Category: Food

We’re Not As Young As We Remember

June 4, 2013

When you live at light speed as I do, you need the right fuel or else you flame out. Yesterday, a source of that fuel was established.

The location was Takao, the mountain to the west of Tokyo. After a pleasant train trip from the city, we started by riding the (fantastic!) chair lift to the half-way point:

The weather was great (about 80F), the views were wonderful and since we were all tired from the previous day we took the walk to the top slowly.

There are many shrines on the mountain, as well as restaurants selling food to the walkers. For us, the more refreshing the better!

The climb was longer and harder than KLS and I remembered, and we were at the apex of ruination before we reached the top. Bernard in particular was unused to the exertion, but he soldiered on like a true man!

That’s a Tanuki apparently, and the photo is taken from a sign illustrating its poop indexed by plants it ate! As with all the other animals allegedly on Takao (monkeys, flying squirrels), we saw none!

The walk done was much easier. At this time, I gave Bernard a rest by carrying his 4763 lb camera myself, taking many exhibition quality photos along the way. I expect he’ll be blogging a few on his blog (see link at right)!

We’d ridden the worlds steepest cable car once before, up the mountain, so yesterday we took it down. Amusingly, the car was packed with school kids, who all screamed excitedly when it fell out of the station at the start.

After a rest (during which I, with all this extra energy from vast quantities of Mt Dew, explored local grocery stores and marveled at overpriced fruit…), we hopped over to Ueno for dinner, toy shopping and (of course!), UFO catching!

That spaghetti was delicious!

A Bridge Too Far

June 3, 2013

Predictably, we couldn’t sleep much our first night, and took advantage of this to plan a trip to the famous Tsujiki fish markets. We left the ryokan around 5:30 am and headed over…

…only to find it closed to tourists until 9 am! So, at about 6:30 am we were loose in a city that wouldn’t wake for about 3 hours 🙂

That was taken at a fox shrine near Tsujiki, as we debated our next move. Eventually we decided to stroll over to the imperial gardens before heading to another attraction around 9. The walking had begun!

Bernard’s camera is stupid-impressive, but also stupid-heavy! Here he is self-portraiting during a break we took after finding the imperial gardens closed! Asakusa here we come!

That’s a look back along Nakamise-dori from within the famous Senso-ji temple. It was about 11 am by now; the day had barely started yet we’d been gallivanting for hours already. Senso-ji was great though, with lots of people and the tourist shops selling everything a man could want…

Our first lunch (Burger King!) over, it was time for Odaiba. While no Alihabara or Nagano, it was here that Bernard would be introduced to the wonder of the Japanese arcade 🙂

This photo was taken while I was still in the late stages of shock after just coming across a Monster Hunter shop in Decks mall. Since I believe in supporting the economy, I made some modest purchases and was awarded with a special bag, Airu (the cat mascot) hat and even a sticker!

That’s a real scale Gundam outside Diver City mall at Odaiba. Note KLS for scale. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!

It was about 2 pm when we found the first of 3 major arcades in Odaiba. Oodles would be spent UFO catching and redemption machining, and a great time was had by all! Among other things Bernard won himself an AKB48 mouse and mousepad set:

I won, from a single Y500 (~$5) credit, three super cute Airu’s from the same machine:

But alas, the wonderful Rilakkuma hand puppets were cursed with a ‘weak claw’ machine and were unwinnable:

We eventually left Odaiba around 6 pm, all in a state of advanced ruination. We’d been going strong for about 13 hours, and my pedometer registered over 40,000 steps. We had bags of loot and dying feet when we got back. Delirious, I even ate a convenience store hot dog for dinner…

…before collapsing – corpselike – onto the bed! What a first day 🙂

Apparently I Am A Supertaster

March 5, 2013

Are you?

Some years ago, KLS suggested, based on something she’d read, that I was a supertaster. This is a term used to describe someone that has particular, possibly abnormal (although the actual percentage of supertasters is unknown) sensitivity to certain types of food. It’s neither a good nor a bad thing: supertasters simply taste certain foods differently.

The cause of ‘supertasting’ is twofold. First, supertasters have a greater density of tastebuds, and therefore can taste with greater ‘resolution’. This allows them to distinguish smaller concentrations of taste. Secondly, supertasters have a sensitivity to a chemical called 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP). About half of people can’t taste this at all, about a quarter of people can taste it and find it bitter, and the other 25% of people are sensitive to it and have a strong negative reaction.

PROP is present in many foods, but particularly common in a few, including vegetables (particularly brussel sprouts and cabbage), coffee, grapefruits, chili peppers (the burn is much more pronounced for supertasters) and olives.

At this point, you may want to re-read the list at the start of this old post…

I have often, in my life, had a strong negative reaction when eating certain foods. And I don’t mean psychological. I remember many times as a child (and occasionally as an adult), gagging uncontrollably when eating something I found particularly unpleasant. This is apparently a not-uncommon reaction for a supertaster when they eat food containing a large concentration of PROP.

Am I actually a supertaster? Who knows. But do I believe – objectively – that the evidence supports the possibility that I am?

I’d have to say “Yes”.

Robot Claw