I miss Japan

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Watch these Seven-Eleven Japan commercials (all MPEG-1 format), and tell me:

  • If you’ve never seen a Japanese convenience store before, this is exactly what they look like. Oh, and when I talk about getting a bento for lunch, it’s what she’s holding up, usually, not what you’re used to getting in North America as a “bento lunch box.”
  • Don’t you want an onigiri (rice ball)? These have yummy salty salmon inside, but the konbu salty seaweed ones are fantastic when you’re feeling vegetarian. Mmmmmm, oishii onigiri (different commercial with a cute Japanese woman, whose name I’ve forgotten)
  • How about some microwaveable udon?
  • Or a mini-roll sandwich (mini roll sando)?

Seven-Eleven, いい気分.

Oh, man, do I ever miss Japan right now.

19 thoughts on “I miss Japan”

  1. I’ve been experimenting with making onigiri, but I haven’t quite gotten it right yet. Yeah, I miss Japanese konbini too.

  3. darn, wish I was at school so I’d have the bandwidth to see the commercials… but yeah, you can buy onigiri and sandwiches at the little japanese mart near campus, but it’s just not the same… *sigh*

  5. “This is exactly what they look like”? What are you talking about? The convenience store in the ad has a parking lot! They must have just stuck Japanese signs all over an American 7-11! :-P

    As far as Japanese convenience store food, though, I never really liked onigiri. That much rice is just somehow boring. That said, Nikumans are good. I once lived for a week eating Nikumans when the only money I had left was my change jar after having lost my bank card. Other good Japanese convenience store foods include instant yakisoba and those horrid little spicy chicken balls that Lawson sells.

    But yeah, thinking about convenience store food makes me miss Japan too. They say that flavours and scents elicit stronger memories of a place and/or time because those senses are more closely wired into the brain or something. Actually, it was CUV who said that, so I don’t know how much weight I should give it, but it certainly seems to be true in my case.

  6. mmmmmmmmmmmmm they look so YUMMY!!! but half of that stuff, i know i can’t eat. stupid MSG allergy…. but they look so good!!

  7. There are times when I’ll be walking around in some urban area, and a certain waft of something… rotting/fermenting/suppressing urban decay will hit my senses and boom, I get a flood of flashbacks of Seoul, Korea. Very weird, but it takes a very weird odor to trigger it.

  9. All THAT FOOD LOOKS GOOD. 7ELEVEN NEEDS TO BRING THAT GOOD STUFF HERE. DO YOU KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND A METAL BENTO BOX?

  10. You haven’t been to a conbini outside of Tokyo, then. Out in the countryside, it all looks like suburban America, complete with parking lot. Strange, huh?

    I’m just incredibly addicted to carbohydrates, which is why I love so much rice. Go figure!

  12. Metal? I’ve never seen a metal one, as the metal would most likely react with a lot of Japanese food. They’re almost all plastic or laquered wood. I think it’s the Koreans who commonly put rice and other stuff in metal containers and use metal chopsticks…

  16. me too, and yuba, which is “tofu skin,” what forms on the top of the cheese-like tofu mixture…they can pour all sorts of honey on it and it’s yummy :)

  17. Just visit lovely Jindaiji, Chofu! ;-)
    It’s Tokyo, but all the shops have parking lots because it’s a stranded little place out here….

    If I send you a salty konbu onigiri by air mail, will you send me a real Chicken Fajita? :-P

    Jon ;-)

  18. Hey, that’s right! I remember all the conbini there…

    Yes, send me a few salty konbu onigiri and I’ll send you real Chicken Fajitas. ^_-

    (Alternately, you can go to Fonda de la Madrugada in Harajuku, where I had my going away party…awesome Mexican food there, but be prepared to pay for it… http://www.fonda-m.com/)

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