Nozomi if she noticed what would've appeared to be my very unique eating tendencies. We had been talking about summer music festivals in Japan and bands we liked, but at this point, I just hoped she had enough to talk about and wouldn't throw the conversation my way or ask me a question, fearing that any attempt to speak would give me away as a choking person in serious need of the heimlich at this point.

It's one thing to take a bite of food, not like it, and decide to not finish the rest. But to actually hack it up probably tops the list of rude and uncultured ways to try a different culture's unique food for the first time. Granted, I was in the process of suffocating and not actually disgusted by the food, but what's everybody going to think when they see the foreign guy spitting up ox tongue?

I was getting desparate. I started frantically chewing the piece in my mouth, hoping reducing it to a paste would ease it down with the next swallow. I tried isolating and gnawing at the strand of ligament or whatever it was still hodling that MFer in place. I tried thinking about how this might reflect on Nozomi; how she had trusted this foreigner and brought him to a Japanese restaurant, encouraged him to order ox tongue, thinking he was one of the "good" foreigners with respect for Japanese culture; and how she would be likely be banished from Japanese society after this incident if I couldn't pull it together.

My eyes started watering. My breaths became more wheezy. I went for a few more powerful, less polite coughs. But nothing worked.

I was in a lose-lose situation with only two options: one, I could noisily cough and puke back up a piece of chewed tongue and shame myself, Nozomi, the cook, the entire restaurant staff, and all Americans; or two, do the honorable thing and just choke and die.

I asked myself what the Japanese culture and customs would want me to do, and I knew the answer was die with honor intact. Sure, I'd be dead, but I'd still be appreciated for eating and seemingly enjoying ox tongue. For being a foreigner that honored and respected Japanese cuisine. My death would be a tragic story of an enlightened, sophisticatd, erudite life cut short in its prime. "What other amazing advancements in cultural sensitivity would his life had brought had he not choked on a cow's tongue?" they'd ask. "True world peace? The end of all -isms?" Death might not have been the lesser alternative here.

But it would seem reflexes, instincts, and the biological will to survive would betray me. Instead of crossing over to the other side, I doubled over and choked up the double piece of cow tongue into my napkin. I caught my breath again and apologized to Nozomi for what I imagined must've been a mortifying experience for her.

My attention went back to my lap. I looked at the chewed up pieces of tongue in my napkin and remembered the Japanese saying: "I want to eat it whether I like it or hate it."

Yeah, maybe there are some exceptions.

飲み物 Nomimono I: Melon Mania

I. My Beverage Bona Fides
This is going to be the first time I try to formally review food or drink. I don't leave Yelp reviews or stupid shit like that, because I'm a grown up who realizes the one meal I get out of the hundreds prepared each day and thousands upon thousands each month by a person who probably isn't planning on having a career in a culinary preparation doesn't really deserve high praise or condemning hate. My usual method of "reviewing" food or drinks is by grunting and making noises that lie somewhere between dying from pain and sexual euphoria.

So am I even qualified in any way to talk about drinks or do I have any experience understanding what makes drinks good? Hell no. But let me drop my beverage bona fides for you so you know who you're dealing with, and why I do command authority when I talk about pop.

• Has drunk around 15 different flavors of Mt. Dew and can name them all in under a minute.
• Certified Mixologist, having created the delicious "Glowworm" and "Satan's Libations" through cafeteria drink combinations at MSU, as well as having created the outright abomination "Cascade."
• Could single-handedly keep the vending machine business model going with how much money I feed the machine.
• Still have Snapple Element bottles in my bedroom in Illinois.
• Easily goes through multiple 2 liter bottles of pop or sports drinks per week.
• Citrus soda connoisseur.

Look, I've guzzled down more questionable liquids than a porn star after wrapping up a shoot with a water break from the tap on set in Flint, Michigan.

So, there you have it. The DrinkKing and your gateway to learning that Japan has just as unhealthy and unusual soft drinks as America.

As mentioned above, I'm a citrus soda guy. Mountain Dew. Mello Yello. Sun Drop. Moon Mist. In my opinion, the Mt. Rushmore of citrus sodas. In fact, I would personally scale a sheer cliff and chisel these drinks into a rock face if it meant free pop for life. These guys are my absolute favorite ways to get that caffeine rush that gets my heart pumping arrhythmically.

But Japan doesn't have quite the same booming fat person market as America does, where you can throw high fructose corn syrup in a liquid full of artificial flavors and have a hit on your hands. Coke is readily available in Japan almost everywhere. And you can find Pepsi pretty easily as well, though it goes by the name Pepsi Strong. Dr. Pepper is probably the third most common American pop you can find. But Mountain Dew is not very easy to get, although it is in a small percentage of the vending machines that are somewhat nearby.

