Yes, that’s right, tuna-flavoured potato chips. Now, to be fair, these are not a common sight in Japan; in fact, they are so unusual that I took the snap with my iPhone when I saw them yesterday. As weird as I thought they were at the time, it did remind me of the roast chicken flavour chips that were quite popular in Toronto in the 1970s, so who’s to judge what flavours “work” and what flavours don’t (the dill pickle chips and the ketchup chips that are unique to Canada may sound pretty disgusting to a ranch flavour loving American).

In general, there is an ever-changing array of potato chip flavours in Japan – some are seasonal and some are based on recent food trends (a current one is yuzukoshō), but there are a few standards: salt flavour, consommé flavour, and nori flavour. The other dozen flavours on the shelf at any given time are things you’d never guess (things like “okanomiyaki flavour” or “korean beef bbq”, etc.)

Here’s Calbee‘s current line up – I have no idea what “French Salad” (second from the right in the top row) is :

I meant to post this the other day, but then Christmas was upon us and then I got hit with Norovirus (which, I can tell you, is NOT a pretty way to spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day)! Still on little-to-no food  AND have not had a cup of coffee for three days (if you know me, you know this is an almost unbelievable state of affairs).

Anyway, Avatar officially opened in Japan on December 23, but it was, for some reason(?), showing at the Toho Cinemas in Roppongi Hills from the 22nd. Since I had the evening free and I’d been feeling fairly cooped up from the other flu I’d just had, I decided to go and check it out (how ridiculous does that sound? I seriously get sick once every 2 years, but have been hit twice in one month this year).

I opted for the 3D version, which is a no-brainer if you have the choice at your local cinema. If you don’t have the choice, it might be worth the drive somewhere else. It’s not that you have to see it in 3D, but just that the whole point of the movie seems to be the visual universe created; and it was created with a 3D delivery in mind.

The story is not really anything you haven’t seen before (so I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS A SPOILER if you have not yet seen the movie, BUT skip this paragraph if you are not one that notices archetypes being employed in almost every story you read, see, or watch): an unlikely hero, a relationship beginning under false pretenses and morphing into a love relationship that flourishes despite seemingly insurmountable differences, a change of allegiance, and the lovers being reunited in the end.

On another level, the story is also a rehash of Princess Mononoke and countless other stories dealing with “Man’s callous destruction of nature for commercial gain”. This part of the story is, quite frankly, so heavy-handed it is impossible to suspend your disbelief and when you mix it in with a whole slew of what is considered today, in 2009, to be shocking Colonialist sentiment (the indigenous are “savages”, etc.), you might find yourself wincing at the screen.

If you have any sense of “story”, you know exactly the direction the whole thing is moving and there are NO surprises anywhere; in other words, at about the one-third mark, you could probably finish the script yourself.

However, that is NOT why you go and see Avatar in the theatre: you go see it for the astounding visual universe created; or, rather, you go and see it for the realization of the astounding universe in James Cameron’s head brought to the screen in 3D. It is worth seeing for the forest scenes alone. Screen shots don’t really do it justice, but the night-time forest scenes are really fantastic:

For the curious, a shot of my ticket stub:

Yes, it was ¥2100 for one ticket – that’s $23.99 for my Canadian readers and $22.95 for any Americans reading this or €15.95 for those of you in Europe. I have no idea how much it costs to see a movie in a major city in Europe (despite the cold and crappy weather when I was last there, it never crossed my mind to go and watch a movie), but I do know $24 is a bit steep compared to Canadian movie theatres.

You can visit the AVATAR Japan website and watch the Japanese trailer for the movie here – it’s a bit different from the the U.S. version.

If you look closely, you can see that it is a van belonging to a patisserie/boulangerie, so I am not sure if the name is meant to imply that they are “religiously devoted” to baking the best breads and pastries they can, or if it is named after a Monsieur Bigot, or if they are just a collective of intolerant bakers…

Hmmm…

I happened to be at Ueno Zoo the other day (I went to take a photo of a particular animal for stock photography) and I ended up visiting a part of the zoo I had not been to for years. Aside from the stock photography exercise, it was a beautiful day and Shinobazu Pond was looking particularly beautiful in the sunshine.

Also, you need to go over to the West Garden if you are interested in seeing the interesting creature above – the Shoebill Stork or Whale-headed Stork (or ハシビロコウ in Japanese). What you can’t see from the photo, and what is somewhat jarring in person, is that Shoebill storks are rather LARGE: in fact, according to Wikipedia, adults are 115-150 cm (45-64 in) tall, 100-140 cm (40-60in) long, 230-260 cm (91-125 in) across the wings and weighs 4 to 7 kg (8.8-15.5 lbs).

Here’s a profile shot:

Reminds me of something from The Flintstones…yabba dabba do…which, oddly enough, is the second time today The Flintstones has surfaced in my mind – earlier, when discussing what to do with a pineapple that was staring at me from the kitchen counter, I suggested to LY that we should make an “Upside Down Flint Rubble Double Bubble Cake”, but the reference did not resonate. For those of you who DO remember, it is the episode where F & B impersonate W & B – here’s a clip:

At that time, our satellite service offered both BBC and CNN, so there was always a way to escape CNN and jump over to the Beeb for a bit more of a global perspective (I am not sure if CNN is aware that Africa even exists…). These days, I am not sure one could argue that BBC is much better in terms of how it presents news stories. The only benefit is that you don’t have to listen to everything reported through CNN’s, how shall I phrase it, Amplified Terror Filter, with which every piece of news is reported as if it is a looming terror threat: there’s Typhoon Terror, Heat Terror, Health Care Terror, Boy-not-in-a-balloon Terror, and, of course, H1N1 Terror.

A move last year and a switch to a new cable provider meant no more BBC (which I can’t really understand because there is a minor obsession in some pockets of Japan with speaking “the Queen’s English” – a whole other topic that I’ll leave for another post). These days, however, I can no longer bear to watch CNN for reasons that are too numerous to list (and which everyone probably already knows anyway). In fact, instead of even trying to list it up, The Daily Show with John Stewart’s brilliant segment on CNN’s shoddy journalism says it all.

Unfortunately, the embedded video code doesn’t seem to be working anymore, so here’s a direct link.