Kitto Katsu (きっとかつ) - The Art of Japanese KitKat

Happy New Year 2012! 明けましておめでとうございます!

Wow...it has been a lonnnnnnng time since I posted on the blog. No excuses. I was just busy and lazy. 

Anyways, let's jump back into everything and anything Japan, shall we?

KitKat has always been one of my favourite chocolate bars (although I hated chocolate in general when I was a kid), but the Japanese have made the brand a little bit more exciting with a multitude of different flavours that come out on a seasonal basis.

KitKat (or pronounced Kitto Katto in Japan) is very close to the phrase "kitto katsu" (きっとかつ), which translates to "certain victory". For this reason, the makers of KitKat have marketed its chocolate with that slogan. Also, KitKat is usually given to students before important tests and exams as a symbol for wishing them GOOD LUCK!

Here are a few of the KitKat boxes I have collected so far this year. Unfortunately (and not surprisingly) I have eaten most of them so the actual chocolate bar (usually a different shade than brown) won't be seen. I'll add some more pictures as I accumulate more of these tasty treats. (UPDATED: February 20, 2012)

Strawberry

Cherry Blossoms and Green Tea

Annin Dofu (杏仁豆腐) - "Almond Tofu"

Strawberry Cheesecake

Kuromitsu (黒蜜) A Japanese sugary syrup - "Black Honey"

Wasabi

Not sure...please contact me if you know...otherwise this is "Wooden House flavour"
Yatsuhashi (八ツ橋 or 八橋) A Japanese confectionery made of flour, sugar, and cinnamon famous in Kyoto. (Thanks to Nicolas for the information)

Not sure...please contact me if you know...otherwise this is "Window flavour"
Hōjicha (ほうじ茶) A roasted Japanese green tea famous in Kyoto. (Thanks to Nicolas for the information)

Blueberry Cheesecake

Edamame - Soybean

Orange　(or Tokyo SkyTree flavour)

Japanese Pranks are AWESOME - Part 2

The Japanese are BRUTAL when it comes to scaring people!

This is the second installment of my favourite Japanese pranks. To see the others, check out the first installment.

This time around, in honour of Hallowe'en coming up in a few weeks, I'd like to focus on pranks intended for the sole purpose of scaring someone to death.

As an added informational tidbit, the picture on the right, which most people in North America know as the girl from The Ring (which itself was a remake of a 1998 Japanese movie called Ring), is what ghosts look like in Asian culture. Asian people are deathly afraid of these "ghosts".

They may be brutal, but to me "BRUTAL is FUNNY".

Mirror - This prank is one of my all-time favourites. I played this one over and over again and laughed my @$$ off each time.

TV - Japanese girls watching a video clip from Ring...and then.........

Doorway - This one is actually a Korean prank, but it's still funny. Watch until the end!

Wake-up - Innovative ways of waking someone up...with a a touch of EXTREME!

 

MRI - This one isn't really scary...but that depends on your definition. I'd consider this one more gross.

Miscellaneous Scares - This is a mish mash of random Japanese scare tactics. My favourites are the boulder ones.

Hope you enjoyed these, and again, if you'd like to check out the first installment, just click here.
Until next time! Keep on pranking!

The Wonderful...Part 1

Tsukiji fish market is a MUST SEE place if you are in Tokyo. It is very famous for it's tuna auction where gigantic tuna fish are laid out on the ground and are auctioned off to Tokyo's highest bidders. Apparently, the market is the absolute best place for the best freshest and best sushi you'll ever have. For foreigners to actually check out this auction, you have to wake up early in the morning, and be able to get in line for 5AM, as they only allow a very small number of people to witness it.

On the train last night at about 4:40am, excited about the prospect of eating the best sushi of our lives and after a very long day and night, some friends and I (by way of a couple of laughing Japanese girls) were alerted to the fact that the fish market is closed on Sundays. We went home both tired and hungry.

I will have to post about Tsukiji fish market another day. The running joke this year so far has been that weekend partying has stopped our ambitious plans of going to see it...and now that we actually tried to stick out the night to see it, we've been foiled by our lack of reading the "Days of Operation". By the rate we are going...we may never see this market until June...


The Wonderful

I can probably spend hours writing about all of the awesome things about Tokyo and Japan. It truly is a wonderful, exciting, interesting, beautiful, charming place. In this posting I want to highlight a few "wonderful" things...