Trust me when I say that in my lead up before coming to Japan I did some research on what kind of drinks they had. And what I found was that after dark colas, like Coke, Pepsi, and Mets (a Japanese brand that yes, in addition to sharing the name, also uses the exact some font style as the New York baseball Mets), one of the next most popular soft drinks was Melon soda.

Now, I don't know what constitutes a citrus fruit (add that to the long list of things), but melon seems like a citrus fruit to me, so I figured these were going to be my fix if I couldn't find any other familiar drinks.

II. Melons In Japanese Culture
Fruits are be a big deal in Japan. In fact, a lot of students have said that a fruit is their favorite food, and I'm pretty sure I've never met a single person in America who picked a fruit as their favorite food. In Japan, fruits are very often given as gifts to superiors or to someone who has invited you to their home. But the melon is one of the fruits Japanese people get most hyped for, and peak melon season is typically from late Spring-through Summer. The expensive, high-end melons can sell for upwards of 10,000 Yen, or nearly $100.

I had heard about this, but didn't quite believe melons were that big of a deal until I walked into a grocery store behind a Japanese couple towards the end of May. There was a new melon stand set up right in the front of the store, and they both audibly gasped and began to paw through the melons.

If the melon as a fruit is akin to a religious experience, then drinking melon soda might as well be sacrament. And I treat every melon soda I drink as just that. A beyond holy taste of the unknowable. A brief gustatory perception of the divine on my tongue.

But I'll be honest, my first two times trying a melon soda, I wasn't too impressed. I picked up one from a supermarket the day I was moving in to my apartment, and had a second one was during my first trip to the local mall while I was eating some donuts from a place called...Mister Donut (I make incredibly healthy choices as you can see).

I was ready to give up on the melon soda dream. It just didn't make me want to literally drown my throat and lungs the way that cracking open a cold citrus soda does. And with Coke always available, I just figured that would be the most satisfying option for my caffeine addiction.

But then, the melon soda I got with my KFC about a month after I moved here seemed to hit the right notes. And then I finally got the courage and Japanese reading ability to confirm that this one green can that caught my eye in a vending machine was, in fact, a melon soda. And it delivered. So much so, that I wanted to pit the big melon soda brands against one another in a taste test/review.

So here we go.

III. The Challengers

Fanta Melon Soda
I decided to start with the Fanta, and I was actively rooting against it because it was American. Where's the fun in having the best weird Japanese drinks be an American one, right?

First off, the smell is pleasant. Not too strong. More fruity than sweet, and it's probably the one of the three that most smells like a typical pop smell. That syrupy and carbonated smell.
The color is the most natural of the three as well, being a darker, duller green. It's not overly carbonated. It may have the least noticeable melon flavor of the three, however. So if you're looking to really taste a lot of melon, this might not be the top choice. I've actually never drunk any other Fanta drinks (Orange Crush or Orange Slice being my orange pop of choice as a kid), despite many flavors being available in America.

Suntory Melon Pop
Next up, the Suntory Melon Pop. Now that's the kind of color you're looking for in a pop! A neon green that looks more like the super ooze from TMNT 2 than anything that exists in real life. It definitely smelled a lot sweeter than the Fanta. Very candy-like. Its taste was a little more vitamin-y(?) than the Fanta as well. Almost has that energy drink after taste. Again, the melon isn't super strong here. Then again, do I even know what melon tastes like? It may have a bit more of that melon musk in its flavoring than the Fanta soda though, which could possibly turn some people off.

Gabunomi Melon Cream Soda
Now for a special treat. This isn't a pure melon soda like the last two. This is a melon cream soda. It's the cream soda to root beer of the melon kingdom.

Its color immediately sets it apart, being a milky, pale green. I know what some of the dirtier minds are thinking.... It does kind of look like it has that thickness to it. It has the strongest smell as well. Kind of like old school bubble gum. Like a freshly unwrapped piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum that half of the stupid comic wrapper still gets stuck on, and you decide just to eat it anyway with Joe and his girl on it. Its flavor is a bit bubble-gummy too. It's the smoothest of the three despite also being carbonated. It is also, unsurprisingly, a thicker and weightier and drink. It tastes like drinking still cool, melted ice cream.

Its taste will take you back to those long ago summer days. Playing baseball with your friends and going to get ice cream in a plastic baseball cap bowl after your game at Custard Cup, hoping you get the bowl of your favorite MLB team. Making a mess and staining your baseball pants when the ice cream starts to melt, get runny, and drip down over the sides, because you're too busy arguing about who will be the first to hit a home run.

Bonus: Mets Melon Soda
This drink isn't pictured, because at the time I bought these drinks, I had never seen this one before. I saw it for the first time probably some time in September. Having tried a Mets Cola, which is a Coke/Pepsi equivalent, and not really liking it, I was skeptical about a melon soda from the Mets brand, but had to try it anyway.

