Got a nice little haul of snacks and a few "wacky Japanese" items as J-List would say.
Received 4 flavors of Hi-Chew, including 2 that are "祭り" Matsuri, or festival flavors. One is Candy Apple & the other is Cotton Candy. Both taste like flavors I've already had (i.e. - apple) but the one big difference about these was the fact that they had bits of brown sugar in them!
I don't know if you can see them in the pics, but the bits of brown sugar are there, and it is definitely real, granular, sweet brown sugar. ^^ Got some Japanese Cheetos as well (regular flavor, I know I got the Salami & Cheese ones last week that I have yet to eat). Apparently Chester Cheetah was "born" February 21st 1986, to spread Cheetos across the world. If you believe Japanese packaging 100%. =P These were "Cheetos Mix", and surprisingly there were 2 entirely different kinds of Cheeto in there. They should bring these abroad, I think they'd be quite popular. The long ones tasted like normal Cheetos, slightly spiced (both have what the package describes as "red pepper" in them) and the paw-shaped ones are actually more like a cross between a Frito and a Dorito - also "red pepper"-y.
I decided to try out some of my J-List schwag today, and I was really intrigued in general to try the "off/regionally flavored" candies that I had gotten. I started with the Tokyo Noodle Drops, as they seemed the most likely to be captured in a candy well, as opposed to the Sasebo Burger Drops or Tako-Rice [sic] Drops. Which are actually taco rice, タコ/tako being octopus, something got messed up on the package due to the similarity of the words and the fact that tako is so widely eaten in Japan, and the Mexican type of taco seems to be limited in availability to Okinawa for the most part. (Which is kind of horrible news for me should I move to Japan, because Mexican is my favorite kind of food. ;_;)
Generally, this sort of thing is a quintessentially Japanese concept; "wacky" candy that 99/100 people would never even think of, even Japanese people. I mean there are those Harry Potter jellybeans that Jelly Belly has been making for the past few years that were bacon and booger and vomit flavored, but these are meant to be actually appetizing, methinks. The tins are certainly decorated in a way that looks "serious" - or more precisely - cultural.
First, if you purchase one of these bad boys, I'd say don't leave the house without Hercules or a blasting cap in tow. The sticker holding the lid on is merely a formality, because I'm pretty sure the lid is welded on. Once I pried it off with some scissors, I was allowed access to the tasty drops. They smelled, surely enough, like ramen. There are also silicate packets included in each tin to make sure they stay dry.
Upon popping one in my mouth I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting them, since they had an aroma, to be powerful. The first thing I tasted was that typical "candy" taste you get when you eat a hard candy. It's probably some additive or something, but that actually balanced the overall taste out. I then tasted ramen. Not ramen flavoring, but it tasted like real ramen in a bowl, with broth. It was subtle enough that I wasn't getting grossed out, but not so light that I was guessing at whether my mind was pulling off a placebo effect and tricking me because I wanted my $3.50's worth out of the tin I'd just bought. Being the scrutinizing individual that I am my mind naturally thought: "How is it that we can put ramen into a candy but somehow we've gotten cherry, watermelon and apple wrong for so many years?" (I actually hated cherry fruit until about 2005 because of the medicine and candy taste ruining it for me over the years, now they're my favorite fruit ^^)
Even now, the aftertaste is like I just ate a bowl of ramen, it's ridiculous. I'm still a little shaky about what the burger and taco drops will taste like, but I have a feeling you'll be seeing another rave review soon. The full line of these drops snacks can be had here, at J-List, but get em fast because I understand they're popular and the manufacturer has been running out of them!
In spite of the fact that I just ripped off the title of a Filter song, I did get a hella nice haul yesterday for the first time in a long time. I haven't gotten anything "significant" in about 2 months (significant being defined as anything that isn't just snacks and a shirt or magazine) thanks in part to my having to pay an assload of extra money to get my car fixed/brought up to snuff so it could be successfully inspected. Thanks in part, too, to my wanting to be fiscally responsible.
