Forrest Brown » Japan

Japan – Soy Sause Flavored Kit Kat

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:42:53 +0000

One interesting thing about Japan are it’s Kit Kat candy bars. Everyone has probably eaten a Kit Kat and knows that they are creme filled wafers, covered in an layer of milk chocolate. But In Japan, Kit Kats come in a huge variety of flavors, everything for the regular chocolate to a crazy Wasabi flavor, some really good and some truly awful. What’s interesting is that different seasons and different regions of Japan have different flavors of Kit Kats that people collect as souvenirs of that region.

Once I saw that there were so many flavors of Kit Kats, I started watching out for new flavors to try whenever I was traveling.

Soy Sause Flavored Kit Kat

Soy sauce flavored Kit Kats sounds pretty strange and possibly awful, but they were actually pretty good. They had a sweet and salty flavor, kind of like chocolate covered pretzels.

Click here to see all of the different flavors of Kit Kats that I tried

Japan – Yubari Melon Flavored Kit Kat

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:16:35 +0000

A Yubari Melon is a Cantaloupe like melon that is grown in the town of Yubari in Hokkaido Japan. The crazy thing about the Yubari Melon is how much they sell for. Just one melon sells for $100 -$200 (yes, really), with two melons selling at auction in 2008 for $26,000 (yes, Japan is strange sometimes).

I’ve never had a Yubari Melon, so I can’t say if the price is worth it. But I’ve had Yubari Melon flavored Kit Kats.

The Kit Kats were interesting, they were milk chocolate and looked like a regular kit kat, but there was a faint cantaloupe smell to them. The taste was pretty much what you would expect if you crossed a cantaloupe with a Kit Kat. Unfortunately it’s a combo that doesn’t really work all that great together. The Cantaloupe flavor was not real strong, but it was noticeable.

Yubari Melon Flavored Kit Kat

Click here to see all of the different flavors of Kit Kats that I tried

Japan – Big Fans

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:04:42 +0000

I was walking through Shinjuku Station when I saw a group of ladies stopping to take photos of a new Hitachi ad. I’m not sure who the guy on the ad is, but he was sure popular. I watched for a couple of minutes and in that time 15 – 20 ladies stopped to take his photo.

Japan – Hamburger Steak

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:28:56 +0000

Hamburger steak for lunch.

Japan – Ramen

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:22:13 +0000

Ramen for Dinner.

My ramen being preparing

Japan – Ronald

Forrest — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:49:44 +0000

I’ve found an old friend in Tokyo.

Japan – Capsule Hotel

Forrest — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:39:20 +0000

I had only rented my serviced apartment in Tokyo for the month of August, but I was flying back to Los Angeles on September 4th, so I needed to stay in hotels for the last couple of days before heading back home. One of the hotels I decided to stay in was the Green Plaza Capsule Hotel in Shinjuku. I had heard about capsule hotels before going to Japan and they seemed like such as strange idea that I thought it would be interesting to try one for a night to see what it was like.

The idea behind a capsule hotel is that main reason you stay in a hotel is to sleep. So a capsule hotel pushes that idea to the extreme, instead of a room, you just have a bed inside a small compartment, about 6 feet deep, 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall. The idea is similar to hostels, but instead of a bunch of people all sharing one big room, everyone has their own little capsule.

Most capsule hotels are located near busy train stations. In Japan the trains and subways only run until about midnight, so it’s fairly easy to miss the last train home if your out with friends and not paying attention to the time. Since many people live quite a ways from central Tokyo, it could be a very expensive taxi ride home. At about $45 for the night, the capsule hotel makes for a cheaper alternative.

Capsule Hotel

Rows of capsules. I'm not sure how many capsule there were in total, but each floor had a bunch of hallways, all lined with capsules.

I'm 6 feet 1 inch tall and I just fit into the capsule. When I laid down my head touched the back wall and my feet touched the curtain

There's really no door in the capsules, just a curtain that you can pull down, so you can hear people walking down the hallway or snoring. Each capsule has it's own build in TV and radio.

The Green Plaze Capsule Hotel in Shinjuku Japan. The hotel was not super obvious to find, I walked by it twice before realizing this was it.

Once I fond the capsule hotel, it was still a little tricky to actually get to the check in lobby. You first had to take the stairs down to the basement.

Once in the basement, you had to find the elevator in the back of the building and go to the 4th floor where the men's hotel lobby was. Women's lobby was on the 8th floor. Men and women are completely separated by floors.

The sign says the people with poor posture are not allowed. Actually, like most Onsen, you're not allowed to use this hotel if you have tattoos.

Once you get to the hotel's lobby, there are little lockers for your shoes. You first put your shoes in them. Then when you check in, you give the front desk your shoe locker key. When you check out or want to leave the hotel, you have to pay for any food you purchased in the hotel before getting your shoes back.

When you check in you're given a wrist band with a key for a clothes locker and a Japanese robe to wear while in the Hotel. On the backside of the wristband is a bar-code that can be used to buy food from vending machines or the hotel restaurant. Whatever you purchase in the hotel is automatically added to your bill

You change into the robe they gave you when you checked in and put your clothes in your locker.

Since, one of the main clients for capsule hotels are people who stayed out too late and missed the last train home, there's a little store where you can buy whatever you need to go into work the next morning.

The hotels had vending machines, a restaurant, TV rooms, a massage room and an onsen. You could buy food or drinks from the restaurant or vending machines by having the bar-code on your wristband scanned. You then pay for everything when you check out.

Bathroom

Everything you needed to stay overnight was supplied. Here's a bunch of toothbrushes.

Toilets

Overall my experience in the capsule hotel was pretty interesting. But, I didn’t really get a good nights sleep, the bed was just a thin cushion over the hard bottom of the capsule, so it was not very comfortable, but actually being in the capsule didn’t really bother me.

Japan – Bike Parking

Forrest — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:35:45 +0000

Interesting place to park bicycles. Many people ride bikes in Japan so you have the problem of where to store your bikes. This apartment building solved it by having the bike parking on the roof.

Japan – Sleeping on the Street

Forrest — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:58:42 +0000

If you walked around one of the busier train station first thing in the morning you’ll almost always see a few people sleeping on the sidewalks. You would see an occasional homeless person, but what I always thought was amazing was the number of not homeless people that you would see sleeping on the sidewalks. Business men who had missed the last train home or people who had tried to party all night and had not quite made it all the way to morning.

Probably not the best dress to wear if you're going to sleep on the sidewalk

I like how neat and organized he is. His bike is sitting nice and straight, he's spread newspaper out to sleep on. What's a little strange is that it's 11:00 in the morning and he's still sleeping away.

Japan – Homeless Fish Tank

Forrest — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:31:10 +0000

Outside of one of the south entrances to Shinjuku station is a little area were it looks like several homeless people are living. I was walking by the area one day and noticed that the homeless guys had set up a little fish tank.