Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

Food and Drink

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Baby boozers

As year-end parties are currently commonplace, there surely can’t be a better time to introduce youngsters to the habit and high spirits of beer consumption.

kids drinking

Ok, so admittedly the drink doesn’t actually contain alcohol, but the design and artwork leave no doubt in regards to its aim. The flushed cheeks being a particularly nice touch.

Some of those brave enough to actually drink the stuff have complained about feelings of nausea, which is arguably quite apt. Although thankfully, uncontrollable urges to remove items of clothing after consumption, or alternatively indulge in a brief spot of fisticuffs, were reportedly absent.

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Costly catch

Perhaps due to the proximity of the New Year holidays, the second highest price ever was paid for a bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji market on Wednesday. The 325kg catch selling at auction for a staggering 9.75 million yen (48,000 pound).

Which it has to be said is an awful lot of money for a fairly large fish.

A purchase presumably not destined for the canning factory.

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Costly cake

Christmas may well be the season of excess, but surely even the most overindulgent amongst us would baulk at department store Takashimaya’s amazingly costly Christmas cake.

A one-off in every sense of the word, the festive dessert is awash with gemstones. And whilst presumably making consumption more than a little problematic, the hexagonal-shaped offering contains 223 embedded diamonds. The most extravagant being a five-carat heart-shaped beauty.

japanese christmas cake

Needless to say, such ‘ingredients’ bump up the price somewhat. The cake selling for a mind boggling 200 million yen (975,000 pound). However for those considering a purchase but concerned about its longevity, a Takashimaya spokesperson happily claimed that the cake should last a whole year at room temperature.

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Farming find

For the past 40 years or so, Sumiko Funahashi has grown vegetables near her home in koga, Ibaraki Prefecture. Yet whilst perhaps having found the odd amusingly shaped turnip, the 68-year-old housewife has never come across anything shaped quite like this before.

japanese daikon

The dazzling daikon (radish) was pulled out of the ground at the end of November, and since then, nearby residents have been making trips to see it — treating this unique member of the mustard family as a good luck charm of sorts. Funahashi-san herself proudly claiming, “I won’t eat the radish for the moment and have put it on display in the alcove of my home.”

This unusual root vegetable veneration it turns out is due to the fact its shape is likened to that of a baby sitting up. A view that makes one wonder what on earth Ibaraki infants look like.

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Rogue radish

It may not be an image of Buddha on a piece of toast, or even a likeness of the consummately coiffured Prime Minister in a blob of hair mousse, but this crane in a watermelon radish must surely be worth a bob or two on eBay.

crane image radish

The unusual discovery was made by Noriko Sasaki in a restaurant she runs in Osaka. The 61-year old explaining that the bird appeared very clearly, with even a hole in the perfect place for its eye.

Needless to say the rare radish garnered a lot of interest from excited diners at the restaurant. Some saying that if Sasaki-san had cut the radish in a different place the image wouldn’t have appeared. Others getting rather carried away, claiming an entirely different image may have revealed itself.

A yen sign perhaps?