Mexican food in Japan and more great translations

This weekend we are on the road.  We got lucky and found a Mexican restaurant. The menu of course was in Japanese but there was also some English/Spanish.......or a google translated version of the two. It's always fun to look at the menu and see what you can find.

The mexcan (should be Mexican)

Sum vegetables - is that slang?

Beef Taguitos - should be beef taquitos

Please choose a fabric (should be choose a shell type)

Flower (should be flour)

What is a bucket plane?

This is what a taco looked like - looks like something off a tv show and was good too!

And lastly doesn't this sound good, or at least interesting?

Good Ego (english)

We are on the road this weekend so that means another stop at the highway rest stop/restaurant/rest area. And, more great English sayings on the boxes of sweets there.

And two things I don't think we have in the states: some sort of black (maybe sesame?) pudding and pretzels covered in a sugary grape coating.

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.

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

Good English

This was what was on the toilet when we got to our hotel room for training camp. Does this mean clean?

Good English

Another great example of good English where we are:

When we were on our way back from our last road game we stopped at a conveniencecstore to get something to eat. This is what some of the options were:

One of my teammates got the: Pizza sand

Supposed to be pizza sandwich/wrap

And the second one-it says it's a rap (a ham and cheese rap to be precise)

And in case you are wondering, rap music did start playing when I opened this up.

Good English?

Here is another example of great English here in Japan.......or is it? Unless they got something new this may be an oops.

Good English

This was on the shredded cheese package that we bought. Definitely written by a native English speaker right?

Good English

Today i was down in the laundry room and happen to notice this as the name of one of our dryers.

Okay, the steam dryer part makes sense, but what about the line below it?

Does that mean the machine spins the clothes around in an oval or almost round motion? or does it mean that the inside drum is almost round? Or could it be that this was sold as a discount because the manufacturing process was a little off, where the correctly put together machines say "simple round clothes dryer"?  But since it was close and the thing still works well they just say "roundish"?

Or, and most likely, is it just a simple case of great English :). ?