Right before the whole Tofugu team left for Japan, we decided to try a nearby Japanese restaurant right here in the US. Even though we were a little apprehensive about eating there, we decided to give it a try anyway. What was the harm? It turned out we should have listened to our instincts. This [...]
Alcohol in general is very, very easy to get in Japan. You can buy sake in convenience stores, chuhai out of vending machines, and beer practically anywhere you look. But one liquor in particular has grown in sophistication and popularity both in Japan and abroad: whisky. You can find some of the old reliable brands [...]
During Tofugu’s recent trip to Japan, I racked my brain for what souvenirs I wanted to bring back home with me. After all, I don’t get to go to Japan very often, so I wanted to get as much as I could before coming back to the US. A lot of the souvenirs I bought [...]
While I definitely miss plenty of weird things about Japan, there are things I do not miss as well. While everyone has differing tastes, these are the things that I personally don’t really miss (and wish I could have while in Japan). America, you got these things right. Japan, you should takes some notes. 1. The [...]
This is a post about food, glorious food. To be more precise, this is a post about the food depicted in Studio Ghibli films – always mouthwateringly detailed and remarkably true to life. Grave of the Fireflies, for example, featured candies in a rectangular can: they’re Sakuma Drops, still manufactured to this day. Then there [...]
As we film this month in Japan, I’m starting to remember the things that I’ve missed most while being here. While there’s things I definitely don’t miss, I think it’s the little things that count. Most of them have to do with bathrooms in some way, but hopefully you’ll understand my love for getting my [...]
If you went to public school in America like me, then you probably don’t have very fond memories of school lunches. Bland chicken-fried steak with overcooked green beans, pizza cut into greasy squares, and tacos of questionable quality filled my childhood years and, in retrospect, I’m not sure how I survived it all. These kind [...]
