We had a later meeting time
today. We didn't have to meet up until almost 9AM. Weeks before departing, our itinerary included
touring the factory of a major Japanese company. My silly fantasizing brain
imagined what it would be like if it were Nintendo or Sony, but I had long
since learned to live in reality and figured it would be one of the larger
companies that has a presence outside of Japan like Mitsubishi or Toyota. Upon retrospect, it makes complete sense that this was not
the case; of course it would be a company that operates within the confines of Japan. This was, after all, an inflated excursion into the
Japanese culture. Also, as it turns out reality can be fun sometimes, too. We
weren't going to tour one of the large car or electronics companies but a
chocolate factory!
A chocolate factory? Really?! Huzzah! This was too good to be true. I have an incredible sweet tooth, so seeing how these delicious confections are made would be a treat. (get it? treat? aha!) I knew that we were going to the factory today, so my sweet tooth kicked into gear early. After breakfast I went down to a convenience store looking for something to eat. With the chocolate factory in the back of my mind, I subconsciously bought a Snickers and a Coke. American food!
The company's name was Meijin. They're an incredibly successful Japanese company, and this factory made the Guiness world record for largest chocolate factory. (there are so many 'world's largest' things here in Japan) We entered a viewing hall that looked like a cafeteria with tasty Meiji snacks waiting for us. We were given the Japanese equivalent of M&Ms and Cheese Doodles. We were told not to eat them until we got back on the bus. What?! Why give us delicious snacks and then tell us not to eat them?! Japan confuses me sometimes.
The factory tour was fun. We were shown how the confectionaries were produced and packaged. What amazed me was how meticulous Meiji is about contamination and quality control. I'm pretty sure all factories are like that, but it seemed like Meiji took many more extra steps to ensure that nothing gets into the food. Employees are covered in multiple layers so only their eyes are showing. They have to use special rolling devices to get excess hair and anything else that might be clinging to their outfits. On top of that, they have to walk through air showers to make sure that there are no bugs or any outside contaminants sneaking in.
Once back on the bus, I eagerly ripped open my little M&M-like candies. I was curious to see how they were compared to our candy. Once again, the Japanese had outdone us. While the karl (their equivalent of cheese doodles) wasn't as good as our own, they make it in over 70 flavors. Imagine barbecue, bacon or chocolate flavored cheese doodles. Only in Japan!
Which brings me to something that I had realized through the course of our trip; all of the food in Japan is just plain better than ours. Why? Do they prepare better food out of cultural heritage? Are they just plain healthier in general? This was hard to pinpoint. It really all depended on the kind of food you're talking about. For example; when it comes to certain kinds of seafood, Japan's got the rest of the world beat. I'd never eaten so much fish and rice in my life, yet I wasn't complaining. I'm a picky eater in general, but not closed minded when it comes to new things. I'm not a salad eater. I hate it. Give me meat and potatoes over salad any day. However, the salad in Japan was just so delicious! About 70% of our meals came with salad and I downed it every single time. I'd never eaten such fresh salad in my entire life! Crunchy, moist and veritable. Even the dressing, which I also don't usually enjoy because of the texture and flavor, was instantly enjoyed upon consumption. Japan was making me enjoy eating healthy on a daily basis! All of my traditional American values had flown right out the window. For once, I didn't crave greasy fast food all the time.
After the factory tour, we headed for our last meal in Osaka. We were given legitimate sushi for the first time. A week in Japan and we were only now given sushi! I thought we would be eating it for every meal. Not so.
The shinkansen would take us back to Tokyo today. The only activity for Day 7 was the chocolate factory, with the rest of the day reserved for travel. We had a lot of fun on the train. There was more goofing around, but since we were on the shinkansen it needed to be subdued respectful goofing around. We obliged to the best of our ability.
A chocolate factory? Really?! Huzzah! This was too good to be true. I have an incredible sweet tooth, so seeing how these delicious confections are made would be a treat. (get it? treat? aha!) I knew that we were going to the factory today, so my sweet tooth kicked into gear early. After breakfast I went down to a convenience store looking for something to eat. With the chocolate factory in the back of my mind, I subconsciously bought a Snickers and a Coke. American food!
The company's name was Meijin. They're an incredibly successful Japanese company, and this factory made the Guiness world record for largest chocolate factory. (there are so many 'world's largest' things here in Japan) We entered a viewing hall that looked like a cafeteria with tasty Meiji snacks waiting for us. We were given the Japanese equivalent of M&Ms and Cheese Doodles. We were told not to eat them until we got back on the bus. What?! Why give us delicious snacks and then tell us not to eat them?! Japan confuses me sometimes.
