died in the wool ______

To have no set purpose in one's life is the harlotry of the will -Stephen Mackenna-

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

bucho and yokan

Not new news or anything, but my bucho (department head) is so nice. He's from ibaraki, he visited his kids at kyodai for new years, and has a really intentional gait where he walks with his hands in a fist so he looks like a cartoon character. He's a lot better than my old bucho; when I started working here, he rambled on about Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. This guy is just so earnest it's hard not to want to do good by him.

And at 3:00pm, like we do every afternoon the OL's in the department passed around yokan for the afternoon 'tea' thing.

Yokan is an acquired taste I suppose. Mostly just the appearance, a big slab of jello looking stuff, can be difficult to get over at first. But it grows on you. Gelatin here is almost always made from seaweed not....whatever it's made from in the states (I know it's not horse hooves, but it may as well be), so it's not as rubbery in my experience.

7 Comments:

At 3:31 PM, Blogger inlandchi said...

Hi Travis:
I just noticed your post on Gluten-free Girl about the soymilk "ice cream" flavors released in Japan. Do you have any more information about them, like the Brand name and maybe the kanji? Don't know if I can find them but as I have a milk allergy, I'd love to try.

Oh yes,nice blog and I like yokan, too!

cheers :)
inlandchi

 
At 6:31 PM, Blogger Travis said...

hey there,

it's made by kanebo, a cosmetics company, and it's called I.V. (which stands for I veggie I guess). Look down in my blog further for a post I made about it. If your japanese is good enough check out this page where you can by a bulk box of the individual cups.

http://kanebofoods.joints.ne.jp/servlet/CatalogList?act=detail&path=12&index=0

 
At 6:39 PM, Blogger Travis said...

the japan times also ran this article (in english) about I.V.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/business/nb01-2005/nb20050108a6.htm

 
At 6:36 PM, Blogger inlandchi said...

Thanks for all the good info!!! I tried ordering from the site but sank under the kanji at the second step. Don't suppose you would want to translate the order form as a "public service" for all the hungry soy-lovin' English speakers in Japan...and me??? :)

 
At 7:13 PM, Blogger Travis said...

contact this address is all I can offer you:

kanebofoods@paldia.co.jp

english is probably fine, but keep it to simple vocab if you can't speak/use Japanese

 
At 10:38 AM, Blogger inlandchi said...

Thanks, I'll try it.
:)

 
At 5:56 PM, Blogger inlandchi said...

Got the ice cream delivered way down here in Shikoku; the best according to the general consensus(of one class) is the kurogoma-- black sesame,for folks outside Japan, but my personal favourite is the maple vanilla...what else, coming from Canada as I do? Anyway, thanks again for the heads up; this one is a winner!

 

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