Anyway, cutting to the chase, the majority of stuff I got was from Strapya World, and while I'm sure I've mentioned them before, I don't think I've promoted them before. It is a good - if not dangerously addicting - site that much like J-List sells Japanese goods that you pretty much won't find for sale anywhere else online. I suggest checking them out if you like character phone straps (their Hello Kitty/Sanrio section is second-to-none), stuffed toys, USB toys, small Japanese electronic gadgets, etc. A healthy chunk of their stuff is mascot-themed (which I like), and they have a ton of traditional and traditional fusion (mascots and pop-culture + traditional culture) items as well. As far as price, the items are priced just right, in my opinion. And as far as shipping costs, which are a big pet peeve of mine, they are actually often times LESS than domestic shipping. Granted most of the stuff you can order there is as small as a cell phone strap, but the flat rate of $5 Airmail up to $100 and $10 EMS (!) is great.
Being a big Hello Kitty fan, I went a little overboard this time (as you can see). Overall it wasn't bad, I spent as much on what you see in the Kitty picture as I would on a box of Chara Fortune keychains, so. I love traditional/cultural fare, so I was elated to see the Gotochi Kitty series from various regions, the first time I'd visited the site. This time I splurged on a lot of the ones I had been eying before. Another thing I've been on a run of lately is the character Mameshiba, got some (compressed) towels this time as well as another talking Kuro Mameshiba. I'm expecting two push lights later this week from J-List as well. These little guys are adorable, and are gaining in popularity, which also makes me happy.
The other stuff from Strapya included a mini stuffed anthropomorphic Fuji-san, an anthropomorphic cross between a baguette and Welsh Corgi, Kinbuta or "golden pig", Mugen Beer that electronically produces a pop top & pouring noise and an electronic LCD Jan-Ken-Pon or Rock, Paper, Scissors. I bought the Janken as a joke because it was cheap, but I ended up liking it a lot. It had that unique Japanese packaging that immediately drew me in, and then how gimmicky it was after trying it made me smile.
Lastly, I on an impulse I ordered a box of Megahouse Dragon Ball Z: Return of Cell toys. Again, the way they were packaged/displayed was impressive. Upon opening up the box, I saw 7 Dragon Balls nested inside the box in a specific way that looked very cool. And I've preserved that for posterity in a pic that you're likely staring at as you read this. So, so far so good right? Weeeeell, all wrapped up they looked awesome, opened up? Not quite as much. And it wasn't the quality, I wasn't expecting 1/8 figure quality in what are basically capsule toys. What the site that I bought them from didn't reveal (And to be fair, it wasn't Hobby Search's fault because it took me 2-3 mins of searching to find it on the actual box itself) was that the vignettes inside were made in both full color and "bronze" versions. When a company does this, it usually means that they're trying to cheap out on paint, because painting figures all one color as opposed to 7-8 colors isn't as expensive. I opened one capsule, a "bronze" version. I opened capsule number two, another bronze version, I was starting to get a tad angry at this. Not that "bronze" DBZ warriors are hideous or anything, but I was looking forward to something that didn't look like a queer trophy. Luckily the other five capsules contained full color figures. As well, there was one part in each capsule that you could collect out of all seven to build a "Tenshi Goku" or angel Goku running on the Serpent Road.My other guess for the bronzing craze would be that these are "trading figures" which are a lot of the time blind boxed - which means you can't tell what's in them until you buy and open them. This means more profit for the company that produces them if unlucky people keep getting doubles or characters they don't necessarily want & continue to buy more blind boxes. These ones, you can tell what you're getting by looking at the number of stars on the Dragon Ball capsule it comes in. If people can tell what they're getting before they buy, that means that they can collect all of them within 7 balls/capsules. This way if they bronze some and give people what they don't want, it means you may have to buy 10-12 figures before you get an entire set of full color ones and thus no loss of profit. As I said, I wasn't expecting 1/8 figure quality, and I didn't get that. =P As expected, the figure of Goku you have to collect across all 7 capsules was more detailed than the rest. However, unexpectedly the quality of the 5 normal figures varied greatly. There were 3 figures where the scene was kinda "zoomed out" and everything was smaller in scale that possessed a lot less detail than the ones that were more close-up. Making things like this smaller in scale usually results in a loss of detail, but I've never really seen such a drastic difference. I'm not complaining because the detail loss is sort of limited to parts you really aren't supposed to see/scrutinize. The one bronze figure I got looked like it would've been awesome in full color, and I really like Trunks, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
I'll be taking some more detailed photos tonight of individual items to post tomorrow, I got a little waylaid by posting ebay auctions today to do them up right for this post.