It was by far the worst melon soda I've tried. Too carbonated. Too bitter. Not sweet or syrupy enough. Like a club soda with the legally required minimum to dub it a "melon" soda. Full discretion, I'm not a fan of pops that are the more fizzy/tonic type drinks. So maybe this one is for those people, but it wasn't for me.

IV. Conclusion
I don't want to rank these, but I really don't think I wrote enough interesting things in the reviews to justify just leaving it at that. The Gabunomi is probably my favorite since it's just a bit different and unique in being somewhere between melted dessert and soda pop. I would probably choose Fanta as my favorite between the two melon sodas after comparing them in this taste test, despite wanting Suntory Melon Pop to be better, because where's the exotic-ness and excitement to drinking some Fanta flavor? I'm actually gonna say that the Gabunomi, which I normally drink straight from the can or from a 2 liter, tasted even better poured into and drank from a glass. Is there possibly a scientific reason behind this? Maybe, but not one I'm smart enough to know about or even make something up about.

I think it's also important to let you know that due to my life rule that requires me to finish any drink smaller than 1 liter in one sitting, I had to finish off all 3 of the melon drinks so they wouldn't get stale. I mean, that's just being smart and practical though.

Special Bonus 2: A music video for the song "Melon Soda" by Japanese band Tricot. I'm not a fan of how much melon soda it would seem they dumped out.

Well, that's all for the first review of Japanese drinks. I wasn't sure If I'd find enough interesting drinks to ever do a second one, but I'm pretty into some carbonated vitamin drinks these days, and I've found a few special holiday themed Pepsis. So I'm sure I'll get around to another one at some point.

So stay tuned as I continue to expand my palette and shorten my life span.

Shibuya After Dark

I’ve noticed a weird pattern emerge in my life. One that involves me having to sleep in rather unexpected places after I’ve recently moved to a new area. Maybe that doesn’t sound so weird at first, because you’re probably imagining, “Well yeah, that Matt is a gorgeous babe, I’m sure that happens like every weekend for him.” Well, you couldn’t be more wrong, dingus. Besides, I’m saving myself for either an alien or mermaid if they are ever discovered.

No, this pattern of ending up in an unexpected place for a night is due to me being an idiot.

I managed to live in Michigan for over 3 years before being involuntarily taken to spend the night in Lansing Sparrow Hospital on a cold evening in January during my college years. I’m sure you can imagine the stupid reasons why that happened.

And it only took about 2 years in California for me to accuse a friend of trying to prank me by hiding my keys (to be fair, he literally had just pulled my wallet and phone from my pockets, and after I got them back, I assumed he still had my keys when I couldn’t find them), storming out of the bar I was at, turning down offers to crash at a friend’s place, and paying $20 for a taxi to take me back to the apartment I knew was locked and knew that neither of my roommates were returning to that night. Boy, I sure showed that guy who just kept his prank going on for too long, despite insisting he didn’t have my keys.

That night, like some kind of urban Bear Grylls, I semi-slept in my gated community’s hot tub to keep warm by letting my eyes shut in 5-10 minute bursts for the next 3-4 hours to make sure I didn’t actually fall asleep and drown (I know I was in California, but it was like January and probably 40 degrees and I was probably in shorts and a ¾ length sleeve shirt at best, so it was cold; just accept this part of the story). I also removed all of my clothes except for my underwear before getting into the hot tub so I wouldn’t have to deal with wet and cold clothes later, and body part by body part, meticulously re-emerged from the hot tub to dry off before putting my clothes back on and watching the sunrise from the inside of a Carl’s Jr. where they messed up my order and gave me a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit instead of a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. Honestly, I was happy to be alive, so I just ate the damn thing.

If you’re wondering what really happened to my keys, turns out, I lent them to a friend so she could use the UC Berkeley bottle opener on my key ring and just forgot to get it back.

Welp, it only took about one month in Japan before I had to sleep in an unexpected place. But before we reach that point, allow me to share some nice sightseeing/typical travel blog details that happened on that day before I screwed everything up.

I went to meet up with some friends in an area of Tokyo called Odaiba. Odaiba is actually an artificial island that was built in the 1850s as a defense fortress. But today, it feels more like a giant island playland. A place that’s on eternal vacation. There’s beaches, shopping centers, an onsen (hot spring) theme park that replicates the architecture and look of old Edo-period Japan, restaurants with all kinds of international cuisine, an indoor arcade with interactive 3-D games/rides called Joypolis, and a ton more. When I got off the train at Odaiba, it felt more like I was at an amusement park than anything else.

The Rainbow Bridge from Tokyo to Odaiba.

During the day in Odaiba, I saw a monkey jump over increasingly high hurdles to “He’s a Pirate” from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, watched hula dancers perform during the Hawaii-festival going on at the European Renaissance themed Venus Fort shopping center, and then went to an Oktoberfest celebration in April, where a bunch of famous German brewers had beer stands set up and were selling gigantic steins of pilsner and weisse at even larger prices. I also got pulled into a dance train of drunk people near the live music tent where Japanese musicians were playing and singing some kind of Japanese-German polka hybrid. Everybody was super hype and super buzzed, myself included.

