Small Town Science- The disgusting food challenge USA

Everyone knows that America has an obesity "epidemic", although from what I've heard Scotland and Australia are catching up. There's also a whole host of culturally relevant foods I felt I should have the misfortune of exposing myself to, so we walked down to Circle K and shelled out $17 for that pile o' crap you see above. I wanted a copy of Playboy to make the experience even more disturbing but the guy ID'd me and Oregon's homeless problem has dissuaded me from carrying my passport in public. They have sticky fingers, you know.

I decided to go about this in a somewhat scientific manner, instead of just picking and flitting between foods. I opened the packets and took a deep, evaluating sniff before reluctantly surrendering to the food stuff. Each mouthful was evacuated with a swish of Mountain Dew, although I decided to be ladylike and not use the sick bucket I'd latched onto.

Here we go...

a) Smell
b) Texture
c) Taste
d) Would I willingly eat this again?


1) Mountain Dew
a) kind of lemony
b) overly fizzy to the point of pain
c) like watered down Sprite...but worse
d) No.

2) All American Beef & Cheese (stick of meat and a stick of cheese)
a) like an old cheese and ham sandwich
b) Horrible. Truely Foul. Like chewing a shoe and pus in one mouthful.
c) See answer to b
d) No. Not even for the novelty value of stick food.

3) Slim Jim Original
a) gaggy
b) insanely tough. Rolled up piece of leather
c) Go lick a McDonalds grill at closing time. You're close.
d) No.
bonus- perfect consistency to make a riding crop

4) Hostess Cup Cakes
a) sickly with a chemical afterglow
b) Not too bad. Got into every mouth crevice imaginable.
c) Meh.
d) If there was no other source of sugar on earth.

5) Candy Corn
a) When Andy and I went fishing, we put this weird sweet stuff on the bait to disguise the cigarette smell. Candy Corn smells just like that.
b) Was expecting chewy. Got indescribable fall aparty
c) Fudge gone wrong
d) Yes.

6) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
a) Peanutty
b) Too soft. Gag-worthy soft.
c) REALLY sugary. The chocolate got lost in a sea of peanut butter
d) Yes

7) Jerky Chew Teriyaki Shredded Beef Jerky
a) Fish food
b) Sawdust. Would not form anything remotely chewable in my mouth
c) This stuff looks like rolling baccy and smells like fish food. It's supposedly made of cow, but judging by the taste is just made from the crates they ship beef in.
d) No. NEVER.

8) Hot Pocket Ham N' Cheese
a) greasy ham stench.
b) Disturbingly soft. No dental traction whatsoever
c) Trashy? The cheese was far too liquid, the bread was like raw pizza dough and I don't want to recall that meat again
d) Maybe. I'd have to be desperate and it would have to be free.
lab note- this thing is the French crepe's evil twin

9) Hostess Twinkies
a) Corn syrupy
b) Wallpaper paste. I don't understand how something so solid in appearance can do that
c) Bizarre. Bypassed sweet straight into sickly territory. Foul throughout.
d) Oh Jesus No. They say these things survive nuclear blasts, but I sure as hell hope not.

10) Lucky Charms Cereal
a) My first reaction was "small children?" followed by "Leprechaun piss?"
b) chalky when dry. Pleasantly crunchy when wet
c) Meh, better with milk but still meh. The "marshmallow" wasn't mashmallowy
d) Maybe. By this time the Mountain Dew was beginning to affect my judgement.

11) Wrigley's LUSH Tropical Gum
a) Overpowering. Spill a bottle of Surf Tropical detergent in a Lush soap shop and you're about there.
b) Crumbly. Then Drooly. Then just normal gummy.
c) Fruity. Much less offensive that the smell let on.
d) Maybe. It's bite was pretty aggressive, but the actual taste wasn't too bad.

So there you have it. The disgusting food stuffs available at a Circle K store, as consumed and described by me. I've yet to try a corn dog, but there's two months in Hawaii for that... *shudder*

Favourite Photos from Japan

La-nd of the BRAVE, helpful and chubby

Apologies- I didn't get everything sorted before I got on my plane from Narita and there wasn't an internet cafe at LAX. In fact, tbh, L.A Airport was pretty shit.

Last day in Tokyo was good. I bought enough super cute writing paper to last me for life (I will literally be writing gym notes for my kids on this stuff. Don't be surprised if your invite to my funeral is written on Hello Kitty stuff covered in strawberries. A combination of lugging around heavy bags and sleeping on a youth hostel mattress had royally fucked my back and so, after spending 20 minutes establishing that it wasn't a brothel, I went and got a massage. It was HEAVENLY. They make you wear pyjamas and then lay towels over you so they never directly touch your body and then the man got to work pushing my back into alignment and making more cracking noises than a tap dancer in a pile of lolly sticks. He said in very broken English that judging by the state of my back I must be a very hard worker. He then nearly put his own back out getting my suitcase back down the stairs.

