Sweet Madness pt.3

So, tomorrow is THE DAY: St. Valentine's Day!

An interesting research result was announced by Dai-ichi Life Research Institute (Japanese only). The research title was 'Problems at Work' but somehow included the question "Do you give/receive chocolates on Valentine's Day?"

The results:



What is interesting? 20-something Females give chocolates to their male co-workes most (47.6%), and 50-something Males get chocolates from their female co-workers most (47.9%).

What's going on here?!? Respect for elders? Forbidden love? Good old-fashioned boss-bribery? After hours chocolate-fueled workplace hanky-panky?!

No, it seems the quirky Japanese tradition of 'giri-choco' (obligatory chocolate) is alive and well. So who's eating all that chocolate?

And, by the way, where's MY choco!?

Train Porn

You may not know, you may not care, but Japan is a train-lover's wet dream. And that, people, is the closest this post will come to actual porn, so if you are looking for train sex videos, go back to Google and click on the next link.

As anyone who has spent time here can attest, the Japanese rail infrastructure is god-like both in ubiquity and the amazing ability to run on time (albeit not at all after midnight...). Even the air conditioning works.

According to stats here, Japanese people ride more trains to more places than any other people in the world. (Sure, more Indians and Chinese ride trains. More Indians and Chinese do everything, I would think.)

The prevalence of trains in Japan has fostered an entire subculture of Train Mania, aka Train Geeks (densha otaku). There are train museums everywhere, (including the amazing The Railway Museum sorry no English site yet), as well as loads of books, DVDs, websites, toys, etc. Of course much of this is targeted at the usual little boys and girls into Thomas the Tank Engine (there's even a Thomasland) but unfortunately some of them never quite grow out of it. You can see them milling around train stations/yards taking pictures, mimicking conductors, stepping over little kids in toy stores, and patronizing private clubs decked out like train cars that allow you to, um, play with female 'passengers'.

All said, though, Japan has some REALLY COOL TRAINS.

My son, only 4, already has his favorites:

The Romance Car designed by Noriaki Okabe Architecture Network, (just around the corner from us, meaning every weekend we stare at model trains in the window).

RAPIT, which he's only seen in books:

And of course, the Bullet Trains (Shinkansen), of which there are many:

Hayate and Max Yamabiko:

And there's the Super Hitachi (that goes to his grandma's house):

He also has a knack for identifying french fries that look like specific trains. I'll post photos next time if I can get my cell phone out before he eats the Romance Car again.

Oh yeah, my personal fave is MTV Japan's TRAINSURFER:

The Battle of Akihabara

You may (or may not) have heard the Michelin recently granted Tokyo eateries the most stars of any major city in the world. But Tokyo is not all about high end food.

Mili-Meshi (Military food; Meshi means "food", e.g., Ita-Meshi is Italian cuisine, Thai-Meishi is Thai food) is gradually becoming a 'boom' in Japan. It started among military freaks when a hobby magazine featured military foods from around the world. This caught the eyes of product managers at Sega, the game developer, and they joined up with a Japan Self Defence Force food supplier. Mili-Meshi is now one a popular prize for 'UFO Catchers.'

'UFO Catcher' are those crane machine games in video arcades with toys/stuffed animals you try to grab with a crane but just wind up losing money in. Sega was looking for new types of prizes to lure players. They launched the Mili-Meshi prize Akihabara; the famous 'geek' capital famous for anime, gadgets, and 'otaku' (geeks). It didn't take long to capture the hearts and minds of the Akihabara Crew. The Mili-Meshi pack contains 4 retort food pouches containing 2 Japanese-style pilafs, paella, and Japanese-style steamed rice .

the package

4 retort pouches

The food was originally developed for soldiers to absorb maximum nutrients with minimum effort, and is quite high in calories. However, all the soldiers in Akihabara are marching for it. And now the general public is becoming interested in Mili-Meshi eats, as a major newspaper reported recently.

Ask A Tokyo Planner

A Reader asks: Why are Japanese people so skinny?

Answer: Because there is no Bacon Double Cheese Sushi in Japan.

According to an OECD report, Japan has an estimated obesity rate of 3%, compared to 32% in the US. The question of course is not why are Japanese skinny but why is everyone else not skinny. But that's for someone else's blog. In short, Japanese eat less (or at least eat less Bacon and Cheese) and walk more (high urban population using public transportation, bicycles, etc.).

But it's not that simple. In fact, McDonald's is the #1 restaurant chain in the country. KFC, Wendy's, and Japanese versions MOS Burger, Lotteria, etc., all have strong presence. There are Starbucks outlets everywhere. Stone Cold Creamery and Krispy Kreme are hugely popular. But despite their best efforts, these (mostly US-based) feeders still can't fatten the Japanese.

Best Effort Award:

Restraint, common sense and an uncanny ability to resist bacon and cheese in every lunch item imaginable. There's your answer.

Sweet Madness pt.2

Now it's February and the Valentine's Day is coming up. I wrote about Valentine's Day in Japan a while back, and I found something interesting about the diffusion of a culture within a society.

A toy manufacturer, MegaHouse, has launched a toy called "Tororin Choco Pot" (Tororin is a mimetic word of something melting). It is basically a battery-operated heating pot with which you can melt chocolate bars and pour the resulting liquid into various shaped trays to make your own personalized chocolates. It is targeted at low-teen girls, and the manufacturer is expecting to sell 50,000 units by the end of March 2008. List price is 3,465 JPY (about 33 USD).

Now that adult females buy premier chocolates for the Valentine's Day, it used to be a trend that they buy chocolate bars at the stores and melt them to make their 'own' chocolate; pseudo-homemade. That was a trend over 10 years ago. Now the trend is back among the low-teens! Despite industry expectations, 'Tororin Choco Pot' is nearly out of stock in many retail stores. Now this is a typical 'back to the basics' movement or 'revival of the oldies'? Or just plain old idea-recycling. The real question is who are these little girls making chocolate for??

Rice Cooker of the Gods

Rice is a serious business in this country. And I ain't talking about Minute Rice.

We all know that rice is a staple food in Japan, and the selection of brands, varieties, bargains and premium selections is overwhelming. So is rice-nationalism - just try importing it. Another staple of the Japanese household is the rice cooker. Now you can find rice cookers in many countries - basically hot pots that, well, cook rice. They might look something like this:
While a bit nostalgic, that's the technological equivalent of a tape deck. Wondering what happened to Japanese techno-dominance? It's all about the rice cooker, baby.

I finally got introduced to the latest trend in rice cooking technology. No, not 'fuzzy logic'. That's so 90s. I'm talking about Variable Pressure Control Induction Heating.

This baby (our new one, by Sanyo, US$400) cooks rice sixty ways from Sunday. Actually 46. There are 46 pre-set pressure settings so you can pinpoit how you want to cook your rice. Rice for Curry? Sushi? Sticky rice? Summer sticky sweet rice for sushi? If your tastebuds can handle it (or, uh, notice it), there's a setting for it. But wait, that's not all! There is also a 'custom' setting that lets you set your own levels for "sweetness" and "stickiness". Not cooking rice? No worries. You can make soup, bread, boiled eggs (however you like 'em), and even Tofu with this baby.

For the last 2 weeks we've been testing our new rice cooker - a new setting every night until April!

If you really want to go all out on your rice cooking, check out Mitsubishi's WClass IH line, which I'm sure kicks ass over our Sanyo (looks better), and lists for 115,000 Yen for the smaller version (about US$1000). It's also black.

I found a brief thing on IH rice cookers in English here.