Meeting at school, Home, and Good Food

Had a meeting at school today where they talked about our Home stay experience and wanted to know about any feedback he had. My experience has been totally positive so I was pretty much there for the snacks that they had.

After that I headed back home and studied for the Final in Intellectual Heritage tomorrow. For dinner my Host Mom made Okonomiyaki and Yaki Soba which are two really great fried foods from Japan. Okonomiyaki is best described as a Japanese omelet and contains a lot of Cabbage. Yaki Soba is noodles that are fried with vegetables and sometimes meat.

One thing that becomes obvious shortly after being in Japan is how many things in Japan are made with a focus on convenience. The most obvious example for me is the amount of vending machines thought Tokyo and other parts of Japan. It's not uncommon to see a vending machine every block with a wide variety of drinks. In busy areas you can often find between 4 and 8 vending machines side by side. They are also in every subway station, on the platform where you wait for the train and outside before you even enter the station.

Things that set the vending machines apart from what people are used to in the US is the many ways in which you can purchase a drink. Of course drinks can be purchased with cash and being that the smallest paper bill in Japan is about $10 (1000 yen) it's not uncommon to use a 1000 yen note to purchase a drink. Many of the machines in the train stations also feature the ability to purchase with your train pass or cell phone, with the money being subtracted from your train pass or added to your cell phone bill.

Vending machines will also have actual cans on the front and not just a picture like in the US. Strangely it's not uncommon to see a small and large size of the same drink for the same price. Some machines will have TV's that play advertising and sometimes music to attract customers but most just flash the sold out lights in different patterns.

Vending machines offer much more then just drinks. There are still cigarette and beer vending machines on the streets but they are required by law to shut down at midnight. There is actually a beer vending machine right out front of school so if I need to mellow out during class I'm prepared. Aside from consumable items there have been some machines that sell Ipods just in case you are to lazy to go to the store or a DVD rental machine which will have a selection of current releases and can be rented for a low rate.