More Food-Related Oddities
To continue my quirky foods extended tangent that I seem to be on, and will likely continually return to throughout my stay in Japan, over the next 2 entries I will cover cell phone spam from family restaurants, my buddy the yakisoba lady, the mexican cafe blog, pancake snaps, and exotic milk sticks. Are you ready for this? I don’t think so. Don’t even front. Please.
Let’s begin with the picture above. It is a spam ad that was sent to my cell phone via a type of J-SMS called F Mail. (This gets royally confusing depending on your contract and whether you are with Docomo, Vodaphone, au by KDDI, Softbank, or some other company.) This is Docomo’s name for it. Anyhoo, I have to wonder if people are really enticed by the Hot Pepper Pockets in the photo, the promises of saving money, and the localization of the product. The restaurant, you see, is not only in the same prefecture as me, but the same city. Technically. On my island there are no chain restaurants. So this means jack to me. Well, actually, it means one more thing to delete. That is about all. Interesting side note - I am positive that cell addresses are compiled into lists and bought, sold, traded, and posted on the net for all to see as a matter of everyday business here. Why else do they give me the ability to change my phone’s address up to THREE TIMES A DAY? For the love of Pete, even to evade spam, that seems absurd. If I was really creative, though, I could have racked up a total of…363 different addresses. Whoa. Unreal.
Anyway, the point is - this would be akin to getting an SMS from a lower end of the spectrum family restaurant in the states. Say, a picture of the green beans special at Shoney’s. Um…yeah. ‘Nuff said. Needless to say, I like my life Hot Pepper Pockets free.
Next topic: my buddy the yakisoba lady. Yakisoba, for those who don’t know, is a great food. Marvelous, in fact. It is basically noodles and bits of cabbage that have been seasoned with some herbs, a savory sauce (whether or not it is a variation on Worcestershire Sauce is up for debate), and dried bonito flakes. Pure awesomeness on a plate. I really wish Alton Brown would teach me how to make it at home. Anyway, I hit the supermarket - the Hakata Shopping Center, and realized that lunch was going to be no picnic today. The parking lot was full. The parking lot is never full. In fact, no parking lot on the entire island has been full until today. I am sure of it. Crazy. So, I walked in, took a look at the bento section (bento = boxed lunch) and the lines at the registers, and thought…no thank you. I sauntered outside and ordered the yakisoba from the yakisoba lady.
Normally I avoid that stand, because they are always hawking for it, and try to guilt you into buying stuff. That may not be an issue anymore, because the lady remembers me. She always takes her prices down about 25% for me too, since I am a teacher. Cool. She struck up a conversation about how it is getting cold (weather is the number one topic of small talk - ask anyone in Japan), and it progressed into my ski resort options. Ha ha. I heard about places in Ehime, Hiroshima, Niigata (cause I went skiing there once), Hokkaido (where the yakisoba lady is from), etc. All in all, great conversation. And I love using Japanese to talk to people without the stigma of the awkward new guy. She just chats me up like an old friend. I like that. So now I have an older grandma-ish yakisoba lady. I hope that’s still cooler than being friends with the lunch ladies in the cafeterias in the states. Although, I admit, I probably did that too. Ha ha.