Nihonjin Nibbles: Halloween KitKat

Fig. 1: Halloween Theme KitKat

The first item up for review is a Halloween Theme Kit-Kat. The first striking thing is the packaging. It is bright and colorful in a blue, orange and yellow themed wrapper and has some of the typical accoutrements that we Americans associate with Halloween…bats, witch’s hats, ghosts, the moon, stars and houses.

Halloween seems to be a relatively appropriate holiday for the Japanese. Not the candy beggars, ghouls and goblins mind you, but the innate spirituality. The Japanese seem to be a deeply spiritual people, as evidenced by the large number of temples and the regular visits of people offering prayers to their ancestors. Of course, I'm in it for the candy.

I was shocked upon opening the small package…the smell was overwhelmingly wonderful! As I sat at my desk jotting down my thoughts, the candy was sitting in front of me with the corner torn off. I could smell the candy in the next room. I cannot quite place the odor, kind of nutty and vanilla-ly, with a hint of oats. When you open a standard-issue American Kit-Kat, there is no smell. Well…either that, or I am just used to it.

Fig. 2: A Sharpie (top), a standard American two-bar
KitKat (middle), the Japanese KitKat (bottom).

In a size comparison, this Japanese Kit-Kat is smaller lengthwise, but the same width and thickness. (The aroma is still lingering and I am getting anxious to eat it already!!)

The flavor is unusual but pleasant, the wafers appear to be standard issue Kit-Kat, but the filling is a light tan color. The chocolate is creamy and smooth and has a good flavor in and of itself.

Fig. 3: The interior of the Japanese KitKat.

This KitKat was far and away more appealing than the standard-issue American KitKat. The aroma was intoxicating, the chocolate significantly creamier and it was more flavorful overall. I am still trying to place the flavor, though, as it is completely different than what I'm used to.

I figured that a Japanese KitKat would be different but not this significantly different. I certainly wish that our KitKats were like this.

The standard-issue American KitKat garners a 7/10 on the completely unscientific scale of tastiness. I give the Halloween edition Japanese KitKat a 9/10!

Care Package from the Land of the Rising Sun

Japan: the Land of the Rising Sun, home of Japanese people, ninjas, sushi, good cars, lasers, robots, five million varieties of KitKats and VCRs. I love Japan and the idea of Japan. It has this mystery and alien-ness to it that I find so appealing. I can't quite put my finger on why; I'm not particularly fond of anime, but I love me some sushi; I could never quite bring myself to buy a Japanese car, but I love all things Sony. Perhaps it is the capsule hotels, vending machines selling everything from beer to used ladies drawers or the fact that there are no actual street addresses.

I had (and probably still have, actually) a jaded view of Japan. You know, the view of someone on the outside looking in at the sanitized, all-good-things view that we gaijin get. My views started when I was young, back in the '80s they would run the James Clavell mini-series 'Shogun' on the telly. It completely absorbed me. The epicness and beauty of feudal Japan just sucked me in and never let go. I knew then that I had to learn all that I could about the place, so far away from me ... not only in terms of distance but also what I'm used to in general, everyday living activites.

Yes, my perspective was one that was typical for those that have never been to Japan. An ideal, utopian society with no crime, all high-tech, robots everywhere serving every need, friendly people, green grass, cherry trees that bloom on cue, samurai walking the streets, flying cars, etc.

Unfortunately, as I have learned over the years, the grass is not greener on the other side of the pond. Japan does indeed have its share of problems. I have long been a follower of the always lovely Orchid and her blog The Monster Flower, on which she has a unique perspective on Japan, having lived there for almost two decades. If you are at all interested in Japan, I implore you to visit her blog to get all the details on what it is really like for a foreigner in Japan.

Sure some of the things that go on to foreigners in Japan isn't nice. You're cool and an outcast all at the same time. Sometimes older people go out of their way to be supremely passive-aggressive towards you just because they can. The police are apathetic and nearly always assume the gaijin is at fault.

But for all the things that are part and parcel of the reality of Japan, both good and bad, I still want to visit there. I am hoping to make a trip in 2010 or 2011, and to that end I have purchased some Japanese language learning books and a number of travel guides. I hope to take a week, maybe two, to enjoy the sights, the temples, the nightlife (not the naughty nightlife, mind you!). I want to stay in a capsule hotel, sample an onsen, eat real ramen and weird sushi, visit all the Akihabara electronics stores, ride the shinkansen, and just take in how life operates in such an unusual culture.

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The always lovely Orchid and her CH sent me a package of delectable delights from Japan. Orchid runs another wonderful blog, Japanese Snack Reviews, which she guinea pigs her American point-of-view on some of Japan's typically unusual junk food selections.

She gave me explicit instructions that I was to blog about my experiences with the goodies, and I will make good on that!

