Sweets - great English

This past weekend we had another road trip, so that means another trip to the rest areas along the way. 

Once again there was no shortage of great English sayings on the gifts/sweet treats that they have for sale:

If it is hard to read this says: the sweets of three kinds of boast is presented to you. Please enjoy a delicious flavor of this sweets.

Food gifts

Here in Japan there is a sort of gifting culture.

Gifts are given for almost every occasion: to say thank you, to say thank you for a thank you gift, to say congrats, at weddings, Christmas and other holidays and sometimes just to give a gift.  As a basketball player I am very thankful as fans will sometimes give me gifts after the game and many of them spoil our daughters. (The people are extremely nice here in Toyama and we are very appreciative).

I have included a link if you want to read more about Japan's gifting culture.

http://www.giftypedia.com/Japan_Gift_Giving_Customs

If someone goes on a trip they are expected to bring back a gift from where it is they went. For example, if someone were to travel to another part of Japan or to another country they would be expected to bring back gifts from that place. Many times those gifts are some sort of sweet treat or food. The airports and road stops/highway rest areas all have sections of these packaged goodies/sweets. Some are cookies, some are cakes, and others are completely different all together. I have included some pictures of different gifts from one of the rest area we stopped at to give you an idea of what these might be. Many times, different areas of Japan are known for certain things. Kyoto (one of the prefectures/states of Japan) is known for green tea and Aomori (one of the prefectures/states of Japan) is know for apples, so the gifts/sweets/goodies will many times feature those things. Aomori had Apple cakes, little apple pies and other yummy things made frim apples while Kyoto's gifts were green tea or sweets with green tea cream filling or things flavored by green tea. (It wouldn't make a very good gift as it would melt but we did have green tea ice cream last year when we were in Kyoto).

Some of the food gifts obviously have a Japanese name but many of them have a little explanation in English. I get a little kick out of reading the English as it's not quite the same wording that you would find on a product in the States. I hope you will be able to read it in the photos.

100 yen for 30 minutes

This weekend we are on the road. The hotel we are staying at us called Livemax. As we went up the elevator to our room the first time I noticed a sign hanging on one of the walls. It said:

What does it say? 

It says if you forgot you phone charger and need to charge your device you can use theirs for 30 mins and 100 yen (about $1) a time.

 Earlier this year I made a post talking about this exact same thing - Electricity - How much?

Food - a little different and good English

Here in Japan there is some really delicious food. I do have to say I thoroughly enjoy the food and going out to eat here.

Some of the foods are completely different and some just have different ingredients.

(ex. pizza with rice cake slices on it)

Other times the food may be the same but what the menu says it way off. Some times reading the menu makes the food experience all that more enjoyable. I think google translate or some other translation service gets used as the translations don't always work out. Or maybe I should say they work out, just not in the way the restaurant wants.

Prostitues pasta with tomato sauce

Pasta with meat sauce and many rocket

Risotto kind to a body from Italy grew up in the sun

What do you drive - video

In one of my other posts (What do you drive?) I listed some of the cars that people drive here. Many, if not all, of them on the list are cars that are not in the U.S. Here is a video from the parking lot of our gym where we workout. You can see that it is pretty much all small cars and hardly any big ones. I suppose if you ever got into a tight parking spot and needed out or needed to get into a tight parking spot one of these little cars would be great as you could just pick it up and put it where you needed it to go.

A Wisconsin company - Save the bros

I thought I needed to share this video. It's from a Wisconsin based company, organic valley, that is starting to produce (or market) a high quality protein drink.

Pretty great marketing if you ask me!
Save the bros

p.s. - dear organic valley commercial, the super bowl called and said it has been looking for you

What do you drive?

Over here the cars are a little different. They are quite a bit smaller. It is rate to see a truck ( a full size truck like back home) and if you do it looks largely out of place. Here are some of the vehicles we have seen over here.

Honda life

 Suzuki stingray

Cocoa

Toyota Porte

Diahatsu move

Suzuki palette

Nissan tiida

Diahatsu Esse

Honda Freed

Suzuki Jimmy (land venture)

Toyota Vito

Honda N box

Diahatsu atrai

Toyota pixies

Honda street

Nissan flair

Diahatsu tanto

Toyota carol

Nissan Scrum

Toyota crown athlete

Toyota Voxy

Charades/communicating in another language

Here in Japan there is a language barrier between us and the locals. I know a little bit of Japanese and you can find a Japanese person every now and then that knows a small amount of English where we are able to communicate (if you want to call it that). Most of the time though there is a lot of smiling and nodding as my Japanese will pretty much only get me to the bathroom or let someone know my proficiency in counting to 10. If I really need something I need to find it myself or think of another way to describe what I am looking for. 

This happens to take place at the grocery store every once in a while. I'm glad I played games when I was younger because i got some practice at charades.

 Over here it switched from a game to a necessity. For example if you want something to drink and don't know how to say drink/liquid you could pretend you are drinking something, point to a certain direction/aisle in store and shrug your shoulders. Or, if you wanted ice cream you could pretend like you are holding an ice cream cone and licking it - the message would be pretty clear.

But what if you were in the store and you needed sugar?

A while ago I was in the store and needed sugar. Should be no problem to find...........except it wasn't. I walked around and around and all I could find was salt. Not just little salt shakers of it but big bags of it. Just laughing at me and teasing me that I couldn't find what I needed, tempting me to buy it for the banana muffins we were making. 

I must have went around 3 times looking for it and kept missing it as it was obviously there. A little frustrated I started to think about how I could ask for it. I didn't know the Japanese word for it so I began to think how I could communicate it some other way. My brain automatically jumped to charades. But.....how do you charades sugar? Do you grab a bag of salt, take it to a  worker, pretend to put it in your mouth, make a yucky face, then point out into the store like you need something, pretend to grab another pinch of salt but this time smile and rub your belly for a good taste?

Or, do you grab a bag of coffee and go to a worker. Pretend to hold a cup and point from the coffee to the cup so they know you are holding a pretend cup of coffee. Then take a drink and make a yucky face. Now pretend to pour something into the coffee and after another drink make a big smile and rub your belly so they know whatever you just did made the coffee taste better. Then pretend to pour something into the coffee again and shrugging your shoulders point out into the store asking where it, the sugar, can be found. Is this a good way to do it?

Can you think of a better way?

Sure you could use the app on your phone to translate what you want to say, but the app requires connection to a network or wifi, both of which you do not have.

Life in another county can be interesting at times and really get the brain thinking. Pretty much everyone here is patient enough to try and understand the point I am trying to get across. I can only hope that if people in America run into the same situation with someone who doesn't speak English that they are patient enough to try help them. It would be great if everyone could understand each other all the time but that's not always the case. Being overseas in different countries where different languages are spoken you learn in a hurry how hard it can be when you aren't able to say what you want to.