#24 Japanese FOOOOOD

So all the Japanese eat is sushi, right? OH MY. You sir, have been misinformed. Food in Japan is wonderful. Really, really wonderful.

They have fish and beef and pork. They have rice and noodles. They have doughnuts and French bread. They have ice cream stores. They have green tea and cappuccino. They have burgers and pizza.

To summarise, Japanese food isn't just rice and raw fish.

In Tokyo, my favourite place is to eat is Chikara Meshi. You order from a vending machine (a total win for those with little/no Japanese), take a seat at the counter and get served quickly. It's also super cheap and delicious, and usually open 24 hours. They have different menu options depending on the location, but they all seem to have the standard curry rice and "gyudon" which is a bowl of rice topped with strips of fried beef or pork. . .It is super super yummy! A normal size of one of these will cost you 290yen, which is really cheap.

Tonkatsu is another great Japanese fried food that everyone should be made eat all the time. There's a chain called Katsu-ya that are quite cheap (700yen), and another called "Wako Tonkatsu" which is more expensive (1100 yen) but you get free extra servings of rice, miso soup and cabbage.
I've also come across Yayoiken, I'm not sure if it is a big chain store but it has a great selection at affordable prices (700-900yen), and also has free extra rice servings.

Tonkatsu! Behold the meal of Kings. . or is that Emperors?

If you want to try a Japanese burger, the natural option is Mos Burger. It's pretty good chain store and not too expensive, with a burger, fries and drink costing about 700yen.

There's McDonalds, which has the usual you expect plus lots of yummy extras that come and go with the season. I'm not sure about America, but that only happens very rarely in Ireland, while Japan seems to have a new menu item or special offer on every week. Burger King is the same kind of deal, but Denny's has a totally different Japanese style menu, so be warned! There are some Subway restaurants, but they weren't so common. I think the menu is more Japanese-orientated and therefore probably differs from the usual options, but you should probably check it out yourself!

The only McDonalds sign I ever saw in Japanese!

An 'ebi' burger (that's shrimp!) It was a bit bland but otherwise okay

As for sushi, it's actually not that common to find and can be expensive, depending on where you look. I've found quite a few though that have 105yen plates. On these plates you get 2 pieces of sushi. At first it sounds cheap, then it sounds expensive, but I think in general it works out pretty cheap, depending on how hungry you are I guess. I've found that 5 plates is usually more than enough for me, which could work out as cheap as 525yen, although I've seen men pile up as much as 15 plates (so maybe don't go for sushi if you're really hungry). The most common type of sushi restaurant is the one where you sit at a stool and the sushi goes by on a conveyor, and the price depends on the colour of the plate (eg.blue plate 105yen, red plate 180yen etc). There's also a version of this except you stand and eat instead, I like my comforts (like sitting) so I never tried this.


As for coffee and desserts, there's Mister Donut which is, as the name suggests, a doughnut shop. They all cost around 120 yen, and often have sporadic 100 yen sales. There's also many Vie De France bread shops which have savoury and sweet breads for around 150yen. The most common coffee shop I see is Doutor, but there's also plenty of a place called Becks, and the obligatory Starbucks. Baskin Robbins ice cream shops are quite common, but they're usually referred to as "31 Ice" in Japanese (because of the 31 flavours).

Mmmmmmm

If you want to get convenience store food, it's cheap and good! You can get little lunch box dinners for around 500 yen, and they'll heat them up for you if you like. You can also get corn dogs, which for me as an Irish person is a really typical American food. They have a broad selection of sweets and breads, usually for around 100-200 yen. There's also a selection of hot or cold coffees (sometimes in cans. .becuase that's just how the Japanese roll. . .go with it). They usually open 24/7 and the most common is 7-Eleven, but there's also plenty of Lawsons, Family Mart etc.

Spicy chicken balls and rice from 7-Eleven

If you don't speak Japanese it can be kinda scary getting food, but apart from the aforementioned vending machines, they are also displays in some restaurant windows. Then you can pretty much see a decorative selection of their food, so you can get a good idea of what's available without having a word of the language.

Plastic model pancake display in cafe window

You may have already heard, but vending machines are still really popular in Japan. In Ireland they're a dying commodity, but in Japan you can find at least two on every street corner. They are literally everywhere! However, the vast majority of the time they only sell drinks. I think I only ever saw one with food in it, and even then it looked like a breakfast bar kind of thing. There are also rumours you can get vending machines with weird stuff in it (like underwear. . .) but I can assure you I never came across any of those. You can however get hot drinks like green tea and coffee in these vending machines, which is kinda fun! Prices are around 120-250 yen.

So there you have it, a little glimpse of contemporary Japanese food! 

The Japanese are (from what I've encountered) really eager to help you, and while they will usually not have the best English, they're going to really try and understand what's going on. So I say whip out your Japanese phrase book, point and gesture, be patient, and everything will run relatively smoothly!

As for a disclaimer, I live in Tokyo and this has only been my own small experience. Somewhere like Tokyo obviously has a lot of Western food options because it is a big city with a large amount of foreign tourists and a lot of business ties with America, if you go to smaller areas or towns I imagine your options would be more limited to traditional Japanese food.

A small selection of pot noodles from the museum in Yokohama

#23 EARTHQUAAAAAAKE

There are earthquakes every day here in Japan, but it's not very often that you notice them, and they can be very localised. In the 3 months I've been here, I've only noticed two that were distinct earthquakes and not just the metro rolling underground or a truck going by.