Fig. 1: The package on my cluttered dining room table.

I was very pleased and more than excited to see the box from Japan. How exciting it was to delve in to all the precious goodies waiting inside, so many alien wonders to behold!

Fig. 2: All the wonderful goodies from Japan!

As Orchid pointed out in one of her entries, the Japanese have a fondness for using English in their product naming. As you can see, many of the items have English names. The most amusing one is the "Crunky" candybars in the foreground. What immediately came to mind is the word, if you can call it that, 'crunk'. According to some of the definitions in "The Urban Dictionary", crunk is to 'get crazy and drunk' or a type of dirty southern rap. Bizarre.

What is particularly interesting about the state of Japanese junk food is the proliferation of variety in KitKats. According to Wikipedia, Japan has had no less than 25 special varieties of KitKats in flavors ranging from 'Caramel and Salt' to 'Green Tea' to 'Soy Sauce'!

As an extra special bonus, Orchid and the CH sent along a beautiful set of chopsticks...

Fig 3: Japanese chopsticks.

This was a great package of stuff, and I intend to review every one of the goodies that was tucked inside. I am going to get impressions, too, from family and friends on the goodies in order to share the adventure. I have already consumed one of the individual KitKats in the picture, so my review of that will be coming up soon.

To Orchid and the CH: thank you very kindly for the package! It made a wonderful early Christmas gift! I hope that my reviews of the goodies will be up to par with your in depth reviews on your JSR blog. I am intending on boxing up a few special, indigenous goodies from around where I live and send them off your way early in January, so be expecting them! :)

Another Math Joke

Here's a funny one from Neatorama, one of my favorite websites in the whole wide web...

There were three medieval kingdoms on the shores of a lake. There was an island in the middle of the lake, over which the kingdoms had been fighting for years. Finally, the three kings decided that they would send their knights out to do battle, and the winner would take the island.

The night before the battle, the knights and their squires pitched camp and readied themselves for the fight. The first kingdom had 12 knights, and each knight had five squires, all of whom were busily polishing armor, brushing horses, and cooking food. The second kingdom had twenty knights, and each knight had 10 squires. Everyone at that camp was also busy preparing for battle. At the camp of the third kingdom, there was only one knight, with his squire. This squire took a large pot and hung it from a looped rope in a tall tree. He busied himself preparing the meal, while the knight polished his own armor.

When the hour of the battle came, the three kingdoms sent their squires out to fight (this was too trivial a matter for the knights to join in).

The battle raged, and when the dust had cleared, the only person left was the lone squire from the third kingdom, having defeated the squires from the other two kingdoms, thus proving that the squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.

LOL! Indeed, as stated by the caption on Neatorama, Pythagoras is rolling in his grave!

Nuthatch

There's a little nuthatch that keeps visiting the pine tree in my front yard for some of the many bird and squirrel goodies mother sets out for them. I managed to shoot a few pictures when it would stay still long enough, so here they are for your enjoyment.

Fig. 1: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/125.

Fig. 2: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/320.

Fig. 3: Closeup at 300mm, f5.6 @ 1/125.

I was able to get rather close to this beautiful little creature, but what you see is actually an illusion. It helps to have a decent high-megapixel camera and a long lens. The pictures, above, were taken with a Sony alpha 200, 10.2 megapixels in JPEG mode, with a Minolta Maxxum autofocus 75-300mm lens at 300mm. I then cropped them from there and did some color and contrast adjustments using Google's Picasa 3 software.

Power Outage

September is usually uneventful here in Ohio...as is pretty much every month. However, September of 2008 will go down in infamy as being the windiest on record. On Sunday, September 14, the remains of Hurricane Ike blew through our area and knocked out power to about 330,000 people in the Dayton area. In other words, everybody.

I have never, ever heard the wind howl like this. Ever. And it wasn't just one strong gust every now and then. I'm talking a constant wind of nearly 50 miles per hour, even gusting as high as 75. This went on for hours. The wind started about 10am that day, we lost power at 1pm and it finally stopped howling at about 6pm.

Thankfully, my house was spared any wind damage, save for my big satellite dish which was blown out of alignment. Mother and father's house was similarly undamaged.

Fig. 1: Misaligned Satellite Dish.

It is not that big of a deal because it wouldn't align properly where it was anyhow so I moved it back to the bird feeder post nearer the ground.

Lots of trees suffered in the storm, which was the major cause of the power outages.

Fig. 2: Tree limbs in my neighbor's yard.

The trees belonging to my backyard neighbor were the hardest hit. The wind stripped the tree nearly bare and tore off a number of limbs.

Fig. 3: A limb in my parent's backyard.

We were without power for nearly seven (7!) days. Most of the line crews from around here had been dispatched to the ravaged areas of Texas after the hurricane proper took out electric down there. No one expected such a savage windstorm to come through our area.