They gave me stamps on a loyalty card, so now I HAVE to go back to Tokyo :D

My flight over was fantastic though because I somehow got upgraded to premium economy so I had a chair with lots of interesting adjusting buttons and sat next to an executive of an eco friendly lighting company called Kevin. Kevin gave me a fantastic aerial tour of California ("there's wine country, that's the Hollywood sign, that's Beverly Hills" etc) whilst I sat and acted like a tourist the whole time (asking if the fog was snow). I didn't sleep well though and got to LA having had around 2 hours kip. The sunshine outside the terminal was nice, but I despite my long wait between flights I didn't want to take a cab down to Venice Beach out of fear of drifting out of conciousness and waking up with nothing but my hairclips.

Sajan- Burger King in America is horrible! This country is weird!

I refuse to call the transport I got from LA to Portland a plane. It was a bus with wings from the 70s. But I managed to sleep for another 40minutes on it, and it got in slightly early, so I caught an earlier bus into Corvallis.

And here I am, in a hippy coffee shop in small town America. The only way I can really describe it is that it's like living in a weird mirror. I think I actually understand it less that Tokyo. Although I did see a llama...

Harajuku

Apologies, there would be more photos, but Blogger is being a bitch and whenever you upload a photo it adds about 6 lines inbetween paragraphs.

I've laid out the currency in dollars because

1. there are about 100 yen to a dollar so to convert you just slot in a decimal place or add some zeros.


2. this keyboard doesn't have a pound sign
   

Like I said, I went to Harajuku on Tuesday afternoon. But first I'll bore you the other places I went.

Shibuya was a big scary shopping district down the road. I didn't like the vibe so I didn't stay long at all.

Then I went to the woods just outside of Harajuku. It was really weird to be surrounded by forest 5 minutes away from the station. Fun fact: damp Japanese forests smell different to damp English ones. They also have scary living noodle worm things-

It was hot and fairly gross, so I went and chilled out in Yogogogoyooogoogogi Park. There were people asleep on the grass and loads of freaky evil crows (you can really see why they put them in Resident Evil).

Oh and also some bloke bashing out beats on his bongos.

Anyway

boring

As I said to Jenny the other day, Harajuku is the bastard child of Camden and Carnaby street, dipped in marshmallow fluff and black glitter. Naturally, I loved it. The boutiques were really pretty, and every shop I went into I was greeted and fawned over. Pricing was a bit weird though- a designer tshirt was anywhere from $25-70, but they were selling My Little Ponies in one store for $30. If I'd known that, I would've bulk bought when Woolworths closed and then tried to flog them out here.

Lol condom shop

and in the boutique next door?

looooooooool

I would've bought it, but it was about $80. Boo.

There were so many shops that it was pretty hard to work out what order to go round in. Every street split off into 5 backstreets, each with shops on 3 levels in some buildings. Tokyo is a very vertical city- they don't really have a system of shops on the bottom with flats on top. It's shops shops shops for 6 floors. There's the main Harajuku street and Takeshita Street (I just read that out as Take A Shit Street...), but if you only visit them then you are depriving yourself of a lot of the little independant shops metres away.

Pro tip- there are bargains to be had in Harajuku and a plethora of styles, so if you're not into that frilly gothic lolita lace fest then you will still easily be able to find something to wear but beware; many of the clothes are made of really lightweight fabric. This is because it's in style in Tokyo to make up an outfit of layers, and if each layer was as thick as standard clothes then girls would overheat and faint in the street. They don't do that fake layering thing we do with the long sleeves sewn onto the bottom of short sleeves.

Slave to the claw...

The claw chooses who will go and who will stay...

Some nights it chooses whether I'll be eating dinner or not too.

Of course, I'll be happy to share the spoils of war with my comrades in the USA :)

Early Morning Blues

Yesterday (Tuesday 16th), due to a combination of dorm-mates getting in at the early hours, the garbage truck coming by, going to bed at 21;00 knackered, and hoards of loud crows; I was up, washed, dressed and out of the hostel by 6.50. This gave me a chance to get a good look round Asakusa before the herds of tourists decended and the quiet atmosphere was shattered.

A few native early risers were milling about, walking their dogs or just jogging through. The monks were doing their own early morning rituals and some people were praying or giving donations to the temples. Asakusa has a cluster of shrines with donation boxes so you can win favour with the right Kami- there are statues relating to children, health etc etc, just like saints of the Catholic church. I bought a red tag thing from a monk. I don't know what it does, but as long as it helps prevent Japanese children eating my face/soul or makes me very rich, I am happy to have it.

This is a raccoon dog statue. I don't know why it has moobs, but it's supposed to stop wild animals coming and digging up your vegetable garden (I think).

There was also a shrine with loads of red flags commemorating the family of a woman who found a treasure chest in her back garden. She thought that if they lived off the money they'd become lazy, so she reburied it and they supposedly prospered. Visitors are supposed to put a little tray of white power in their purses for good financial fortune, but I didn't fancy the idea of explaining that to customs in LA, so I skipped.

Wooden prayer slips hanging by a shrine.

I considered buying a tin of whale meat to use as a paperweight, but then reconsidered the idea of having a greasy tin of marine mammal sitting on my desk. Eventually, like all mystery tins, it would get eaten out of curiosity.

