Popular Cookies From Bourbon Cooperation

Hi everyone who want to go or is going to Japan,

At this time, I will introduce some of popular cookies and biscuits in Japan. The cookies are produced by Bourbon Cooperation. The company produces many varieties of cookies, chocolate and others. I know that there are an incredible number of type of them in the world. However, Those are very great and popular in Japan You can buy them at reasonable price, such as around JPY100, at a convenience store or supermarket. You can try and enjoy them very easily during your travel in Japan!! 

Cookies from Bourbon Cooperation

1. Lumonde: Butter cookie has very thin crepe texture but very crisp. The cookie is coated with chocolate cream but not too sweet. It is made by layering thin sheets of puff pastry on top of each other, and you can feel light texture! You must not be able to stop eating until it's all gone!! It has been started to be sold since 1974. And, there is Lumonde ice cream: Wrapped in soft wafers, and Lumonde is in the ice cream.    

Lumonde Ice Cream

2. Baum Roll: Mini roll cake coated with milk-flavored cream. You can feel good combination with palatable texture and milk-flavored cream. It has been started to be sold since 1978. Then, Bourbon Co. provides value pack of Baum Roll in which milk-flavored ones and coffee-flavored ones is contained.

Value pack

3. White Rollita: Tasteful Cookie covered with milk-flavored cream. It is crispy and not too sweet. It has been started to be sold since 1965; the first treats from Bourbon Co. There is premium White Rollita: It has richer taste, lighter crisp and easily melt-able texture than original one.

Premium White Rollita

4. Alfort: Digestive biscuit made with wheatmeal and milk chocolate on top of it. The combination of Good roasted biscuit and milk chocolate is excellent!! It has been started to be sold since 1994. It is kind of new face against above ones. 24 years is long enough, though. There are a variety of Alfort: Value pack, premium Alfort, Disney Alfort and others. You must enjoy to find many types of Alfort out at a convenience store or supermarket in Japan!!

Premium Alfort: Strawberry Flavor  

Premium Alfort: Matcha Flavor  

Bourbon Cooperation offers many other varieties of sweets else: Chocolates, Cookies, Biscuits and others. I guess Almost all Japanese know about the company and sweet from it. So If you have Japanese friends or acquaintances, why don't you ask him or her that "what sweets from Bourbon Co. do you like?" and enjoy it with them for afternoon tea. Or you bring one of sweets from the company as a small gift to your friend of yours and have a good tea time with them!! That must be great! 

Enjoy your trip in Japan! And see you in the next article of the blog!! 

"The ordinary for Japanese" must work to spice up your trip!

Good To Know To Enjoy Ramen and Tsukemen in Japan

Hi everyone who want to go or is going to Japan, 

What Japanese food did you try or do you like? I guess that "Ramen" is the most popular in Japanese food. At this time, I will tell you what you may want to know to be ready to go to a raman restaurant in Japan. And, I will also talk about "Tsukemen". I want you to enjoy going to ramen and tsukemen restaurant and eating many varieties of them in Japan!! (If you are not ready to jump into a local ramen or tsukemen restaurant, please read this article in the blog!)

1. Ramen 

• Ramen in Japanese: "ラーメン" or "らーめん". The following shop curtain is a basic one which a ramen restaurant hangs at the entrance of a restaurant.
  
• Type of Flavor (basic): Shoyu (Soy source)="醤油, しょうゆ", Miso="味噌, みそ", Shio (Salt)="塩, しお" and Tonkotsu="豚骨, とんこつ". 

Some broth is used to make these flavored ramen, generally: Chicken, some dried fish, seafood, vegetable or pork. 

Shoyu ramen "醤油ラーメン"

Miso ramen "味噌ラーメン"

Shio ramen "塩ラーメン

Tonkotsu ramen "豚骨ラーメン"

• Type of flavor (Others): Shoyu-tonkotsu="醤油豚骨", Shrimp-shio="エビ塩", Sesame hot noodle="担々麺 (Tan tan men)" and others. 