Discovered this on Neil Duckett's site yesterday, this YouTube video with a "modern samurai" is awesome. Highlights include him cutting a baseball being thrown at high speed from a pitching machine out of midair (I forget the speed exactly), and cutting an airsoft bullet (?!) out of midair. Enjoy!
After my previous post on being a whore for Japanese packaging, I recycled more into yet another decoration of death to hang on the ceiling. I call it as such because I cut up cans to make the things and if one were to fall on you I'm sure it'd leave a nasty gash, but such is the price of beauty. =P It makes me think of a portcullis slamming down and spearing intruders. Or in the case of these, pulling them off of the ceiling in case of an intruder and flailing them around like Ivy's whipsword from Soul Calibur. ^^;
This past week's Japanese store trip yielded some goodies, some smelly crap, some unwelcome surprises and the best thing evar: matcha (green tea) ice cream contained in a thin ice cream cone-like shell with tsubuan (red bean paste, basically mashed azuki) in the center. It tastes just as good as it looks (if you take my meaty paw out of the equation >< ).
Was bored today, and tried this once before with little luck (due to my poor execution no doubt), so I figured I'd try it again with a little more of a battle plan this time. Japanese Koala March cookies come in a hexagonal tube, and one time when I had gotten some from J-List, I looked at the empty tube and thought: "This would look cool as a lantern." So I set to work and had decided that lots of little holes to let the light out would look awesome.
Yeah, that didn't work out too well. The blade I was using to cut things out was too dull, I was cutting holes in the (flimsy) cardboard too close to one another and it all started to bend and tear. It also looked like ass when I mended the ripped portions with tape. This attempt, however, was more or less a success, as you can see by the pictures I've posted. I actually collapsed the container this time to cut on a hard surface, made the slats on the sides larger and the reassembled it at the end. The bottom is like a grating work, in the future I'd like to make it look like a latticework.
All-in-all it catches and redistributes the light pretty well I guess. Though it looks a little awkward to have a "lantern" on one side and none on the other. Guess I'll have to buy more Marching Koalas.
Finished Work
Included this shot just because I thought it looked cool.
So I went to our local Japanese grocer the other day with my friend and she spoiled the hell out of me whilst there. I found this store (called ubiquitously enough, "Tokyo") back in college as it was like 10 minutes from campus. Back in those days they carried more frivolous items, more like a real conbini. However, over time they stopped carrying the most recent items, shokugan, drinks, etc. Most of the gimmicky items have disappeared from the shelves of the store now, but they do still carry some fun things, including traditional teapots/tea sets, sake cups carved from wood, chopsticks, various kitchen items, mimikaki (ear cleaning) tools & they do still carry a small selection of candy toys like Re-Ment food miniatures.
Anyway, disappointment over diminished stock aside, this trip was specifically planned to go buy can coffee after I bought a special edition Eva UCC can from J-List and was reminded of just how delicious it was after not having had it for some time. So I got a whole bunch of can coffee, UCC and others, a couple of bottles of the milk tea I used to buy when I was going to school down there and a ramune or two for good measure. I got a load of other things (which I'll write about later) but I ran across a most curious item...
Despite being a Japanese grocer (run by actual Japanese people from Osaka if I'm remembering correctly) they do carry a few things that aren't Japanese. There's a Korean brand of ramen called Nong Shim that I and all of my friends love. It comes with dehydrated vegetables in a packet and is really spicy. (They keep really well, too. I had a few for prolly close to 2 years and the vegetables were still intact even after that long a period of time.) They carry the ubquitous (sorry for using that word so much) Asian grocery staple sauce, Sriracha (the one with the green top and the rooster on it) as well. Both of these are marked with Korean and Thai languages, and don't look Japanese in origin. The product that I found this time, however, was very Japanese on the outside, even using the Japanese language on the outside of the package, but the company had a Vietnamese name: Kinh Do. Also, the label on the back that is required for all import products displayed "Product of Vietnam" on it, which confirmed my guess. the product in question was a box of Tiramisu Cream Cakes. Individually wrapped and tasting more like tiramisu than some actual tiramisu that I've tasted before, these are delicious! Kinh Do, you make some fine confections. I've honestly never seen such a thing before, a foreign-made product with Japanese packaging (other than American stuff like Frito-Lay, but that's often Frito-Lay Japan, based in Japan).
