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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Wednesday, January 08, 2003

http://www.jlist.com/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?ss=SKTOP&function=search First thing when I get home and can edit hosed blog entries: learn to insert pictures with HTML. The syntax is simple, but it would be really ugly to have a broken link that I couldn't edit for a week. Black-Black is my secret Japanese gum addiction. Some friends here gave me some last time I was here saying it was "caffeine, nicotine, and God Knows what else." That sounded good to me. At work, it has become a rite of passage for team members traveling to Japan to bring back Black-Black for the whole team. When Kimura-san, our favorite Japanese colleague, came to visit us a year ago, we asked him to read the ingredients list to us. He laughed. Japanese co-workers always laugh when you show them Black-Black. But Kimura-san studied the list a moment and then said "Chrysanthemum." "Mmmmmm," says Homer, "Chrysanthemum..." Here from http://www.cardhouse.com/x13/candy.htm is a more nuanced description of its addictive flavor... You haven't lived until you've tried this stuff. It's been highly recommend to me by many sugar jockey friends of mine, but I'll be damned if I ever consider Black Black to be "sugary" in any way. This is the weirdest candy I have ever tasted. The flavor changes and mutates the longer you chew it. First, it tastes like licorice--really gritty, bitter and strong licorice. Then it gets minty--sharp and mouth stingingly minty. Then it gets mentholy--much more mentholy than even most throat lozenges get. If you keep on chewing it, before you know it, it tastes like your mouth has been swabbed down and scrubbed out with some kind of industrial strength cleanser. Bleagh! Although it tastes horrific, it does have a purpose. Its potent flavor can help clean out, wash away and destroy any unwanted odors or aftertastes in your mouth. Bad tasting and useful. 3:51:23 PM    comment []

Note to Bill - I could not find a web address for Morey's but this placesells Blind Robbins online: http://www.beaverfish.com/products/Smoked_and_Salted.htm No real news. Jet lag hit full force, where you feel like you're on a moving train except when you're on a moving train. An afternnon nap took care of it, but all the restaurants were closed when I awoke. The Bar on the 40th floor was open. I ordered a steak club and everyone wanted to take my picture. A friendly gentleman offered to take my picture with the Tokyo Tower in the background. A while later, he came back and offered me a sip of white whisky. It was very smooth. Here's the skinny on that: Suntory is the largest still in the world. The label on Hibiki bottles are made of handmade paper, after original old Japanese tradition. From the Whisky pilot by Uniqum Systems : The logotype for Suntory is the hibiki mark, symbolising Suntorys efforts to contribute to harmony and happiness among people everywhere. Today the Suntory Ltd is multinational company with a wide variety of companies under its wings. They produce beer, wine, whisky as well as medicines, papers and run restaurants, produce films and music just to mention a few of the branches of Suntory. But it all started back in 1899 when Shinjiro Torii started to develop a wine. After eight years he had produced Akadama, a sweet red wine. With that he launched the first Japanese Western-style alcoholic beverage industry. In 1923 he established the first whisky distillery in Japan, the Yamazaki distillery. He was very talented in blending and produced a whisky called Suntory Shirofuda, now known as Suntory White in 1929. In 1937 he created another blend, the Kakubin which was of even higher quality than the Shirofuda. In 1940 he introduced another new blend called Old. In 1973 Suntory Ltd built a second distillery in the Hakushu valley of the Japanese alps. The distillery was named Hakushu Distillery. A third distillery, Hakushu Higashi was built somewhat east of the Hakushu but sharing the same water. In 1989 Suntory launched Hibiki and Crest 12 Years Old which added another two blended whiskies to the range. They also produce the Yamazaki pure malt, as well as the Royal, Reserve, Old, Kakubin and Shirokaku blends. Apart from the whisky they produce Suntory also imports a large number of spirits to Japan. Beefeater, Courvoisier, Jack Daniels, Campari and Drambuie are just some amon the more than 140 brands that are marketed by Suntory. 9:54:22 AM    comment []

Getting around here by subway makes sense to me now. You need to know the name and color of the line to your destination(eg, Hanzomon, purple), then you can figure out the fare at the station using one of the many maps. You hope they will be in English. Carry a map for reference it case it's not, then you can ask at an information booth. You need to know which direction you are headed so you get to the right track. Bonus points for getting an express train. Count the stops so you get off at the right station. Even though they are marked on the walls, you can't be assured of having a view of the wall on a crowded subway car. We went to Chuo-Rinkan station this morning, but missed the bonus points. We sat in an empty train at countless abandoned stops as a penalty. Rush and I dropped off Billy and Jack (who arrived last night) and headed up a different line to Sagamo Ohno and Century Plaza. Free of Tokyo crowds and able to breathe, we cruised the basement of Setan (a department store) which was loaded with food and wine. Free samples abounded, but none of the labels were in English. We're pretty sure we tasted three kinds of kim chee, one which left tracks in your throat like a tracer bullet. There was some speck. At least it was labeled that, it was the leanest bacon I've ever seen. Wish it were legal to bring it back to the US. As we stared at a variety of meats on green bamboo skewers, the lady working the "shop" asked us in English what we wanted. All the meats were morsel-sized, some interspersed with onion, all coated with a translucent thick red sauce. There was chicken wing, deboned two bone portion, liver, meat balls, and chicken/onion. She asked which part of the States we were from and when I told her North Carolina she said she had lived there. Which part? She couldn't remember at first, then said "Fort Bragg". We bought a pair of the pork/onion skwers and she threw in a meatball one for free. We ended up in a mixed metaphor old west steak house a few hours later when Billy and Jack rejoined us. There was a dream catcher hanging from the ceiling, the waiter wore a red kerchief around his neck, there was a figurine of a sea captain at our table, a wooden chicken, and various gold miner motif items on the wall. We had to point at the mihon (plastic food replicas) in the window to order. Rush and I ordered what appeared to be a strip steak and our waiter offered to give us rice instead of the french fries. The steak was tough and overcooked, but what did we expect? It was topped with fried onion and enoki mushrooms to complete the ambiance. 2:01:52 AM    comment []