 

Eventually, my friends and I bade farewell to the man-made paradise that is Odaiba and went to a bar in Shibuya to finish off the night with some more affordable drinks. I drank an (6 or 7) Umeshu Sour(s) for the first time, which went down as fast as watered-down vodka cranberry drinks for a 19-year-old girl who just used her fake ID to get into a college town bar for the first time. After encouraging the DJ to play all the J. Biebz jams the bar would tolerate, it was getting late and time to make a decision: catch the last train of the night going back to my place in Tscuhiura, OR try to meet up with some friends that split off from our group earlier in the night and were going to rent a karaoke room for an all-nighter (which people totally do in Japan) and take a train back home the next morning. 

I would end up doing neither. But not for lack of trying to do both.

One of my favorite things about Japan is the public transportation. It is incredibly efficient, there are frequent trains so you’re never waiting any longer than about 10-15 minutes before a train stops at your station, and it’s actually not too complicated to figure out. Japan’s train system is far superior to any public transportation system in America. The only negative thing for me is that to get back home the same night, I have to leave Tokyo typically around 11:30 when the last train going to where I live leaves, which is a bit early for my liking.

Such was my original plan for this night. Here’s all I had to do: (1) Board a train for the Yamanote Line at Shibuya Station (2) Change train lines at Ueno Station (3) Get off the train at Tsuchiura Station. Not at all really that complicated. Honestly, I could probably drop you off at Shibuya with these directions, and you could do it. So let me tell you how I fucked this up.

When I got on the train at Shibuya, it was packed. Not “guards trying to shove people in so the doors can close as the train is already taking off,” but it was getting there. It’s either 14 or 15 stops from Shibuya to Ueno depending on if you take a train going clockwise or counter-clockwise (this train line just runs in a big circle), so it was probably about 20-30 minutes to get to my transfer station.

The Yamanote Line.

For the first few stops, I just stood there hoping I didn’t accidentally rub up on a Japanese person and freak them out. After a few more stops at some of the major Tokyo neighborhoods, the train was mostly cleared out, and I could finally grab a seat.

Apparently, this would have also been a good time to take all of my clothes off and only let my eyes rest in 5 minute intervals to avoid falling asleep—well, maybe I wouldn’t have had to take my clothes off—because the next time I opened my eyes, I immediately knew I had slept past my stop. I doubled checked on my phone just to make sure and confirmed it. I was not getting back to Tsuchiura. In fact, I slept so long, that I was about two stops away from Shibuya station again.

I had no idea what I was going to do at this point, but I figured I better just get off the train and come up with a plan. Almost immediately, I ran into another problem. I couldn’t get out of Shibuya station. My train card wouldn’t let me out because I was trying to scan to leave at the same station where I got on. Or at least I assume that’s why.

After walking in circles near the station exit for a few minutes—getting up close to the ticket gates to leave, but then quickly running away, looking like I’m Stoop Kid from Hey Arnold or something—I eventually summoned the courage to walk up to a station security worker, incorrectly conjugate the past-tense form for the verb “to sleep,” and let him know in broken Japanese that I’m a complete moron foreigner.

Mr. Hero security man allowed me to get out of the station without having to pay anything (isn’t my stupidity punishment enough?). I sent a text to one of the people at karaoke and prayed to an almighty Daibutsu that they hadn’t changed plans and would actually see my message and be cool with me joining up with them.

Man, if they only knew the velvet-smooth pipes on this little lost boy wandering through Shibuya’s neon wonderland after dark; with a honeyed voice that could transcend language barriers and make even the happiest of hearts ache with the shared pain of a thing longed for that could never be attained; of the recognition and regret of the limits on each and every single person’s fleeting life just through a melody; of frontiers that could never be explored because we are all just temporary; of strangers passing in the night that look at one another and hop for even the smallest acknowledgement, but because of fear, let another opportunity expire, another moment in their transient lives simply a skipped track that could never be played again once passed; with a timbre that could make weeping willows cry out for joy; that would probably picks songs like Wrecking Ball and Stacy’s Mom to sing at karaoke.

Well then, there would be no doubt at all of getting a response from his friends and having a place to call home for the night, finding shelter in the art of song and music that had so often provided sanctuary for the lonely and forlorn with no place, no body, to go to throughout the centuries.

I got a text back pretty quickly. Karaoke was still a go. I was more than welcome to join. And could I pick up a bottle of vodka as an offering to the karaoke gods (or maybe just for everybody to drink from so we didn’t have to pay for some drinks for awhile). I put the location into my phone and headed for my first karaoke sleepover.

