Kangoku izakaya: a dinner in prison
Have you been a bad boy or bad girl lately? Well, maybe you should turn yourself in for your heinous crimes at a kangoku izakaya.
Kangoku (監獄) means prison, and izakaya (居酒屋) is a Japanese style drinking restaurant. So a kangoku izakaya is a Japanese restaurant/bar that has been styled to look like a prison! And if the thought of vicious felons and dirty prison cells doesn’t whet your appetite, I don’t know what will.
Do you know these Japanese words?
These words are the latest additions to the Nihonshock Vocabulary Bank (updated daily... mostly). Want to see all the words?
さっぷうけい [sappuukei] – A bland or uninspiring environment. 風景 [fuukei] is the word for a scene or view of somewhere.
[Read More]なつばて [natsubate] – Something about the 38℃ days just makes you tired, you know. In Japanese, that fatigue is called 夏バテ.
[Read More]4 Major Japanese pizza chains compared
Oh the hardships, the ordeals I endure for the sake of this blog. But someone had to do it, someone had to stomach 5 whole pizzas in the course of researching a completely legitimate, informative blog post.
(Translation: Lloyd used his blog as an excuse to order delivery pizza 5 times in one month.)…
Outlandish Japanese flavors: Azuki (sweet bean) Pepsi
Not long ago you could find matcha (powdered green tea) flavored coca cola at convenience stores around Japan. Thankfully that scourge seems to have passed, but the age old rivalry between Pepsi and Coke wages on, and Pepsi has fired back with… sweet bean flavor? all…. right….
A few random shots
Sorry for the lack of updating but as I mentioned on Twitter, my parents are visiting for 10 days and I don’t have much time for the blog. Of course it’s also a chance for me to get out and about, so I’ve taken quite a few pictures that I’ll be putting here eventually.
For now, here are a couple random shots from my travels so far…
Pizza Flavored Instant Yaki-soba
Japanese people are very good at coming up with flavors and combinations that no one else would dare to attempt. On this point, Japanese pizza is another post in and of itself… but today I just want to show everyone this interesting new product that caught my eye at my local convenience store yesterday.
Japanese have small stuff
Japanese are well known around the world as masters of miniature. And for a small island country of relatively short statured people, limited space and an obsession with things that are 可愛い (kawaii = cute) this should come as little surprise…






