The factory tour was fun. We were shown how the confectionaries were produced and packaged. What amazed me was how meticulous Meiji is about contamination and quality control. I'm pretty sure all factories are like that, but it seemed like Meiji took many more extra steps to ensure that nothing gets into the food. Employees are covered in multiple layers so only their eyes are showing. They have to use special rolling devices to get excess hair and anything else that might be clinging to their outfits. On top of that, they have to walk through air showers to make sure that there are no bugs or any outside contaminants sneaking in.
Once back on the bus, I eagerly ripped open my little M&M-like candies. I was curious to see how they were compared to our candy. Once again, the Japanese had outdone us. While the karl (their equivalent of cheese doodles) wasn't as good as our own, they make it in over 70 flavors. Imagine barbecue, bacon or chocolate flavored cheese doodles. Only in Japan!
Which brings me to something that I had realized through the course of our trip; all of the food in Japan is just plain better than ours. Why? Do they prepare better food out of cultural heritage? Are they just plain healthier in general? This was hard to pinpoint. It really all depended on the kind of food you're talking about. For example; when it comes to certain kinds of seafood, Japan's got the rest of the world beat. I'd never eaten so much fish and rice in my life, yet I wasn't complaining. I'm a picky eater in general, but not closed minded when it comes to new things. I'm not a salad eater. I hate it. Give me meat and potatoes over salad any day. However, the salad in Japan was just so delicious! About 70% of our meals came with salad and I downed it every single time. I'd never eaten such fresh salad in my entire life! Crunchy, moist and veritable. Even the dressing, which I also don't usually enjoy because of the texture and flavor, was instantly enjoyed upon consumption. Japan was making me enjoy eating healthy on a daily basis! All of my traditional American values had flown right out the window. For once, I didn't crave greasy fast food all the time.
After the factory tour, we headed for our last meal in Osaka. We were given legitimate sushi for the first time. A week in Japan and we were only now given sushi! I thought we would be eating it for every meal. Not so.
The shinkansen would take us back to Tokyo today. The only activity for Day 7 was the chocolate factory, with the rest of the day reserved for travel. We had a lot of fun on the train. There was more goofing around, but since we were on the shinkansen it needed to be subdued respectful goofing around. We obliged to the best of our ability.
We were finally back in Tokyo. I ate more food at dinner than I had during any
single meal this entire trip. I found myself in the position of debating
whether or not to go out, but once again I decided to go explore. Tokyo is bigger than Osaka, and for our first few days downtown was beckoning
but we were restricted to the hotel. This time we were given room for
exploration. It was fun. We wandered around aimlessly for a while. We really didn't
have a goal in mind that night, but I knew I wanted to look for more video game
related things. The trip to Manboraku left me wanting so much more. To have so
much otaku related stuff within such a close proximity but no time to look at
any of it was beyond frustrating. This was Tokyo, however. There was an almost limitless amount of
stores and game related things to look at.
Since we didn't really have a destination in mind, we settled on a store called Book Off. Book Off is a large chain of book stores located all throughout Japan. While books are their primary draw they carried much, much more, including used and new video games. A couple of the students visited Book Off on one of the first few nights and couldn't help but regale in the spoils that they found there.
There were music, movies, books, magazines and games all in one place. Once again, it was way too much to absorb at once. I checked out the games they had in this particular location. There was nothing of note. A little dejected, I decided to check out some manga. I had seen some in the book store that was attached to our hotel in Osaka, but everything there was new and expensive. Most of these books were used and cheap. Very, very cheap. Each manga was about $2 as opposed to $5.
I purchased my first ever manga. 2 of them were based off of Kingdom Hearts, and the other 2 were based off of Kirby. The Kirby manga was geared more toward kids and included very little kanji, so it would be a great learning tool once I get a bigger vocabulary. Manga isn't really up my alley, but I couldn't come to Japan and not buy some.
As they say, 'when in Rome'...
Since we didn't really have a destination in mind, we settled on a store called Book Off. Book Off is a large chain of book stores located all throughout Japan. While books are their primary draw they carried much, much more, including used and new video games. A couple of the students visited Book Off on one of the first few nights and couldn't help but regale in the spoils that they found there.
There were music, movies, books, magazines and games all in one place. Once again, it was way too much to absorb at once. I checked out the games they had in this particular location. There was nothing of note. A little dejected, I decided to check out some manga. I had seen some in the book store that was attached to our hotel in Osaka, but everything there was new and expensive. Most of these books were used and cheap. Very, very cheap. Each manga was about $2 as opposed to $5.
I purchased my first ever manga. 2 of them were based off of Kingdom Hearts, and the other 2 were based off of Kirby. The Kirby manga was geared more toward kids and included very little kanji, so it would be a great learning tool once I get a bigger vocabulary. Manga isn't really up my alley, but I couldn't come to Japan and not buy some.
As they say, 'when in Rome'...
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