I bought some vodka, reached the point on my phone that said where the karaoke place was supposed to be, and I just couldn’t find it. No matter what my phone was telling me. I found one of the 3 taco bells in all of Japan, which I returned to a few weeks later to eat at, but I could not find this karaoke place.

I was now in borderline panic mode. It was like the scene in Home Alone 2 where Kevin’s out late at night in New York and everybody is super scary. Seriously, I had to close my eyes as a kid when that taxi driver turned around after Kevin said, “It’s scary out there” and replied with “Ain’t much better in here kid.” I watched it again tonight, and while he seems to be just a normal human being with no movie makeup work done to him, when I was a kid, I swear his skin was like Freddy Kreuger’s.

Every Japanese person was 10 times more Japanese (and I don’t need to tell you, anything past Japanese to the 2nd power is just too much). The language sounded just a little more sinister. Each word overheard sounded like a threat. Could I have asked my friend to come out and meet me somewhere? Probably. Could I have gotten a more specific description of how to get to the karaoke place if I asked? Yeah, without a doubt. But did I choose the easy route? Come on, I’m the guy who went back to an apartment I knew I was locked out instead of taking an offer to stay at a friend’s place.

With Plan A and Plan B out the window, I quickly came up with Plan C. Capsule Hotel. If you don’t know what a capsule hotel is, allow me to explain it quickly. It’s only a hotel in the sense that multiple people can pay to stay inside a building for a night. You basically pay to sleep in a cryo pod from a sci-fi movie. Your “room” is no larger than a double-sized bed at best, and is grouped with several other capsules containing who-knows-what kind of people all around you.

With an unopened vodka bottle still in its plastic bag in my back pocket, I found a place that could basically charge me whatever they wanted to sleep in for that night. I’m sure you’re all aware, but I just want to remind of the constant language barrier I’m facing at this point. Despite a sign on the building saying “Capsule Hotel,” I still had to make sure I wasn’t about to pay some random guy behind a desk a bunch of money and end up getting God-knows-what. So I asked the guy “Kapuseru Hoteru desu ka? (Is this a capsule hotel?). He said yes and pointed me over to a vending machine in the “lobby” where I was supposed to purchase what kind of hotel capsule experience I wanted. I picked the cheapest option that looked like it would give me a ticket for a bed to sleep in and not whatever else it was I could choose. The price came out to 40,000 yen, which is like $35.

The actual Capsule Hotel I stayed at that I actually found again a few weeks later by pure accident.

As you can see from the picture, this was a capsule hotel “and sauna.” Maybe that’s fancy and a something special that not all capsule hotels have. Maybe that’s a typical thing. I really didn’t know. A bunch of people that seemed to be already checked in were in cotton robes, so I had no idea if I was supposed to take off all my clothes and ask for a robe to sleep in or what. Maybe they chose the more expensive capsule hotel option from the vending machine and got all the perks. It’s still a mystery to me. What I did know, was that like most places in Japan, I was supposed take off my shoes and place them in a locker before going any further than the lobby. So I did that and made my way to my pod number as fast as possible before something else went wrong.

I got into an elevator with two other Japanese men. One in a full robe. One not. My pod number was 627 or something like that, so I was on the 6th floor. At this point, I was incredibly relieved to be in a place where I had a bed that I was going to be able to sleep in. Every problem seemed solved.

And that’s when it happened. The elevator doors opened on the 3rd floor. The floor with the sauna I could have paid an extra $15 to use. And there they were…a bunch of naked Japanese butts and penises staring at me; beckoning me to join them like the ghost family from the Tower of Terror who suffered a terrible fate that stormy night. I’m pretty sure Rod Serling’s voice came over the speaker at that point: “You are the passengers on a most uncommon elevator,” followed by the Twilight Zone music. 

There were 7 naked men standing around headlocking each other, engaging in some friendly horseplay with steam from some hot water spout enshrouding them in a divine-like mist as if this was a totally normal thing to do at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night.

I actually felt guilty and looked away. Like I shouldn’t be allowed to gaze upon these unashamed men unless I was taking part myself and letting everyone else see me in my true, natural state.

The robed man next to me on the elevator got off (not like that, you sickos), apparently ready to shed the towel and previous week’s stresses to take part in some bare-skinned high jinks with the fellas. If I could read Japanese, I would have I hit the “door close” button as fast as I could once he stepped off. Instead, I was privileged to the red band trailer of Shibuya After Dark before the doors closed slowly, giving me one last glimpse at an aspect of Japanese culture I never expected to see.

The elevator finally reached the 6th floor, and I tried to get into my bottom level capsule-bunk as quietly as possible, since I had no idea what the appropriate level of noise-making was for this kind of thing. The capsule bed was equipped with an elevated TV and mini night stand and was actually pretty comfortable all things considered.

