The Japanese love pretty things; they love cute things; they love to decorate. They don’t really celebrate Halloween the way we do in the states (although they love to dress up as you’ll see in tomorrow’s entry), but you see more pretty and cute Halloween decorations here than you do in the states. You can also eat hundreds of different Halloween foods in Japan, and I’m not counting the candy. The above picture is of a window display (which has been up since mid-September) on Waseda Doori near Takadanobaba Station that I pass frequently.

Below is a photo taken of an underground store next to the Ginza Station on the Marunouchi Subway Line.

Posted on October 30th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, halloween. Comments Off on Halloween window displays

On my way to and from Waseda University I pass the above restaurant which serves a variety of fugu (pufferfish) dishes. Fugu can kill you. Of course, if you are a fan of the Simpsons, you already know that. Hence, there aren’t many places that serve fugu. In fact, this is the only restaurant with fugu on the menu that I have ever seen. To serve fugu a chef must pass a test after learning, in a process that requires several years, how to correctly cut the fish so it won’t kill someone. Even then most fail the test.

If you can read Japanese, click on the above photo to see the menu in more detail. Fugu dishes start at just 600 yen (less than $10) for 煮こごり (fugu soup I think), but most are much more. Raw fugu (sashimi), for instance, costs 3,500 yen. I believe that is a fugu (or its skin anyway) wearing the hat in the picture.

I’ll have to try some fugu, and live to tell you about it, at this place one of these days.

Posted on October 24th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buildings, food, night photography, nishi-waseda. Comments: 5

Waseda University has the largest number of international students in Japan at almost 3,000. Although the vast majority are from Asia, and hence don’t stick out in a crowd, it isn’t as uncommon to see Caucasians walking between Waseda University and Takadanobaba Station as it is in most other parts of Japan. There aren’t nearly as many gaijin faces as you’ll see in Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Hiroo, or Roppongi though. That said, shops on Waseda Doori, linking Waseda University and Takadanobaba Station, aren’t very surprised to see us. However, if we stray off the beaten path a bit, things change rather dramatically.

We live on the border of Shinjuku-Ku and Bunkyo-Ku. A three-minute walk to the north puts us in Bunkyo-Ku. Outside of Ikebukuro, there don’t seem to be many Caucasians in Bunkyo-Ku. So when we walked into the above restaurant in Bunkyo-Ku it felt like we were the first foreigners to have ever entered their doors.

The couple that ran the place seemed slightly worried until they realized I could communicate with them just fine. The lady was so sweet. She kept bringing more and more side dishes over even though we hadn’t ordered them. We received the “special” treatment.

I ordered sukiyakidon (thinly-sliced beef with raw egg, onions, and a sweet sauce over rice). Everything else you see in the above photo was a free “gaijin” bonus.

My wife ordered ebitenpura soba (battered and fried shrimp in a soup of thin noodles) and had a few freebies tossed in as well.

Posted on October 15th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, nishi-waseda, people. Comments: 2

I have seen very few U.S. imports on the shelves of Japanese stores, which makes no sense because the dollar is so weak right now against the yen that firms exporting to Japan should be making a killing. One of those few exports of the U.S.A. is this can of spam for sushi. I have yet to see spam sushi on any menu though so I believe spam sushi hasn’t caught on yet.

Posted on October 9th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, hawaii. Comments: 7

You will not have a hard time finding a place to eat in Shinjuku at night. The streets are lined with places, sometimes six or more stories high. The restaurants aren’t hard to see either. With all the light coming from them, Shinjuku can be brighter at night than during the day.

The above photo is of one of the entrances to Kabuki-Cho on the east side of Shinjuku station. The building on the right has a 7-11 on the ground floor and then other floors featuring shabu-shabu, okonomiyaki (pancake filled with vegtables, squid, mayonnaise, etc.) and takoyaki (octopus balls), a bar, a manga cafe, and a place to play mahjong.

Kaiten Sushi (回転すし) is when you don’t order sushi, you merely pick your sushi choices off the rotating conveyor belt. That’s what the above place is, with prices starting at just 100 yen per plate. You frequently see fun pictures of the creatures you will be eating in Japan, something that doesn’t seem too appetizing in the states.

Which of these smiling fish would you like to eat?

Or perhaps you’d prefer pork in the form of a pig pretending to be a tanuki? Apparently they don’t serve raccoon dogs here, but you can get something made out of pig like tonkatsu. I love tonkatsu, but this pig at the door makes me want to eat it somewhere else.

Posted on September 24th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: food, japan pictures, night photography, shinjuku. Comments Off on Eating in Shinjuku (at night)