1) Tokyo

• I've posted this serene video on Facebook before, (it isn't my video) of Tokyo at different times in the day, starting in the early morning. Most of these famous places I have already been to and most of them are just 10 minutes away from my apartment. It's cool to see the streets of Tokyo actually empty, as normally it's like an ocean of people.

2) LOST.....in Japan

• The image of this cartoon samurai is meant to symbolize the honour of the Japanese people. To date, I have lost several things in this country...on the crowded streets of Tokyo...mostly due to my negligence and absentmindedness.

 Losing something makes you feel stupid 

• Commuter pass - A credit card size item that allows me to utilize the metro (train) system here in Tokyo. Value = $70 CDN. Lost at Harajuku station. Right after I get through the turnstile (using the pass)...I fumble through my pockets and realize I've lost the pass somewhere! After looking through all my belongings, I finally admit that I've lost my first item in Japan. Several hours later, in a hopeful attempt to see if anyone actually turned it into the station authorities, after giving them my name and going through a drawer, I was surprised to see my pass in the station worker's hands.

•  Wallet - A beverage-filled evening, a few weeks ago, was topped off with somebody (who may or may not be me) losing their wallet in the middle of Shibuya (home to the crazy intersection that everyone thinks about when they think of Tokyo). The next day, a conversation with a police officer in the area said that a visit to the police station 3 days later (due to a long weekend) might offer a good chance. Lo and behold, the wallet was returned to the police office with all credit cards, IDs, and money! The money amounted to be about 50 000¥ (about $500 CDN) and it was ALL there...including change. I wasn't quite surprised this time, but I was deeply relieved. Um...and when I say "I"...I mean "someone". 
• Hard Drive - Without even knowing, I apparently had also lost my new 1.5TB portable hard drive at the same time as my wallet. They both must have fallen out of my backpack during the night's festivities. So when the officer brought the bag to me, with my wallet in it, I was completely floored to see that my hard drive was in the same bag.

 To read my other related posting click here: The Weird...Part 1

The Weird... - Part 1

Whoa...it's been 2 and a half weeks since I last posted something! That's bad...and I apologize to those of you who have been asking me and wondering where the posts have gone to. To make amends, I'm hoping to post at least three things this week (maybe more). I present to you a 3-part posting entitled "The Weird...The Wacky...The Wonderful".

So much has happened since I last posted...let me count the ways...

 

The Weird

1) Ronald McDonald (Scary Japanese version)

• If you haven't read or seen my previous McDonald's posting with a video of a "beautiful" Ronald, go check it out here.
• I stumbled across this other video just today that's promoting McDonald's. I'm not sure if it's real, but it made me laugh.

2) UFO Catchers

• If you don't know what that is, it's basically one of those machines where you win a prize by using "THE CLAW".

Hello Kitty? Super Mario? Choose your destiny!

• UFO Catchers are EVERYWHERE! There are buildings and arcades with rooms FILLED with these things, selling anything from candy to stuffed toys to posters.
• In Akihabara (the electronic, nerdy part of Tokyo) I, along with another coworker, with a significant amount of money, and with the disgraceful pity of one of the employees (who made it easier and easier for us to win) won one of these each:

Super Sonico!

3) Sushi Stapler

• The picture speaks for itself:

...but where's the wasabi?

 4) Milk Soda

• FINALLY! Everyone's two favourite things: Milk AND Soda...TOGETHER AT LAST!
• I drank half of this because I was thirsty. The rest of the bottle is still sitting on my fridge.

5) Gang Fights?....no it couldn't be!

• I woke up around 8am early on Sunday morning to girls shrieking outside of my apartment and sounds of a street fight. I ran out of my building looking frantically for the sounds of the commotion, when I see something on the other side of the metro line:

•  I'll pretend the guy on the right is the "White Ranger" and the guy on the left is..."the bad guy with a scorpion face".
• Apparently they were filming some sort of movie outside my apartment, which included a group of actors dressed in school uniforms who provided the screaming that woke me up.