One happened in the middle of the night. I awoke to a slight shaking, thought "Earthquake!!" and it was over.  The other one happened last night, which reminded me to write about it. I had just arrived home and sat down at the computer when I heard a kind of bang and felt a shake which at first I thought was someone just slamming their door. It took a second or two for me to think "Earthquake!!" and then it was over. It probably only lasted for five seconds.

I looked it up afterwards on the Japan Meteorological Agency website, and sure enough there was a level 2 seismic activity where I live. This is 2 out of 7, so it was far from remarkable. There are level 1s and 2s and a few 3s everyday.

Courtesy of the JMA website

I had to leave the office to go to a meeting one day, and after a few minutes on the train my colleague text to ask had I felt the earthquake, which I hadn't, as the train is always rocking anyway. He said that there was a definite shake for a few seconds and the office went quiet for a second, and when it was over there was a nervous laugh and a few moments of excited talk. It made me wonder how many others I've sat through while on a train and didn't notice.

If you're curious you can go here http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/ and see what recent earthquake activity is happening!

#22 Ginza (and crazy Japanese souvenirs!!)

So I was wandering around the streets of Tokyo one Saturday evening and I found myself in Ginza, the rich part of town.

This building is like the signature of Ginza

I'd be meaning to go for a look in Ginza, but since it was a little far out from where I live and I really can't afford to shop in Chanel it wasn't at the top of my list!

It is a nice place, and well worth a look, even at night with the flashy lights. There's every high fashion name you know, as well as a few you probably don't know (which makes them oh-so-exclusive). And not to mention a big Forever 21, H&M, Zara, and possibly the biggest Uniqlo I've ever seen.

It was also that bright on the inside

They also have a wonderful toy shop (one of the biggest in Tokyo I believe) called Hakuhinan Toy Park. The ground floor has a wonderful assortment with everything from Harry Potter Chopsticks to fake Sushi candles! The second floor has a big selection of plush toys and keyrings and things from both Western characters (Disney, Spongebob) and Japanese characters such as Totoro and Hello Kitty. From there up in turns into an actual toy store and is less exciting unless you are, in fact, a child.

Star Wars Chopsticks

Harry Potter Chopsticks

Samurai Sword Chopsticks

Japanese food phone/bag charms...the fish one was really big and heavy

Legs chopsticks

Sushi candle

Sushi pen!

He's sooooo cute!

 The Swarovski building was decorated fabulously, as well as having Hello Kitty items

The Chanel Fall collection

Being an expensive area, there isn't much in the line of cheap restaurants around the area that I could see, but I found a McDonalds off a side street though. On a Saturday afternoon the area is closed to cars so you can walk along the street. Nearby is the replica of one of the oldest stations in Japan, the old Shinbashi station, as well as the Advertising Museum, Tsukiji Fish Market and Hama Rikyu Japanese Gardens.

So, Ginza is a nice place to look at, but unfortunately not to shop at for most of us. If you have time to spare in Tokyo then you should pay it a visit, but if you don't there are better places to spend your time.

#21 Pokemon Center Tokyo

So I'd heard that the Pokemon Centre in Tokyo was a big let-down, but since I was in Japan I felt compelled to verify the rumours and decided to go there recently as part of a day out!

Located in Minato in Tokyo, the nearest station is the Hamamatsucho train station (3minute walk). This is also the closest station to Tokyo Tower (maybe a 15min walk), so you could do both in one day.

Not so fun?

I haven't watched Pokemon in like 8 years and I never played the games, so I am honestly not a huge fan, I will admit. However, I do like it and I was interested in going to check it out. It's a small shop, and doesn't have a great selection, I entered and left the shop in about 30 minutes. I went on a Sunday so it was pretty crowded too.

Once I entered the shop, I quickly realised I didn't recognize any of the characters except Pikachu. They had charmander outside but there were no toys or anything with him on it inside. The only toys were Bulbosaur and Meowth. Needless to say everything was expensive, but they didn't even have a good selection of anything either. As I found quite often in Japan, most things are aimed for Japanese people, and not Westerners. So they were plenty of phone charms (not even nice ones though!), as well as the little table cloths children use to put lunch on in school and things like that.

In the end I got a 100 yen packet of tissues with Pokemon Center on them (it was one of the very few things that actually mentioned Pokemon Center too! The Japanese need to work on their branding) and also I managed to find a Pokeball on a bottom shelf. The ball itself is hard plastic and opens in half to reveal some hard sweets and a Pokemon stamp. . .probably not worth the 500 yen but it was the one thing I was willing to buy. In Japan most souvenir and tourist type shops give you 2 bags, one to put your goods in and another as a souvenir, so I now have 2 Pokemon Center bags which in itself is pretty sweet too.

The bag was nice. . .and she gave me two!

So all in all, it probably was the let down people had said, but going there and expecting it to be terrible I actually found it was okay. I can say I've been there now, which is cool. So I wouldn't say don't go - just don't go out of your way to go either. If you only have a short time in Tokyo there are hundreds of places that are much better to spend your time! But if you find yourself with time to spare like I had, it's worth a little visit.

The shop itself is located really just across from the station in a high rise building. It's on the 3rd floor I think but they have escalators that take you straight up so you won't get lost. There's nothing really in the direct area of the Pokemon Center, so don't plan to spend more than an hour there, although for those who like nature there's a lovely landscape garden with a small 150 yen entrance fee just across the road.

They had koi fish and turtles in the pond!