Pudding Kit Kat

They’re always coming up with new flavours of Kit Kat over here. The newest one is a special edition for Halloween.

It’s a Caramel Pudding Kit Kat. This the most common type of pudding in Japan. Kind of a custard with caramel on top of it.

It’s quite delicious, and very different from the normal Kit Kat. The strange thing is nobody celebrates Halloween over here so why have Halloween candy? It’s mysterious!

More Than Meets The Eye

I got this at the Sunkus convenience store in Ogawara. Boss Coffee doing a special promotion of old school Transformers. There’s like a plastic top on the can, kind of like an aerosol can top. Inside is a little Transformer figure. I got Bumblebee.

This must be for all of the thirty year old demographic who remember the Transformers in their youth. I can’t imagine little kids really being into Boss Coffee.

Shooting Watch

I finally got a Shooting Watch. I had looked around at every game store in Sendai, but it was quietly waiting for me out side of the Seagull game store in Kakuda. What i found was a Capsule Shooting Watch.

A Shooting Watch is a little device that was invented by Hudson in the 1980’s during the shooting game craze. The legendary Takahashi Meijin could press the buttons at 16 times a second, which is super human. This thing would help you train to get as fast as him.

It’s a little smaller than a normal shooting watch, which is about two thirds of NES controller. As you can see it displays the time, thus fulfilling it’s watch requirement. The buttons feel really good on it, just like a real controller. I tried many time to get a super fast score, but I could only muster 95 times in ten seconds.

Which is only 9.5 times a second, not even close to Takahashi Meijin’s 16 a second. I guess I’ll have to keep practicing. I scanned in the little pamphlet so you could see the other designs that they have.

I got the Bomberman, which is cool, but I wish I had gotten the Star Soldier or the Adventure Island one. Maybe I’ll try my luck again sometime. After all it was only 300 yen.

Cute Cookies

One of my students visited Kamakura this past weekend and brought some treats back to share with everyone. One of the most famous sights in Kamakura is the “Daibutsu” or Giant Buddha, a giant statue of Buddha. She brought some Daibutsu cookie for us. I thought the package was really cute.

I like how Buddha is peaking over the mountains. I was even more impressed with the even cuter cookie inside.

Simply adorable! Only Japan can get away with making religious icons cute. You don’t see westerners making cute Jesus cookies. No way, no how.

Marumori

About a month ago we went with our friends Megumi, Cliff and their kids to Marumori. We went to a park that has a beautiful river and an equally beautiful temple. I thought I would share some pictures of that fun day.

The park had a lot of koi fish in a big pond around the restaurant there. The kids had a lot of fun feeding the fish. The fish were also excited. They were practically jumping over each other to get the food. You would think that no one ever fed them.

The temple was beautiful and very old. It so old that the roof is growing grass and plants.

I love all of these different lion statues at the different temples. This one had a ball under his foot.

The path leading up to the temple was like something out of a movie. Really cool.

Here’s a shot of the river. The water is so clear. Even though none of us had swimsuits we all waded in and enjoyed the cool water on our leg. Next year I want to go and swim there.

Vagabond

One of the best Japanese comics I’ve ever read is Vagabond. It’s a fantastic series about real life samurai master Musashi Miyamoto who was alive in the late 1500s.

The story details his life and his famous duels with other sword masters. Showing his path from delinquent youth to philosophical master. You can actually read the book of his strategies and thoughts that he wrote. It’s called “The Book of the Five Rings, and it’s still available today in many languages.

The comic itself is very exciting and full of action and very beautiful art. It’s drawn by Takehiko Inoue, who is a very famous manga author in Japan. I highly recommend this series to anyone who loves history or action. It’s also available in English at various bookstores.

Pokebread

I got this for fun and for lunch yesterday. It’s Pokemon bread!

It had an hamburger inside of it, and was actually quite delicious. It also came with a sticker.

It’s some Pokemon called Rugia. Yes it’s true kids have it pretty sweet over here with all of the animation branded foods. Lazy moms also have it good too, because they don’t have to make lunch.

Retro Curry

I got this box of Bon Curry. It’s really cool and retro looking. Sometimes they’ll have this box instead of the regular boring old box.

Definitely the 1960’s lady in a kimono trumps boring old circles. Which one do you think is better?

Sasuke 21

This week Sasuke 21 was on TV. It’s basically an almost impossible obstacle course.It has all kinds of difficult sections, like the “jumping spider” pictured below.

You have to jump and then hold on to the walls with you arms and legs. A lot of the contestants fail at this point. Thisis early on too. It gets a lot harder. Like the “cliff hanger”.

You have to hold onto a tiny ledge with you finger tips and at the pointyou see in the picture you have to swing from one ledge to the other. Only two people have ever sucessfully done it. Later after that is the “flipping spider”.

You must jump from one board to the other, with only the tiniest of ledges to land on.

The final competitor Nagano managed to do it. I have to say it was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen on TV. You can go to this blog Diary of an Ninja/Shoe Model and see some videos of the competition. By the way this show is also shown in the US as Ninja Warrior on G4TV. A couple of the G4 contest winners who got to come to Japan and compete were among the the top competitors and made it pretty far.

Care Package

Today I finally received my care package from Canada.

My parents had sent it over a month ago. No doubt some Japanese customs officers were reading my magazines, and that’s why it took so long. You can see in the picture above it was carefully wrapped in “President’s Choice” bags, and the local community news paper. Inside it contained a wealth of goodies.

One box of Nascar Kraft dinner (obviously from my Dad), Five packages of Guacamole mix, a bottle of BBQ sauce (impossible to get in Japan), two sticks of anti-perspirant (even more impossible), two styptic pens for shaving, four issues of EGM, four issues of Shonen Jump, and two T-shirts from Cape Cod. So now I can officially eat Kraft dinner with guacamole and BBQ sauce, while cutting my self shaving and reading magazines in my new T-shirt. Not to mention smelling nice while I do it. Thanks Mom and Dad!!