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Quick update from HK, since I finally got an open computer that works at the hotel’s coffee shop. It has been a really awesome trip so far; I have 1 more night and a few hours tomorrow then it’s back to Japan and work on Tuesday. The food has been awesome. I’ve already got some counterfeit DVDs, neckties, and t-shirts, and will buy a ton more tonight I think.

Exotic/weird foods and new animals I have eaten since coming to HK: stuffed snails, snake soup, beef tripe and chicken’s feet. Not too impressive a list as I thought it would be, but I still have a few meals left to go.

Awesome. Grape soda in Japan! I guess they have Fanta Grape, but I never drink that and don’t even know what it tastes like. This stuff, called Cheerio 700 for some weird reason, is advertised as a low calorie soda, and it tastes pretty watered down. This is no Vess or Whistle Grape soda, that’s for sure!

After drinking about half the bottle, I have to say that this stuff is terrible. Whatever excitement I had when I saw this multi-colored bottle in the store has since dissipated. I wish they still had Bubbleman around. What a sweet soda.

In one of the Chiba arcades I frequent, they recently added a big package of Cheetos as one of the prizes you can win in the UFO Catcher crane games. Crane games here are a lot different than in the US, mainly because the prizes you win are of some relative quality, rather than the knock-off-brand stuffed animals and sticky rubber hands you might get at the Big Lots “skill claw” machine. The ones here have stuff you actually want. Stuff you really want sometimes, which is bad because they also cost at least 100 yen a pop, meaning trying to win that stuffed animal of a bear with bloody claws could cost you 2000 yen if you’re not careful (ahem, Brian). This doesn’t mean that the stuff is actually useful, just tempting. I haven’t kept track of how much money I have spent on UFO catchers this year, but it would be embarrassing and depressing. However, to show for it, I have stuff taking up space in my apartment like a big plastic Haro bank, a stuffed animal of the Owl coffee shop guy from Animal Crossing, a penguin coffee mug, and a few Lincoln action figures.

Anyways.

I wanted to share with you quickly the package of Japanese Cheetos you can win here. Please read the English coming out of our friend Chester Cheetah’s mouth. (click the picture to see larger version). While not exactly Engrish, this is still pretty funny to see. I wonder who translated/wrote it for them. It is as follows:

Hey. I’m Chester Cheetah.
I Love Cheetos Cheese hell a lot!
Why not try Cheetos Cheese!!

Too bad Japanese Cheetos are gross and not the same as the US ones. Trust me, I’ve tried them and was horribly disappointed.

Happy New Year to anyone who is Chinese, or I guess also to any non-Chinese who for some reason celebrates it.

You know those infomercials where they talk about starving children in Africa? I think over the course of the day, I ate enough to feed an entire village of starving children for a week, or at least a few days. The day started with some nice yakiniku (Korean BBQ) lunch with Yori, Matt, and Brian. This is the kind of awesome restaurant where you cook the meat on the table yourself. We went to the Chiba-Chuo branch of a chain called Anrakutei (安楽亭), which is apparently cheaper than Gyukaku but really good. They have cheap lunch sets until 5, so we each ate 2 sets. That’s right; 2 entire meals of yakiniku goodness. Each set came with rice, soup, kimchee, tofu, and of course a pretty big plate of raw meat. Absolutely amazing. It was relatively cheap, and we were all completely stuffed by the end of it. Also the restaurant’s sound system played exclusively American 50’s or 60’s songs, so we got to listen to stuff like Let’s Go to the Hop as we ate.

After playing some Resistance on PS3 for the afternoon, I headed into Tokyo to get some Chinese food for a new year celebration of sorts. Also because I love Chinese food. Now, to be quite honest, I was still absolutely stuffed from lunch, and wasn’t sure that I was even going to be able to eat dinner. However, after the hour-long train ride from Chiba to Yotsuya, where I was meeting Sunny for dinner, I was almost in some form of eating condition We went to this one place first, which apparently specialized in Shanghai crab dishes. While it looked good, I can’t really be spending 5000 yen on a single meal, so we decided to pass and went a few blocks down the road to a more local/less fancy Cantonese restaurant. This ended up being a good choice, because the food was really good. I’m pretty sure the place was run and staffed by real Chinese people; at the very least they weren’t Japanese. Their J-go wasn’t exactly perfect, and they were less polite with customers and stuff than Japanese people tend to be, at least in service situations. For example, when we showed up, the only table open in the place was in the corner blocked by two other tables. The lady went nuts, asking people to move and even really abruptly asking (more like ordering) one guy to move to the other side of his table. It was pretty funny, and made me feel like I was a VIP or something getting the waitress to rearrange the dining room so I could sit down.

Not only was the food cheap, but it was way good. We had like 4 dishes; a beef and vegetable, chili shrimp, chicken, and another vegetable dish that we didn’t really order but the pushy waitress I think assumed we wanted it after she kept recommending it. Either that or she just ordered it for us. Ah well; it was cheap and was good anyway. I don’t think I’ve actually had “proper” Chinese food for a long time, probably in St. Louis last summer. The most Chinese food I eat in Japan is ramen or fried rice, but it’s always more Japanese style so it’s not the same thing. I think I’m going to try and make a conscious effort to find some decent/more authentic Chinese restaurants or greasy spoon places here in Chiba. There’s apparently a dim-sum place here in Goi too, that I should try and find.

Anyway, I ate way too much today and spent a good chunk of yen. It was worth it though.

I am currently eating the greatest peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever. Seriously. Just thinking about how amazing it is made me lean back in my chair and laugh like an evil maniac. Not that this PBJ is really that different from any other PBJ, it’s just that I haven’t had a real PBJ like this in months. Japanese “peanut butter,” you see, is usually sweet, whipped, and gross. A lot of times they appropriately call it peanut whip or something, but I have been fooled too many times by products wrongfully labeled as “peanut butter” here. You expect the real deal, and end up with this sweet stuff that tastes more like frosting than that classic “stick to the roof of your mouth” goodness*. I have tried a few different brands of Japanese peanut butter/cream/whip, and all of them are awful. Too sweet, too airy, and/or too frosting-like. The only hope I saw before this was back at Costco a few months ago where they indeed had a tub of real American-imported peanut butter. Back then, I didn’t want to spend 2000 yen on a tub of PB the size of my head. If I would have gone this month, I probably would have bought it. Peanut butter withdrawal isn’t something that really nags at you; it’s fairly submissive. You might not even know if you have it. I never thought a PBJ would taste this good. However, if you are a peanut butter-loving American who has been in a foreign country for a few months, I challenge you to sit and think about a good peanut butter sandwich. You’ll probably find yourself in a pile of drool.

Salvation was found Monday afternoon when I was casually shopping at the grocery store in the nearby Ito Yokado. I was looking at the cereal section, which I didn’t even know existed, and bought some Calbee brand frosted flakes and cocoa flakes. I haven’t yet tried these, but I’ll be sure to do so something soon. I looked at an eye-level shelf, and among the standard peanut whip and peanut cream products, I found the diamond in the rough. SKIPPY peanut butter. That’s right. Real American Skippy freaking peanut butter. I read the label to make sure it wasn’t some kind of peanut cream with the Skippy name on it. Nothing of the sort. I brought it home, opened it and smelled it. It looked and smelled like peanut butter. Well, tonight I finally made a sandwich with it and I am in heaven. Thank you Skippy, for importing your product to Japan.

*I realize that line calls for all sorts of sexual references and jokes, but I don’t care. I love peanut butter too much.