Freshness Burger

Earlier in the week I talked about Mos Burger. The other famous burger chain in Japan is Freshness Burger.

As the name implies it’s supposed to be healthy and fresh. The burgers are supposedly home made. They have a lot of really good Japanese style burgers. Like the teriyaki burger, which has teriyaki sauce and chopped raw cabbage on it, or the one that has a fried egg on it.

Kokeshi

Kokeshi are traditional Japanese dolls. They originate from MIyagi prefecture and are very common here. In our house we have over ten. They are very simple dolls that have a long body and a big head. They are said to have ties to an old religion in the area. They are painted in many different designs which are specific to the area that they were made. You can see the two that I took pictures of are quite different.

McSalsa!

McDonalds recently introduced two new sandwiches to the menu for a limited time. A “Salsa Chicken Burger” and a “Teriyaki Chicken Burger”. I’m happy to report that both are very delicious. I think the salsa burger would be very popular in Canada.

The menu at McDonalds changes very often over here, almost twice a month. It’s very interesting to try out all of the new stuff all of the time. I think I go more often here than I ever did in Canada.

Latest Finds

I went around today to some of the recycle shops in Kakuda, to score some more games for my Famicom. I bought three games. The first one is”Tag Team Pro Wrestling”. In which the “Ricky Fighters” battle the “Strong Bads” for wrestling supremacy. It’s like most old wrestling games, not many moves, but pretty funny. It was only 105 yen.

The second is Cosmic Wars. I thought it was a space shooter, but it turned out to be a really strange strategy game. I’m still trying to figure out how to play it since there is a lot of Japanese. Thankfully it was only 100 yen.

The last one is “Jajamaru no Daibouken” which means “Jajamaru’s Big Adventure”. It a platforming action game where you play as a cute ninja, and fight monsters and ghosts. This one was 480 yen.

All in all a very sucessful game hunting expedition. I only spent 685 yen, which is under $7 dollars Canadian.

Mos Burger

We went to Mos Burger when we were in Sendai on Friday. Mos stands for “Mountain Ocean Sun”. It one of the Japan only burger chains. It carries lots of really delicious burgers, like the chili burger, and also have burgers that have rice as the bun.

When we went they had two new items on the menu. The first one was kind of a taco.

The second was a sausage with curry and cheese sandwich.

Both were really good, but I really loved the taco. Being a lover of Mexican cuisine, and not having it for over three months, this was like a small piece of heaven. Mexican food is very difficult to find in Japan, and good Mexican food is even rarer.

Famicom

Well, yesterday I went to Super Potato in Sendai, and I finally achieved my childhood dream of owning a Nintendo Entertainment System. Actually I bought a Famicom (Japanese name for NES) clone called the”Home Game Computer SP”. It was only 999 yen which is less than $10 Canadian. Super cheap!

I thought It would be black like on the box cover, but when I opened it, It was actually red.

It has 9 games built into it, but they’re all bad bootleg versions of real games. Thank fully I bought one cartridge while I was at Super Potato. I got Super Xevious.

It was really cheap. The price was only 380 yen. I like Xevious so I thought Super Xevious must be even better. They had a lot of copies of this game, but I chose this particular one for a special reason. Some young child over 20 years ago put his name on the back.

One Junpei Takahashi. Thank you Junpei for keeping this game in good condition! Super Xevious is a typical spaceship shooter game. The one difference is that you have to solve the mystery of each level to progress. Which means doing certain conditions at certain times. That’s why the subtitle of the game is “Ganpu no Nazo”, which means the Mystery of Ganpu. I don’t know who Ganpu is, but that’s not important. Here’s a screen of the game in action.

Game Training

This game just came out in Japan for Nintendo DS. It’s called “Boku no TV Game Kentei”. Some people might be familiar with the brain training games on  DS. Well this one is training for playing video games. What you do is basically take quick test in different types of video games, and then a mark is given depending on how you did. It’s quite fun, and mostly playable for non-Japanese speakers, except for a couple of parts. You can check out the website here, Boku no TV Game Kentei.

The Words

In my quest to learn more Japanese, I purchased a very helpful book to increase my vocabulary.

It’s a childrens book that shows pictures and says what it’s called in Japanese.

Now since my Japanese level is well below a kindergartner, this book is very helpful for learning lots of basic words. Like for example, breakfast is called “asa-gohan”.

My Bike

This is my bike in Japan. It’s really cool! I ride it often to get around Kakuda, especially to the train station and the grocery store. It has a light for night time, six gears, a basket for carrying my bag, and a rack for heavy things in the back. Now you might be wondering why the tires are smaller than normal. It’s because it’s a folding bike.

It fold down to a small compact size, so that it can fit into a trunk of a car or to store in an apartment. The handles, seat and the basket are also quick realease to make it even smaller. Very handy when Yurie picks me up at the train station when it’s raining.

Yokai

Yokai means ghosts or monsters in Japanese. Lately I’ve been a book that I picked up over here called “Yokai Attack!”.

It’s basically a guide to Japanese monsters, which are quite different from western monsters. Like the Tengu, which is kind of  like a goblin but with wings and a long nose.

You see Tengu masks all over the place in like temples and stuff like that. Another common one in the Tanuki.

It’s a real animal, similar to a racoon. Japanese people believe Tanuki have special powers to transform into different shapes and play pranks. You often see tanuki statues outside of stores and hotels. Like in the picture below.

It’s a very interesting book filled with fables and history. I really recommend it to anyone interested in ghosts, monsters or just Japanese culture.