Each ramen restaurant provides each special ramen even if the names of each ramen are the same, because ingredients of broth is completely different; blending shoyu and pork broth, blending chicken, vegetable and shrimp broth, or some broth which is made with something good blended sesame paste. There are much more types of flavors in Japan.

Shoyu-tonkotsu ramen "醤油豚骨ラーメン"

Shrimp-shio ramen "エビ塩ラーメン"

Sesame hot noodle "担々麺"

• Topping: Seasoned boiled egg="煮玉子, 味玉", bamboo shoots="メンマ", char-siu (pork stewed in soysauce)="チャーシュー", boiled spinach="ほうれん草", boiled been sprouts="もやし",  green onion="ネギ",  seaweed="のり" and others. 

Basically, some of the toppings come with ramen such as a slice of char-siu, bamboo shoots and a seasoned boiled egg (depending on a restaurant). You can add a topping onto your ramen if you want more toppings. In my case, I love a seasoned boiled egg and bamboo shoots, so I often add them onto ramen.

Bamboo shoots in red circle and seasoned boiled egg in yellow circle.

Char-siu in red circle and boiled spinach in yellow circle.

Boiled bean sprouts in red circle. 

Green onion in red circle and seaweed in yellow circle.

• Size: Small="小(Sho)", Medium="並(Nami)/中(Chu)" and Large="大(盛り)" (Dai/Oomori).

I guess almost all of ramen restaurants show the price to upgrade to large size such as "大盛り+150円". If you are hungry, and it's your favorite ramen restaurant, you can get a large-sized ramen with this word "Oomori onegaishimasu".   　 

2. Tsukemen

• Tsukemen in Japanese: "つけ麺" or "つけめん". Honestly speaking, I prefer Tsukemen, if anything. The reason is because I can savor the taste of noodle itself more.

  

  
  

  
• Type of flavor: I think that almost same as ramen, but Tsukemen's soup is more rich (a little too rich) that ramen's one.

When you finish eating noodle of tsukemen and want to enjoy drinking soup of it, Asking a staff to put some broth into your bowl is the best way to do that. Generally, people enjoy tsukemen soup diluted by some broth which the restaurant provides. It's Japanese words to get some broth: "Soup-wari onegaishimasu"

• Topping: The same as ramen. 
• Size: I guess that there is a difference from ramen on this. 

You can upgrade amount of noodle to large size (sometimes until XL-large) for free of charge at some of restaurants. Of course, you should choose a moderate size you can eat up, though. You can see the following word at such restaurant: "麺の大盛り無料".  

Today, I showed some information and Japanese word about ramen and tsukemen to you in the article. There are really huge amount of ramen and tsukemen restaurants in Japan, and each restaurant has each special ramen or tsukemen: flavor, topping and also noodle. Then, you can upgrade to large size when you get a big appetite. I'm going to introduce some ramen and tsukemen restaurants in the blog. If you have any specific restaurant and don't know what you want to order, please let me know!! I can give you a hand!  

Enjoy your trip in Japan! And see you in the next article of the blog!! 
"The ordinary for Japanese" must work to spice up your trip!

Popular Ice Sorbets in Summer

Hi everyone who want to go or is going to Japan, 

I want to introduce popular 2 ice sorbets in Japan to you at this time. I wrote one popular ice sorbet "Gari Gari Kun" in another article. There are other great ice sorbets in Japan, and I will tell you about 2 of them. 

1. Ice sorbet "Sacre"
First, ice sorbet which I want to show you is "Sacre". This is shaved ice flavored lemon with a slice of lemon on top of it. It is very refreshing, you must want to have the shaved ice in summer! 
Category of this is Ice sorbet="Hyoka"(If you don't know about the category, please refer to another article in this blog).   

