Opus 2019-077: Firsts: Anonymous

One of the adventures of travel is trying new foods.  In Japan there is usually an English subtitle or special menu for foreigners.  Sometimes you have to ask but it is there somewhere.  Of course part of the adventure is trying mystery foods.  Yesterday after coming back from a sushi restaurant we stopped at Family Mart. 

In Japan there are three large chains of stores for a quick bite: Seven-Eleven, Lawson Station and Family Mart.  They are all similar to a 7/11 in the states with different specialties.  For the 100 yen snack crowd it is Family Mart.  One reason I like it is the selection.  The other reason is that they have more frequent English sub titles.  You need to stay alert.  My son showed me one that I thought said cheese-somethings.  He told me to look again and it was cheese-fish-somethings.  I thought I had learned the lesson last time I was here when I went to Mr. Donut and picked out what looked like a cream filled pastry.  The first bite told me that the filling was creamed fish.  Surprise!  Surprise! 

Many of the things you buy only give you a cute picture.  We got what we thought was a lemon meringue cream puff.  All the label told us was “Happy Taste”.  It was not what we expected.  We are not sure what it was.  It was good, but a mystery. 

We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival.  The blooms were beautiful.  At night they had them lit up so the entire park glowed and the glow was often reflected in pools and moats.  The second attraction was the food stalls.  It was like going to the state fair and everyone with a rice cooker showed up.  We tried all kinds of things.  Some we really enjoyed.  Some were one bite wonders. 
If you are really bored you can find McDonald’s on occasion but don’t count on the menu being the same. 

I had a lot of firsts but I don’t know what they were.

homo unius libri