I’ve been in Muroran for nearly two weeks and I’ve barely posted on here at all. It’s very important that I blog. First, because its a good way to chronicle my time in this country, and second because I said that I would in the “broader impacts” section of my proposal to the National Science Foundation. While that’s largely unenforceable, I’m a man of my word, so its time to broadly impact all of you, for science. The question is, how can I increase my blogging output? I either need to summon the discipline to routinely make great content for this blog, or lower my standards to make posting easier. Guess which one it’s going to be?
Oh my god you guys, the food here is so interesting! Its DIFFERENT than the food we eat in America. Can you believe it? But the food is also good!
Seriously though, the food is good, and yes, I really do plan on taking the easy way out. Plus my friend Anita asked to see pictures of food, so at least one person actually wants to see this. So here’s my take on Japanese food- it really is delicious. It’s so weird that so little of it has caught on in America. Obviously we’ve taken a liking to sushi and tempura, and our low quality version of raman is a popular cheap way to meet your nutritional needs with nothing but starch, but there’s obviously more stuff here besides those things. For example, onigiri. I eat a ton of it cause its fast and cheap. For those who haven’t had it before, its a rice ball, typically filled with some kind of meat or fish, and wrapped in seaweed. It can be fried, grilled, microwaved, or eaten cold. I buy only the finest onigiri, and buy all of it at 7- eleven.
It’s typically triangular, and the seaweed is sometimes packaged separately from the rice. If I had to guess its for freshness maybe? I don’t know. But the point I want to make, certainly not for the last time on this blog, is that its weird and unfortunate that this isn’t available at gas stations in America. Like, have you tried to get a snack at a 7-eleven in America? The options kinda suck. And meanwhile on the other side of the planet they’re selling stuff like this. Seriously 7-eleven, get your priorities straight and think about America. Speaking of patriotism, tomorrow is the fourth of July! As much as the bizzare cultural experience of not doing anything for America’s independence day is some easy material for a blog post, I’m probably not going to post twice in two days, so in case I don’t post tomorrow, Happy Birthday America.
jonathan gross 