The next morning, I made sure to take the stairs down to the lobby, grabbed my shoes from the locker, and took what honestly felt like a walk of shame back to Shibuya Station.

Would I have been more comfortable If I got back to my own place that night? Sure. Would it have been more fun to see how long I could sing before falling asleep? Yeah. But would I have as good of a story as this if either of those plans worked out…I doubt it.

First Impressions

It's Sports Day Eve, and I am sitting here sipping a Zima and eating Moonlight Cookies. And as I wait for the Sports Day Tengu to levitate up through my second floor window, hover over me while I sleep, and bring it's horrible, beaked face down just centimeters from my very own sweet punim and bless me with the power of "Ganbatte" (do your best) for tomorrow by chanting a hideous, whispered incantation into my ear—provided I don't open my eyes before the Tengu is finished bestowing its Ganbatte on me, in which case, the Tengu can rip off my face and exchange it for its own so that the Tengu can now live a normal life (although it will probably be an amazing life since it will now be a super handsome man) and leave me with the face of a feared and despised spirit until I catch another person opening their eyes as I lurk above their bed, trying to give them a nice blessing—I decided it was time to write some of my first impressions of Japan down and catch people up on what I've been doing in Japan so far.

Moonlight Cookies grant me the power of 100 cold, lifeless, space rocks. And the power to write.

If you're wondering what Sports Day is, I'm going to write a full post on it later after I get to experience it firsthand tomorrow, but basically, it's a day when all of the students at a junior high school participate in various athletic events and their parents come to watch. Also, the part about the Sports Day Tengu is entirely fabricated...as far as I know.

The Story Thus Far

In the 21st Century, in the year 2016, when the kingdom was in turmoil due to battling factions of buttholes fighting for political control and their cadres of mindless worshipers turning things as mundane as carpeting into a volatile debate, one person who is currently writing about himself in the 3rd person thought, "I wonder what Japan's like." Albeit, this thought was unrelated to the aforementioned troubles.

Like some kind of xenophilic Pinocchio, he always wanted to transform from his own dull, hollow ethnicity and become a real Japanese boy (and also wanted to befriend a giant, talking insect and join a cruel traveling circus that exploited and mistreated its employees, but those stories are yet to be told). Plus, he kind of has a big, phallic nose despite being a pretty honest person.

 

Having developed his charm and kindness skills growing up in Illinois, improving his toughness and grit stats living in Michigan, and learning whatever traits come from living in California (maybe it's just good to NOT lose skill points there), he had absolutely no qualities on his skill tree that would normally allow him to be able to survive in Japan.  He just simply hadn't leveled up enough.

Cue deus ex machina: Can you speak English? Yes? Do you want to come live in Japan, teach English to students, and get paid? Yes? Okay, see you in a few weeks.

And that is more or less the story of how I got to Japan, but here's some more details about my first few weeks trying to figure out how to live in an entirely new country where I couldn't speak the language:

Traveling

Not too much notable. Slept a lot. Flew from Chicago to Los Angeles to Taiwan and finally to Japan. Looked in all kinds of duty free shops during my long layovers. Slept some more. Watched two dragons fight in the sky from my window seat. The red one killed the green one and then promised a peaceful millennium. You know, typical trip to Japan stuff.

Arrival & Training

Landed at Narita airport. Got my shiny new Yen with numbers so large on each bill that it made me nervous to even hold one at first for fear accidentally dropping the money or losing it somewhere. Seriously, the smallest paper bill is 1,000 yen, which is actually a little less than $10. My wallet at any time has between like 10,000 and 30,000 yen, which just sounds scary though.

Training was a looooong and at times, exhausting 4-5 day experience in a hotel, made fun by meeting a bunch of other new people who came to Japan to teach and drinking beers bought from 7/11 in the hotel at night with them. And also finding out I'm kind of old compared to most of the other teachers 😑.

Moving In

Here are the basic details. I live in a city of about 150,000 called Tsuchiura about 45 miles Northeast of Tokyo. So that's awesome! There are also two other teachers I met at training that live in my city, and one lives in the same apartment complex, which has been great.

The wheel of the car I drive is on the right, and I drive on the left side of the road. The first few days driving were a little scary, but I got pretty comfortable with the driving after about a week or so.

I buy most things based on the picture on the package, because I don't know the Kanji that says what it is. I have definitely had a few surprises, buying what looked like a snack that would taste like one thing, only to taste completely different because I can't read.

I teach English at a Junior High School in Kasumigaura 5 days a week to students who were almost all born after I finished Junior High School myself.

My apartment is probably a little smaller than an average American studio apartment. The bedroom is its own closed off space and at least the same size of any typical apartment bedroom. The toilet and shower are in separate small rooms.