Fig. 4: The view between my parent's
house (left) and mine (right).

We didn't expect the power to be out for so long. Thankfully, we had some rather cool days after the storm blew through, so I left the windows open. Sleeping with the windows open all night was actually pretty terrific!

At the second day I had to clean out my fridge and freezer.

Fig. 5: My empty fridge.

All I had left was some mustard, pickles, microwave popcorn, bottled water, film, batteries and my stash of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I threw out some mayonnaise, frozen chicken pot pies, mini pizzas and hot pockets. Hey, I'm a bachelor...you expect me to have actual food? I used this time to actually do a good clean on the fridge, too, which was convenient.

Mother and father were hit harder in this regard. They ended up throwing out two new gallons of milk, lots of new frozen stuff, lunchmeat and bacon and more. They had just gone to the store that Saturday! Needless to say, we ate out nearly every night. Well, at the restaurants that had power. Most of the nearby joints were without power for the duration, too.

The phone company had set up a number of generators and power trucks at their central offices and tandems to keep the phone lines powered. There were so many traffic signals without power that the city did not have enough portable stop signs to go around. Luckily, people were doing right and treating them as four-way stops like they should.

I think I dealt with the situation pretty well. I didn't have internet, which was driving me crazy, but I took it in stride. I would take my iPod, laptop and cell phone to work to charge them and when I got home I would play solitaire or pinball until my battery died, then I would listen to music or watch videos on my iPod until time for bed. I had to use my cell phone as an alarm clock so I could get up on time. Taking showers by flashlight really isn't much different. At least I had hot water...behold the power and glory of natural gas!

Fig. 6: My house, before and after the power outage.

Fig. 7: My house, during the power outage.

Mother, however, was a different story. I thought that she was going to have a breakdown. I'm serious, she was getting worse every day; getting closer to that edge that once you cross you can never come back. She was getting mad at me because I was dealing with the situation in a calm, cool manner as if it was no big deal. She was unusually salty at work and would severely admonish people who called in because they had no power.

I saw no reason to get all worked up. Sure it was annoying and I would rather it not happen, but it did, so there. She did not see it that way. By day three, she was ready to do violence to anyone from the power company. By day five, she was ready to kill for a generator. More than once she was near tears. I can't say as I blame her, she is sensitive and when out of her comfortable element she doesn't know how to react. Afterward she said that she was not good in a personal crisis. She's right.

I will miss you, dearest Beverly...

I was planning on putting up a posting tonight about the hurricane and power outages here in Ohio, and some musings about some of the stupidity and interesting things that went on during the extended blackout. I swear I had it all ready in my head, complete with pictures!

That, of course, was in a perfect world where I could come home from an extremely annoying day at work and vegetate. This, alas, was not to be.

Mother called me over to her house tonight, as per usual. However, when I arrived, she started crying. This is a prime indicator of something extremely bad. And, well, it is. My mother's dearest best friend, Beverly, passed away suddenly last night. It may have been a stroke or a heart attack, no one if for sure yet. She was 50. Mother worked with her at the nursing home. Mother is the personnel director and Beverly was the Director of Nursing.

It was only a few months ago that we attended a surprise birthday party for her 50th. In more recent memories, she came over numerous times this summer to swim in mum and dad's pool and shoot the breeze.

I remember clearly the last time I saw her was this last Friday. I went to the nursing home to work on a faulty computer and she stopped to visit with me for a while. I was whining to her about how I still had no power and how mother was getting pretty close to her wit's end being in the same situation. She gave me a back rub. A good one. She gave great backrubs.

Beverly will forever be close to my heart for helping me deal with having cancer, since she had gone through chemo and radiation herself. She was also integral in helping my mother cope with my treatments and what understanding what I was going through. She was a great friend to mummy as well.

Going to the nursing home will not be the same without seeing her there, ransacking her office for candy, a backrub and the inevitable two-way street of venting about life, the universe and everything. I will miss her very much, as will a lot of people.

Hurricane Ike

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

The bits and pieces of Hurricane Ike blew through the Dayton area on Sunday afternoon knocking out power and throwing full-grown trees around like matchsticks. There were wind gusts of up to 75 mph throughout the area and this went on for hours and hours. About 225,000 people are still without power.

I have been powerless since Sunday at 1pm EDT. Other than that, I have come through unscathed. My house in fine, no damage to any of my trees. Mother and father's house, next door, is undamaged as well. There are, though, vast quantities of leaves in both our yards.

I have a few pictures which I will post as soon as power comes back on. They say it may be the weekend before that happens, though.

My relatively boring life has just increased its boredom factor by 10x. I've been turning in early every night. Sleeping with the windows open has been quite refreshing; thankfully the weather has been really nice and the evenings unusually cool.

No one in Ohio expects a hurricane.