McDonald's obviously has a giant warchest full of funds built on the backs of bulging, clogged arteries, so it comes as no surprise to me that they have a unique menu for the second largest economy in the world (as well as most other markets, McShawarma anyone?). It does, however surprise me that they localize their ads to the point of homogenization, and make "traditionally crazy" ads that you would never have guessed belong to a US-based company. Even if they hired a Japanese ad agency (which I'm sure they did) it's still amazing, what with the ever-fickle and saturated with culturally-singular Japanese market the way it was when McDonald's debuted attained the market penetration it did. For some reason I find Mickey Ds' Japanese ads really entertaining, even amongst other 'wacky' Japanese ads I've seen over the years. Here are a few notables that people have uploaded to Youtube:
Buncha regurgitive stuff today. I found via Peter of J-List's Twitter, an awesome site about burgers in Tokyo. Yes, that Tokyo. Apparently Tokyo has some tasty burgers. There was an article a while back on Akiba Channel, albeit not as big, on burgers specifically in Akihabara. I think it's funny that most foodies are fairly Euro-centric as far as dishes they relish are concerned but that the greatest pizza chef in the world (proven via competition) was determined to be Japanese in 2006 at least, as well as the world's greatest bartender. Granted, pizza and booze aren't sushi, Beef Wellington and John Dory, but non-snobs shouldn't care about making a distinction like that if it tastes good and isn't mass-produced. It's really funny because if you read these articles, you'll see that some of the more famous burger joints have 'New York' or 'Seattle' in their name but their burgers are purely Japanese in invention/innovation. I, for one, would kill for burgers here to regularly include an egg on top of them. (ala - the Tamago Mac at Makudonarudo)
Next up is a modded mouse that uses actual NES controller parts. Not much to say about this, other than it's really awesome. Makes me wish I didn't sell my NES and controllers, and also knew how to make a mouse out of them.
I've been meaning to post something about this for a while now. 廃墟 'haikyo' is Japanese for 'ruins', as in the physical kind, and there appears to be a kind of haikyo otaku movement growing out there, especially amongst the foreigners-living-in-Japan blogosphere. These "haikyoists" explore many different types of abandoned sites and take pictures of their adventures, and then post them on their blog. Many hook up and adventure together, visiting abandoned military bases, theme parks, hotels, resorts and more. I was honestly surprised when I stumbled upon the sites covering this type of stuff, because you always hear about how many people live in Japan versus how little land is actually able to be developed due to how mountainous the islands generally are.
This hobby isn't exclusive to Japan, in fact it's been going on for a long time all over the world, it is called Urban Exploration. Naturally, since there are abandoned facilities and buildings everywhere this would exist anywhere and everywhere so long as someone is interested in it. I have a general interest in UE, though I like the Japanese sites in particular, not only because that is how I found out about the hobby as a whole, but because of the variety of sites that there are in Japan.
We all know that Japan is home to wacky and outlandish everything, and haikyo sites are no exception. During the late 80's until 1990 Japan experienced an economic boom where prices of land and stock became greatly inflated, and then the "bubble burst" leading to widespread economic downturn that lasted well over a decade. You can read more about the land bubble, here. In and around that time, lots of projects were started that weren't finished for various reasons, like banks taking on high risk loans for real estate projects, then folding when borrowers couldn't pay them back. So you have crazy theme parks like a Gulliver's Travels park with a giant Gulliver in the middle laying down, that existed for about 3-4 years in the 90's, closed, explored by haikyo enthusiasts, ransacked by vandals and then demolished. There are also several mining towns, a cave hotel carved by HAND for 21 years by one man, resorts, hospitals, there's actually even a whole island that used to house a few thousand people that became abandoned when it lost its purpose.