I was strongly encouraged (more like forced) into purchasing bathroom slippers. From what I understood, to Japanese people, the bathroom is the dirtiest room in your home and you should not walk in there in your socks or bare feet. So instead, I now have a dedicated pair of slippers that stay solely in bathroom for people to use when they need to do their business. (Sssshhhh...sometimes I put on my bathroom slippers and use them when I have to  go back into the shower room to brush my teeth or put in my contacts after I shower in the morning and already have my socks on so they won't get wet; I'm not about to take off my socks and have to put them on again)

I live within walking distance of stores that have all my basic necessities. There's also a McDonald's and KFC about 5-10 minutes away on foot and of course a few donburi (rice bowls typically with beef or pork meat) and ramen shops even closer.

Top 3 Least Favorite Things About Japan So Far

3. TV/Radio (tie) – When I imagined what Japanese TV and radio would be like, I imagined channels that showed nonstop anime where the girls wore revealing clothes and were total waifu material and guys had awesome hair and bad attitudes, and I imagined radio stations that played the sugariest sounding J-Pop imaginable. Instead, what I got is what seems like 12 channels of essentially America's Funniest Home Videos mixed with Youtube reaction videos and radio stations that sound like all morning talk shows, all day long.

As far as the radio goes, the best station I found probably plays one or two songs every 20 minutes it feels like. And even when they do play songs, it's never the full song. Maybe about 75% of it. But at least there's an alternative to the radio situation: buying CDs to play in my car. Yes, it's 2017 and I bought three CDs. I bought Saosin's first self-titled CD, Pierce the Veil's newest CD Misadventures (apparently, I'm still an emo kid), and a three CD set of Nat King Cole's hits. I need to get a Japanese group's CD though. I'm leaning towards either BABYMETAL or SexyZone right now. Check out "Rock Tha Party" by SexyZone or anything by BABYMETAL, as it is probably exactly what you think it is and is only something that they would come up with in Japan.

Japanese TV is probably worse, because I don't have an alternative (don't have Netflix or whatever else is out there). The first problem with Japanese TV is there seems to be no regular schedule of programs, at least as far as I can tell. But this could be because I don't understand what's going on in the shows and can't tell if it's a show with characters I've seen before or not.

The second problem is the one show that seems to be on all the time and on every channel is one where a few Japanese people are in a studio, a video of something else is played, like a clip where a person is being interviewed, and either you watch the faces of the people who are in the studio in little circles on the screen to see how they react or they pause video for a few minutes, cut back to the studio where each person tries to guess what comes next, and the video resumes and they all laugh at how wrong they were. Compelling television for some, but not my cup of tea.  

2. Laundry – Nobody likes doing the laundry. But it's even a little more inconvenient in Japan. First, the washing machine's settings are all in Japanese. So I kind of had to guess or look up translations to make sure I was selecting the right thing. But that's not so bad once you figure out the right combination of buttons to hit. It's essentially playing the light up Simon game from back in the day.

What really sucks is that my apartment has no dryer. And most people in Japan don't use dryers. Instead, clothes are hung outside to dry. Which wouldn't be too bad if you're living in California, but it rains quite frequently in Japan (it rained pretty much all day today). Not to mention, it's pretty windy too. And while the laundry pole I bought to hang outside of my apartment window is good for setting clothes out on to dry, I once left to run errands while my clothes were drying only to come back and find the hangers had been blown off the pole and my white dress shirts were  lying around in the parking lot.

It's safe to say doing laundry isn't going to jump into my top things to do any time soon.

1. Garbage – Nobody really likes garbage either. But Japan takes sorting garbage to the next level. First there's a bag for combustibles, like paper products. Then there's a bag for non-combustibles, like plastics. A bag for food waste, like fruit rinds, egg shells, etc. Cans and bottles usually go in their own bags. Recyclables, I guess. I have no idea what to do with electronics, but I know they have their own special disposal rules, along with other large items, like furniture.

Honestly, it's been almost two months, and I still am not sure if what I'm saying is right, because different cities also use different sorting methods. Some may only use the combustible and non-combustible bags. But then the lawyer in me would panic: what does that mean for food waste or recyclables? Can I place them in either bag? Am I not allowed to dispose of them at all unless I take them to a special disposal facility for those things? Seriously...these garbage rules are an attorney's nightmare, or maybe dream come true depending on how sick of a person you are, you statutory interpreter.

The worst part is, if you put the wrong garbage in the wrong bag and they know it's yours, they will put the bag back in front of your place with a note in Japanese that you can't read, but says "re-sort this garbage or else we will no longer pick up your garbage and you'll have to arrange to have your garbage picked up at your own cost." No joke.

For the first few weeks, having my garbage rejected was easily my biggest fear. I'm still a little worried I'm not sorting it exactly right, but I try to sneak out to place it in the garbage collection area when nobody will see me and then try check to see if that foreigner's garbage was sorted correctly after I toss the bag out.

It's the worst.

