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Japadoggin’

I make it a point to always get some street food whenever I’m travelling, and Vancouver’s signature street food is the Japadog, a hot dog done Japanese-style. Here’s my coworker David smiling in anticipation of a delicious east-meets-west organ-meats-in-casings lunch on Friday:

Part of Japadog’s charm is their delightful Engrish signage. It’s so very charmingly quirky that I wouldn’t be surprised if their misspellings and malapropisms were intentional. After all, they did get me to take this photo and post it online:


Click the photo to see it at full size.

I had the “Spicy Cheese Terimayo Dog”, their biggest seller in 2010, pictured below:

I’d never describe it as spicy, nor would I call the sauce spread over it “cheese”. The shredded nori gives the dog a “Japanese” flavour, but in the end, it wasn’t the “Western food through the Japanese funhouse mirror” kind of good that a number of other places have mastered (MOS Burger are particularly good at this).

I think I would’ve preferred the Oroshi dog: bratwurst with green onions and soy sauce. Maybe I’ll grab one before taking the train to the airport tomorrow.

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Play

Superstitious and Mathematically Incorrect

asian elevator buttons

Okay, I get the missing “13” (bad luck in Western cultures) and no numbers with “4” in them (bad luck in Chinese and Japanese cultures), and the –1 is clever, but where’s the zero? C’mon Asian people, we’re supposed to be good at math!

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

Categories
Life Work

Salaryman Survival Kit

salaryman survival kit

This combo kit, available at am/pm stores in Japan and featuring two packs of Marlboro Ice Mint cigarettes and a can of Georgia Emblem Black coffee, captures the life of a mid-level Japanese officer worker – a salaryman – almost perfectly. To be perfect, they’d have to add a couple of single-serving bottles of whiskey.

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Play

Nissin’s Cheese Pepper Japanese Noodles

This Japanese commercial for cup noodles is funny, but turn down your speakers before playing it – there’s a lot of screaming:

Categories
Geek Life

Burger King’s Windows 7 Whopper

To celebrate the release of Windows 7, Japanese Burger King franchises are offering a Windows 7 Whopper with 7 patties, selling for 777 Yen (CAD$8.92 as of this writing), available only for the next 7 days. I have no idea why they’re not doing this on this side of the Pacific; I’m sure it would be a big hit:

windows_7_whopper

According to Julie from ObjectSharp, the Japanese text after “13cm” says “American-size buns”.

[Thanks to Ian Irving for pointing this to me!]

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection and Global Nerdy.

Categories
Life

“American Police”: A New Japanese Magazine

I wonder if this is just a one-off or if they’re going to publish regularly. Either way:

  • I want translations!
  • Needs more donuts!

American Police magazine

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funny Life Music Play

Japanese Cross-Dressing Bassist of the Day

The anime-girl outfits that the YouTube user “hjfreaks” wears may be a little off-putting, but if the bass tracks on these video are really of him playing, he’s pretty good:

Sometimes a guy wants to take a break from blistering bass runs and just dance: