Nihon Nomnoms!

My friends and I joined a local cosplay 4-koma contest, and we made it to the top 10. The 3 winning entries will be picked based on who gets the most votes. We're up against entries that already have thousands of, or almost a thousand, likes. Perhaps we don't have good persuasion skills, but then, T&B also doesn't seem to be that popular here. We're hoping to reach out to T&B fans to see our entries. Thus, if it's no trouble, and if you'd like to help us out, could you please like or share our entries? We'd really like to make it to the top 3. This is the entry I submitted, which is about Scarf-tan meeting the Heroes and secretly being a fujoshi: http://www.cosplay.ph/microsites/cosmania/wp/?p=794 And this is my friend's entry, which features Kotetsu and Barnaby bantering as usual: http://www.cosplay.ph/microsites/cosmania/wp/?p=806 All you have to do is - if you're liking via Facebook - to click the "like" button on the upper left corner. You can also click "share" to circulate the entry via Twitter, Tumblr, etc. We're not sure what the prizes are for this contest but we'd really like to spread the T&B love and to win. So if you like our entries that much, could you please share the post on your page, website, Tumblr, and/or Twitter accounts as well? Thank you!

You can find Saizeriyas all over Japan; they've also got branches in Taiwan and, I think, mainland China.

Being a warm, steamy dish, oden is perfect for wintertime, though oden ingredients are available in convenience stores all year round. Oden consists of a broth that's made of dashi stock, with its other ingredients being: boiled eggs, wieners, daikon (radish), konnyaku (which has a gelatinous texture), tofu and various fish cakes. Spicy mustard (karashi) can also be added to enhance the flavor. Convenience stores allow you to pick your own ingredients to add to the broth, and you pay based on how much your bowl weighs.

We bought a box of this in Japan. As you can see, it comes in different flavors and colors of the rainbow. I'm not sure if I remember the flavors correctly, but I think that the orange one is, well, orange (duh... I'm Captain Obvious, haha), the green one is green tea, the yellow one is banana and the red one is chocolate. I really can't remember what the blue, indigo (which actually looks more pink than indigo) and violet ones were, but perhaps the blue one is blueberry and the violet one is grape.

Matcha-sakura Kit Kat!

Strawberry cheesecake-flavored Kit Kat!

Wasabi Kit Kat!

Kit Kat is really popular in Japan. I'm not sure if it has already overtaken Pocky in terms of popularity, but at the very least, they seem to be on equal footing now. Its popularity comes from its many unique flavors and the fact that Kit Kat, when pronounced in Japanese as "kitto katto," sounds like "kitto katsu" (きっと勝つ), which means "[you will] surely succeed." The next few posts will show some of the more unique flavors we encountered. To kick things off, behold - soy sauce-flavored Kit Kat!

I don't have a picture of it, but strawberry shortcake (also known as Christmas cake in Japan) is another iconic Christmas food in Japan. Lovers usually eat it together. I was surprised to find out that strawberry shortcake can get really pricey on Christmas Day. I suppose it's because of the demand and all the decorations (as Christmas cakes can be elaborately decorated). Much as I wanted to buy some Christmas cake, I decided not to because it was expensive, and because I had no one to eat it with (my family wouldn't be able to finish the cake, and only my little sister and I like strawberries).

Also, that pizza on the right? You may think that the whitish/yellowish substance is cheese, but that's mayonnaise. It's not as bad as you may think it to be. I love mayo, and I was delighted to find out that it tastes just as good on a pizza.

One of the dessert pizzas had brownies and peaches, while the other had blueberry, if I remember correctly.

Shakey's all sorts of unique topping combinations. They've got pizza with mayo and corn and pizza with sweet toppings (which they call dessert pizza), to name a few. In the next few posts, you shall see some of the pizza I've tried.

In this case, this bun is called... Pacman! So, yeah, that's a pun - the bun has been colored to look like Pacman, and it's a Pacman bun! This bun had a sweet custard filling.

Ah... if only there were a Hagaren (FMA) cafe!

April 2010. Spotted in Otome Road, Ikebukuro outside the Animate flagship store: Hetalia drinks!

Anyway, I had a few sips of the Elixir. It had a lemony taste.

Indian food is actually very popular in Japan, it seems. The last time I went to Japan, I saw a lot of Indian restaurants, which are usually staffed by Indians - which means that the food is authentically Indian!