Top 3 Favorite Things About Japan So Far: 

3. Japanese – While this is obviously the biggest hurdle facing me on a daily basis, one of my primary goals while I am here is to learn as much Japanese as possible.

With many resources available, having purchased some textbooks, free Japanese listening practice anytime I step outside, and weekly lessons offered by my city, I am already getting fairly comfortable with some basic Japanese. It's a blast to learn, and I am really excited to hopefully carry on conversations in Japanese in the near future.

Super goal for the future: Write a blog post entirely in Japanese.

2. Safety – Imagine this scenario: You're walking around on a small side street that doesn't have a lot of people out or cars on the road. You pass by an apartment complex and see bicycles. A bunch of bicycles. Just sitting out there. Not locked up or chained to any bike rack. You see some umbrellas just chilling outside too. And you even see a pair of shoes outside. Nobody around. Nobody watching over this stuff.

If this were in America, my first thought would be that something's up. This is definitely a set up to see if I'm a bad person and will steal one of these things left unattended. And even as I stand here and consider what the hell is going on, a squad of officers will come out and violently detain me for my thought crime, my mugshot will look terrible and will become some embarrassing viral meme, and all of that will lead me to a life of criminal thievery. I will habitually steal every umbrella I see, because the act attempts to satisfy the part of my brain that needs to have some justification for why I was arrested that fateful night or perhaps as if actually stealing the umbrella now could undo the past outcome. And my exploits will lead to me becoming known as the Parasol Purloiner.

But nothing to worry about in Japan, because this is normal. The things being left unattended, that is. Maybe Japanese people are more worried about the consequences of getting caught, but so far, Japan seems like a very safe country by any standards.

Everybody walks around with tons of cash in their wallets, because Japan is like "Psh...credit cards? Uh...hackers, duh. No thanks." I frequently walk around alone at night, which I'm not sure I would do in another country where I didn't speak the language, and I still feel safe. Although maybe it's just blissful ignorance of Japanese, and I just can't understand that group of guys following at an inconspicuous distance are talking about how they're gonna jump me later.

But either way, whether through sheer ignorance of the threats being made against me or the fact that people are much more trusting, the sense that people here aren't out to do bad things to others just because they might be able to get away with it is nice. 

1. Vending Machines – If given a death sentence and offered the choice before I was killed to either have a gourmet, five star meal of my choosing but only get tap water to drink, or choose any drink I want, but only get some bland food, I'm taking the latter every time.

I fucking love drinks. Specifically pop. Soda. Whatever you call it. Every time I see a Starbucks in America, I just think how sad it is that there's not some kind of soda pop shop in its place there. What's one less Starbucks in the grand scheme of things when one store dedicated to selling fountain drinks would bring me all the joy in the world. Seriously, the discrepancy between the ability to get your caffeine fix in America via hot coffee that most people have to add some other liquid to just to be able to tolerate or having the caffeine mainlined into your system through cold, sweet, satisfying pop is disturbing to me.

But Japan has my back. There are probably at least 10 vending machines within a 100 yard circumference of where I live. And that is not uncommon for anywhere in Japan. Vending machines that sell water, Coke, sports drinks, and teas are everywhere. And most vending machines also distribute hot coffee drinks too. Yeah, a single vending machine here can give out hot and cold drinks. Suck on that, America.

Japan's drink situation is not without some flaws though. One, citrus sodas like Mt. Dew pretty much do not exist. I say pretty much, because there are a few vending machines where I've seen Mt. Dew, but it's never in grocery stores or anything. Two, aside from beer, drinks are not sold in multi-packs here. I'm pretty sure that goes for water and tea too, not just pop. You can either buy several individual sized bottles/cans or like a 1.5/2 liter bottle. But anybody who likes pop as much as I do knows that buying a 2 liter for just yourself puts you in a lose-lose situation. Either you try to ration out your drinking so the 2 liter lasts a few days, however the pop loses its carbonation and becomes stale after a few days and at that point, what even is the point of drinking it anymore, OR you unhealthily drink a full two liter of Coke in a 24 hour period and wonder why your heart feels funny. And then you have nothing to drink and have to go buy another 2 liter. It's a vicious cycle man.

There are two bonus points I want to give to Japan's drink situation though. One, melon sodas are what I see as the citrus soda equivalent in Japan and are quite popular. Fanta Melon Soda, Suntory Melon Pop, and Gabunomi Melon Cream Soda are all really good and are at least making up for the lack of Mello Yello, Sun Drop, Moon Mist, Mt. Dew, et. al. Two, the sports drinks here are also pretty good. Pocari Sweat and Aquarius are my favorite two right now and stand in as good Gatorade or Powerade substitutes. 

I'm planning on running a bit of a blog post series where I review some of the drinks here in Japan, so I'll have more on all those mentioned above in the future.

That's all for now. おやすみなさい(Oyasuminasai)/Good night. Don't let the Tengus bite.