Which is primarily why I was spurred on to do a writeup on this. This past week, Gunkanjima, or 'Battleship Island' was opened to the public after 35 years of being abandoned, and is being considered for incorporation as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is named Gunkanjima because from afar it looks like a battleship (gunkan = battleship shima = island). Its real name is Hashima. For 87 years, from 1887 to 1974, Hashima played a major role in Japan's industrialization, housing as many as 5,200 workers and their families helping to mine coal under seabed. Eventually the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu bought the land and in 1890 began building a large concrete apartment complex and a town complete with schools, a hospital, movie theater, etc in 1916. As petroleum surpassed coal, the island was no longer needed and was announced to be closing in 1974 by Mitsubishi. In 1959, the island actually set the record for highest population density worldwide. Now the island is in complete disrepair, but was sought after as the king of all haikyo sites until those dreams were dashed last week with its reopening, and the inevitable stepping up of security. Japan Probe has a good post on it.
The other reason I wrote this was because while looking for a title picture and links and other material, I ran across this on a haikyo site I frequent. This was just to freaky not to spread around. This guy has done multiple interesting sites, but this one takes the cake. Apparently he stumbled upon it when he was looking at some other site deep in the countryside. A giant concrete dome that has a dedication to "our ancestors" and then inside there is a wall with 5 very eerie logos that look sorta cultish and then if that wasn't strange enough, a giant vault with a double-thick vault door with 3 combination locks on it (which is open, he goes inside a bit and takes pics and a video). The whole thing is very fact-is-stranger-than-fiction and I urge you all to check it out. A lot of this stuff could be a setting for manga or anime, and has probably inspired a few here and there.
Here are some great links to check out:
Michael John Grist's Ruins Gallery - This is a wonderful site for haikyo, Grist is an excellent photographer and he does excellent writeups of his adventures, of which there are a lot. Updated regularly.
Tokyo Times - Another great site that's updated a lot, also with phenomenal photographs of haikyo adventures.
Opacity - A non-Japanese urban exploration site, mainly US sites here, some Denmark and Germany shoots. This guy takes a lot of pictures, and the site is text-heavy as he "narrates" a lot.
UER Forums - Urban Explorer Forums where the society of UErs meet on the web. There's a host webzine too at http://www.infiltration.org/ which used to be headed up by a Canadian fellow named Ninjalicious who has since died at the age of 31 from cholangiocarcinoma believed to have been caused by his exploring abandoned industrial sites filled with asbestos, lead paint and other toxic things. Poor guy, but at least he went doing what he loved: on Infiltration, there's an article of his where he and his friends explored an abandoned pirate ship restaurant (La Grande Hermine) off the coast of lake Ontario. PROTIP: If you go spelunking on these forums, especially the topic of "What's the weirdest thing you've found while exploring?" consider it all NSFW for one. For two, if you are grossed out easily and the forum topic is suspect, DON'T CLICK. I did and one of the first things I ran across in the aforementioned thread was a crumbling fetus in a jar, several unflattering shots of cats and dogs in various states of decomposition and pigeons nailed to walls. Bon appetite.
I hope I've encapsulated the world of modern ruins exploration so that it would capture your attention, and who knows maybe a few of you will find it as riveting as I do!
Got a nice little haul of snacks and a few "wacky Japanese" items as J-List would say.
Received 4 flavors of Hi-Chew, including 2 that are "祭り" Matsuri, or festival flavors. One is Candy Apple & the other is Cotton Candy. Both taste like flavors I've already had (i.e. - apple) but the one big difference about these was the fact that they had bits of brown sugar in them!
I don't know if you can see them in the pics, but the bits of brown sugar are there, and it is definitely real, granular, sweet brown sugar. ^^
Got some Japanese Cheetos as well (regular flavor, I know I got the Salami & Cheese ones last week that I have yet to eat). Apparently Chester Cheetah was "born" February 21st 1986, to spread Cheetos across the world. If you believe Japanese packaging 100%. =P
These were "Cheetos Mix", and surprisingly there were 2 entirely different kinds of Cheeto in there. They should bring these abroad, I think they'd be quite popular. The long ones tasted like normal Cheetos, slightly spiced (both have what the package describes as "red pepper" in them) and the paw-shaped ones are actually more like a cross between a Frito and a Dorito - also "red pepper"-y.
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