There is other flavors in this series. The following is one of them: Orange flavored Sacre. This is shaved ice flavored orange with a slice of orange on top of it. It also is very refreshing! I always bother over what flavor do I want to have, and I almost always choice Lemon flavored one... All flavors are great though.

2. Ice sorbet "ICEBOX"
Next, I'm introducing "ICEBOX" which is contained lots of crashed flavored ice. Original and popular flavor is grapefruit. Lemon flavor is also popular one. You can feel like eating some flavored ice. It is really the best choice to cool your body in summer, and you must feel refreshed with it!!

As another way to enjoy ICEBOX, you can put some beverage or cocktail into the ICEBOX: Coke, soda pop or some alcohol cocktail. Crashed ice of ICEBOX go for normal ice, and add some flavor to the beverage.

You can purchase both of them at a convenience store or supermarket in Japan. I want you to try them and hope you like popular ice sorbet for Japanese!! 

Enjoy your trip in Japan! And see you in the next article of the blog!! 
"The ordinary for Japanese" must work to spice up your trip!

Shopping at UNIQLO: Why Don't You Buy Clothes at UNIQLO at Weekend in Japan

Hi everyone who want to go or is going to Japan,

I guess that UNIQLO is one of the most famous Japanese company in the world, and you must know about UNIQLO because there are lots of stores in the world. Some of you may have bought some clothes at UNIQLO in your country or Japan. If you want to get a good deal on UNIQLO clothes, you should know UNIQLO hold a sale every weekend (Saturday and Sunday) in Japan. I guess price of clothes at UNIQLO abroad is higher than in Japan. So, you may be able to purchase UNIQLO clothes at cheaper price at weekend in Japan depending on items. 

UNIQLO is very popular for Japanese, of course, and most of Japanese who want to buy clothes at UNIQLO get a flyer advertising the sale via UNIQLO app or as a leaflet in a newspaper. So we know that UNIQLO has a sale every weekend, and UNIQLO stores at weekend are more crowded than on weekday. You can see the flyer at a UNIQLO store in Japan (unfortunately, it is in Japanese though...), I guess all of UNIQLO stores display the late flyer in front of (or near) entrance of the store.

An example of flyer of UNIQLO

In addition to above sales, there are 2 annual anniversary sale. One of them in the end of May is called "Thanks sale for birth of UNIQLO", another one in the end of November is "Thanks sale for institution of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.". Those sale are huge sale, and you get a chance to get UNIQLO clothes at cheaper price than its weekend sale.

• Thanks sale for birth of UNIQLO store: Celebration of the first store of UNIQLO is opened. The term of the sale in 2018 was from 25th to 28th of May. 

Thanks sale for birth of UNIQLO = 誕生感謝祭 (Tanjyo Kansha Sai)

• Thanks sale for institution of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.: Celebration of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. is founded. The term of the sale in 2018 is not  from 25th to 28th of May.

  

  Thanks sale for institution of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. = 創業感謝祭 (Sogyo Kansha Sai)

By the way, do you know the different between UNIQLO and other fast fashion's brands such as H&M or ZARA? Fast Retailing company develops their own materials for their UNIQLO products, such as Fleecy jackets, HEATTECH and AiRism with TORAY Industries Inc.. This is the big different between them. Those own materials make UNIQLO clothes high-quality.

Finally, I want to introduce an affiliated brand of UNIQLO to you. I don't think that the brand is not as familiar as UNIQLO with you.

The name of brand is "GU". This brand's concept is exactly the fast fashion company's one: Cheap price, decent quality and designed with the current trend. I want to recommend you to visit to a GU store and look around the store. You can get the current trend in Japan, and may find any favorite clothes out there.

If you like UNIQLO clothes and you have a plan to go to Japan, I think that bulk purchase of them at weekend in Japan is the best choice for you! Don't miss a UNIQULO weekend sale in Japan!! 

Enjoy your trip in Japan! And see you in the next article of the blog!! 

"The ordinary for Japanese" must work to spice up your trip!