Food in Japan!

And now for my favorite part of Japanese culture (that's not true, but it is amazing!)-the food! I love Japanese food, but I foresee myself gaining a lot of weight in the future because it is all carb based and there is always so much of it. I rarely get fruit when I go to restaurants (but I have a stock pile at home), and when there are vegetables many times they are fried. However, as we start going to restaurants less and less because we start settling in, I hope that I will be able to eat healthier! This blog post will have a couple of different categories and pictures, so enjoy (and be jealous).

My Cooking:

HAHAHAHAHAH! I'm sorry, that was uncalled for, but let's just say that I haven't been cooking very much at all. I have been relying on bentos (more on that later), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and spaghetti and sauce. Or just going out to restaurants. However, as I get more settled in I will eventually start cooking more (Gerald and I are interested in taking a class) and I can write an entire blog dedicated to my amazing time cooking in Japan, but now let's get to the interesting things.

Supermarkets:

I live very close to a supermarket (about a 5 minute walk) which is great. It means that any time (before 10) that I need a snack, I can get one! In the supermarket (Itoku), I can get almost anything I need (except gallons of milk)-including lots of beer, wine, and sake. I can even get bread, although they only have white bread here which is interesting. My favorite part of the supermarket is definitely the bento (prepared meal) section where I can get a substantial piece of salmon for about 2 dollars. Mmm salmon. They also have a lot of sushi in this section and anything that any lazy college student (or Assistant Language Teacher) could ever need. While the supermarket is awesome, there are also things that I am too scared to try, like dried squid and a weird diseased cucumber type thing that is apparently really bitter.

 The sad thing about Japanese supermarkets is that they have very expensive fruit. Grapes are 800 yen (about 9 dollars) for a tiny bag. However, it's worth it, so I will keep buying fruit until I run out of money (which will be never!!!). I am excited to learn how to cook Japanese food so I can actually use ingredients and things, but until then I will continue to eat at...

Restaurants:

As I have mentioned in many other blog posts, I have been eating out a lot since coming to Japan, and I have learned about the wonder that is authentic Japanese food. To be fair I have also eaten at McDonald’s a couple of time and I went out for Italian food once, but Japanese food is where it's at. I thought I knew ramen before, I didn't know ramen. I also thought I knew fried chicken. Well...nothing can actually compete with southern fried chicken, but Japanese fried chicken is also very good. And I discovered one of my new favorite vegetables: the daikon (radish). I can't even describe how amazing the food is (it's very good), so I think that you all should come visit me instead! It's the only possible solution. I do really miss American food some times, especially the burgers. There is a place close to me called “Dixie Burgers” (complete with Confederate flag)

 where the burgers are huge and delicious, but it's not the same. Also pizza-I miss good pizza. Anyway, back to Japanese food...the dish that I have ordered the most over the past 4 weeks is definitely shoyu (soy sauce) ramen. 

The bowls are always so good, and it is steadily delicious. It is not the most delicious thing that I have had, but it's very dependable. Other things that I have enjoyed are tonkatsu (fried pork),

 yakitori (chicken on a stick),

 and fried chicken of every shape and size. Japanese food is very delicious and satisfying, but I do wish that they would use less mayonnaise (it's everywhere). I could tell you more about the food, but why would I do that? I want you all to come visit me!!! Japanese food is amazing...visit!

Interesting Food:

Since I have been here I haven't eaten anything completely different (like live octopus or poisonous puffer fish), but I have forced myself to try things that I have never eaten before, so I'll go through them briefly. One of the things that was the most surprising to me was fish roe (fish eggs) which comes on a decent amount of sushi here. They just look like small orange bubbles and I was scared to try them at first because...well...they just don't look very good to eat. However, they just taste salty and pop in your mouth so now I love fish roe! Another interesting food that I have grown to love is octopus balls, which are balls of octopus that are fried and delicious. I have had octopus in a couple of forms, but this is my favorite because, well, anything fried is alright by me. Now to talk about the food that I'm not such a big fan of, starting with dried squid. The taste of dried squid isn't actually that bad (very fishy, but I can deal with that), the thing that freaks me out is that the dried squid looks like a squid that has been dried. You can find them hanging up in any grocery store and it's just not very appetizing.

 Another thing that I hate is the amount of mayonnaise that you find on anything. I hate American mayonnaise too, so this wasn't a surprise, but at least you can avoid mayonnaise fairly easily in America. It comes on everything, so I have learned how to say “sauce nuki de onegaishimasu” (no sauce please!) which has worked well so far. The last interesting food that I have tried but not in its most complete form is natto. Natto is fermented soy beans that most foreigners hate. I have only tried fried natto so far which wasn't bad because I could only taste the batter (and we all know how I feel about fried things). I am scared to try natto for real but I know that it will happen, after all, I have at least 11 more months in Japan. I honestly do like most Japanese food, and I'm even trying to force myself to eat onions which aren't that bad here (at least how I have had them). I do miss American food (especially milk), but I think I'm going to do just fine here in Japan.

Drink:

I never realized before coming to Japan that drinking is such a huge part of Japanese culture. People go out drinking with their Board of Education (like we did last weekend at our big enkai-drinking party) and with colleagues (and even with the mayor in my case) and it's very strange. Never in America would you go out and get drunk with your superintendent-never (well...maybe in some strange, very liberal places)! Yet here, it's the norm. There is a thing called “nomi hodai” where you can have all you can drink for 2 hours, and that's exactly what we did with our Board of Education. We drank a lot of beer and then went to do karaoke and then went to a bar. It was insanity!! Great fun...but insanity!!! No me hodai is very popular here in Japan, and I have a feeling that it will happen many more times (3 so far). I have to say, Japanese beer isn't bad and it's pretty cheap. Also the sake here is delicious (Akita has the best sake in Japan, and therefore the world). During the most recent festival that I went to in Odate, there were men by the side of the road handing out shots of sake with salt on the rim (salt + sake= delicious) which was very nice. However, my favorite Japanese drink would have to be anything with lychee in it-it's my favorite Japanese fruit and makes a delicious cocktail. Well...actually my favorite drink was the drink that Aftan got on the last night that we were in Tokyo that had a glowing blue ice cube and a sparkler in it, and it tasted delicious...but how many times am I going to have that (or have a sip of that)?

 I mean that's basically it when it comes to alcohol; it's plentiful, fairly cheap, and good.