To those of you accustomed to thinking of Japan as some fantasy futuristic land, where almost everything is available, it might come as a surprise that certain things are not to be found here. For instance, like any homegrown American, I like peanut butter and root beer. When I was in Amsterdam, peanut butter was not hard to find, but root beer was. I had to go to an oriental grocery store to find some South East Asian knock-off root beer. It was actually pretty tasty.
So far, I have seen neither peanut butter nor root beer anywhere in Japan. At the local grocery store, I've seen several peanut butter-like products, but no real peanut butter. They have peanut soft, which is a sugary, whip cream-like spread which is very pale in color and much less dense than real peanut butter. This comes in several varieties: with chunks and without chunks. Even after exploring an international grocery store in Omiya train station, I have yet to see peanut butter. The international place was kinda ridiculous: they had Lindt chocolate from Switzerland, and stroopwaffels from Holland, but no peanut butter. Mango juice from Brazil and imported honey, but no peanut butter.
I also have despaired of finding root beer. What I read is that years ago, some pharmaceutical company decided to make all medicine taste like wintergreen, the primary flavor in root beer. So Japanese people associate it with medicine, and don't really like the flavor. In Holland, I talked to some of the students about root beer, but I couldn't really get an answer on why Dutch people didn't like the flavor.
At many train stations, there are vending machines for umbrellas. In Akihabara, they have maid cafes, which I briefly mentioned in an earlier post. The guy who lives next to me is into them, and he told me about them. These are places where you pay money to go inside and talk to pretty Japanese women dressed as maids. They address you as "Master" and if you order food, they will exlaim "Oh Master! Be careful! It's hot!" and then blow on your food for you, and feed you. In Japan, they have these kinds of things, but no root beer or peanut butter.
Cheers,