Eventually, I decided it was time to see some of the actual bits of Tokyo so when people quizzed me I'd be able to say "yeah I went there did you see this I love that blah blah", so I headed off for Akihabara- electric town. Of course, I didn't know that most shops in Tokyo open at 10 or even 11.30. It was now about 8.45.

All hail MAG-LAR; centaur king of digital storage!

That little screen at the bottom would periodically　form a big yellow face and shout good morning at the commuters as they filed past it. It had a certain je ne sais que about it that made me reeeeaaallly uneasy.

Advert for maid cafes- little cake and tea shops where you get served by girls in frilly dresses and alarmingly high pitched voices. They cater for the socially stunted anime fans who want to interact with a girl but dont want a hooker, and for girls who want their snacks with lashings of kawaii. Some of them offer extra services like massages or reflexology or CDs of the waitresses singing.

Anyway, I got horribly lost in Akihabara, AND everything was still shut, so I decided to hit the freakshow jackpot- Harajuku.

Tokyo districts, Roo style:

How to draw attention to yourself in a quiet sushi restaurant (apart from being the only non Japanese person there)- point out the cat.

Asakusa:

Akihabara: Harajuku:

Asakusa by night

First off, apoligies if this post　is all over the place，I can't get used to this crazy Japanese keyboard in the youth hostel. And secondly, apologies but no photos　this update. The computer is being a little bitch. Ｓｅｅ，　Ｉ　ｂｅｔ you wish you:d bought me that laptop now, stingy parents.

The 11 hour air Japan flight over was... interesting. Nothing has quite sunk in yet so aｔ the moment everything feels a bit like a weird simulation or a dream or I've actually died and gone to live out my afterlife on the moon. On one side of me I had a chubby man playing Phoenix Wright on the DS for most of the flight, and on the other girl wearing a man's shirt backwards as a dress who didn't bring anything　to do so sat and watched me butcher the hiragana alphabet on my wipeclean board.

Weirdest thing I saw on the plane? A guy on the plane with both a SARS style face mask and one of those eye masks to help you sleep. He looked like part of a weird sensory deprivation experiment.

Japan is very quiet. It's strange.

I thought of getting off at one of the more rural stops on the train in. It looked nice.

Anyway, I didn't, and I'm glad because Asakusa is really beautiful. It's one of the oldest districts of Tokyo, or at least one that's bothered to preserve the architecture. The streets are completely silent apart from the terrible keyboard music drifting out of Kobe Fried Chicken and the rain. It was disgustingly hot when I got off the plane, but the rains have cleared it all away. After check in and a shower, I went and wandered around for a bit.

At the Japanese version of 7/11 you can buy about 40 different variety　of pot noodle, but no apples. As I said, the streets are deathly silent save for the few homeless men peeing up against parking meters, but if you dare to walk into a pachinko parlour it:s like being slapped round the head with a cymbal every 3 seconds. I tried to win a rubber leek out of an arcade machine but failed because rubber leeks are badly balanced :(

There are a lot of French people in the hostel and they cant decide what language to speak so it:s coming out as Francaningrish.

Last few days

The time has come, people. It feels like only yesterday I was nervously making my way into that fateful interview room at Orion Ltd, and now here I am on the eve of this terrifying trip.

This is why you shouldn't encourage people to save. Next thing you know, there's a credit crisis, interest rates drop and you're left with an unemployed 19 year old girl with £3k to burn.

Anyway, as the majority of my friends hadn't got back from Africa/university/last night's party by yesterday, Sajan and I were left to see me off alone. And by alone I mean surrounded by the violent water fowl of Windsor.

Yes, we went to feed the ducks. Thrilling, I know.

See, somewhere in my childhood, I worked out that if you throw the food (in this case, Tesco Value Cornflakes) into the dip in a swan's back where their wings meet, they all attack each other in some hilariously frantic feeding frenzy. Unfortunately, this meant I was soon surrounded by angry swans. It was like jumping straight into a piranha pond after chucking a leg of lamb in, except, you know, not in any way shape or form life threatening (actually, I have heard that swans can break your arm, but I have no fucking idea how they do it).

In retrospect, I should've just gone drinking, like we did for Twigz's leaving do. But instead we went back to mine, listened to Daft Punk and dressed Sajan up in gothic lolita clothing.



If that didn't get my brain ready for the sensory bukkake that is the streets of Harajuku, then I don't want to know what will. Thank god he's wearing clothes underneath.

Anyway, I've got to get 2 months of stuff into a tiny green suitcase (no, I'm not going to do what my brother did at university and put off washing anything for 3 months until he came home and got my mum to wash it to avoid laundry fees.) and as I have the spatial awareness of a humpback whale, this looks to be an all-nighter. My flight to Tokyo is tomorrow at 19.30.

Hopefully the panic attack will strike before I get on the plane and realise I'm going to a country with 3 systems of writing and multiple levels of vocal politeness armed only with a vocabulary of about 30 words. Why did you people not try to talk me out of this...