---

Anyways, I hope you readers continue to enjoy the posts I put up. This was a short AND random one that I just threw together, but here is a preview of some other things I'm going to be posting very soon:

• Long weekend trip to Nikko (World Heritage Site)
• Sumo Wrestling
• Food!
• Baseball in Japan
• Fashions
• Typhoons

Shaking, Shopping, Shrines, and Seafood Sticks

No Longer an Earthquake Virgin

Today I felt my first earthquake here in Tokyo. I live right beside the train line, so I'm used to trains passing by on a regular basis. BUT, when my bed started to gently shake (with me in it) for about 5 seconds, I knew that was no train. It was actually kind of cool!

Asakusa

A few other teachers and I went to visit an area of Tokyo yesterday called Asakusa. This area is very famous for having a large Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century, called Sensoji. There is a very long street called Nakamise which leads up to the temple, that is filled with little food stalls and souvenir shops...where people used to buy all their pre-temple things back in the ancient times as well. Interestingly, the surrounding area has been all rebuilt due to the air raids of World War 2, when the area was a bustling entertainment area.

There are a lot of things to see in Tokyo, but even more so in this little area. If you like shopping for trinkets and snacks, this is the place to be...although it is a little bit more expensive due to it being a tourist area.

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Nakamise - Shopping area

Nakamise Lanterns

Japanese Wood Carver

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Good Fortune...Bad Fortune

Once you enter the temple area, you'll be in awe of the beautiful grandeur of the still existing architecture. Gigantic, red lanterns can be found in front of main gates and doorways. 

In order to get a fortune, you should cleanse yourself by bathing in some smoke, and then moving over to where the fortune sticks are. These sticks are inside of a metal tin, with a small hole just big enough for one stick to exit. After shaking and rolling the tin, you randomly select a wooden stick that comes out, with characters that correspond to those in drawers.

I received a "Regular Fortune", which isn't too shabby at all. A lucky coworker of mine received one that read "The Best Fortune". Yet another coworker of mine received one that read "Bad Fortune". He was not pleased. 

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Bathing in Smoke Before Entering Temple

My "Regular Fortune" Complete with Impeccable English Translation

Beautiful Sensoji Temple and Pagoda

Beautiful Underside of Giant Lantern

Sensoji Temple

Hozo Gate and Sonsoji Pagoda

Throwing in Coins for Good Luck

Sensoji Pagoda

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Octopus on a Stick? Yes please!

I haven't posted anything about food lately, which I should do more often. To quench your hunger for my hunger for exotic Japanese foods, I present to you these sticks of baby octopi. Grilled up and smothered in a sweet sauce...these things were tentacle-licking-good. Yummmmm... 

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Scrumptious stick foods

Baby Octopi on a Stick

Tentacle Lickin' Good!

Home Sweet (but small) Home

1000 people eaten (that means "views")?! WOW! 

School finally starts tomorrow. That means I gotta wear a tie. I usually only wear a tie 2 times a year, if that, back home...both times being for parent/teacher conferences. Now I have to wear a tie every day! I usually have to re-learn doing one each time, but thanks to the wonders of technology, YouTube has become my saviour...

A lot of people have been wondering what my apartment looks like, so I've finally gotten around to taking some photos and video of my apartment. I live 5 minutes away from Mejiro Station, which is 22 minutes away from the train stop where my school is. In between my apartment and the school are very famous Tokyo areas, such as: Shibuya (Shibuya crossing), Shinjuku (busiest station in the world), Harajuku (Yoyogi park and crazy fashions), etc.

20 Square Meters of Heaven

Fukujima House (white 3 story building on the left)

Japanese Pranks are AWESOME - Part 1

Canada's Just For Laughs Gags have NOTHING on the Japanese!

The Japanese always take pranks ABOVE and BEYOND what you'd expect. With that in mind and the fact that they find humour in embarrassing people publicly, please enjoy these, some of my favourite Japanese videos from YouTube. This will be the first installation of these, as I will post a few more in the coming months.

They may be brutal, but to me "BRUTAL is FUNNY".

Toilet Prank - Squatting toilets are funny by themselves. Throw in a countdown...and you have comedy genius.

Massage Chairs - This is my all-time favourite Japanese prank. What could be more relaxing than sitting in a massage chair while skiing in the mountains?

1 vs 100 - This ain't no game show with Bob Saget. Be careful when you're walking alone...

1 vs 100 Part 2 - Let's up the ante here and get even more ridiculous.

Onsen Fart - This one is new to me, but is hillarious nonetheless. Some men are a bit bashful when they see a women at the onsen (public bath) with them.