{"id":18703,"date":"2011-04-10T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T03:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=18703"},"modified":"2011-04-10T23:37:35","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T03:37:35","slug":"wit-life-161-kit-kat-craziness-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/10\/wit-life-161-kit-kat-craziness-again\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #161: Kit Kat craziness (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLife<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/strong><\/em>to-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shar<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I finally had a chance to sort through the pictures from my recent trip to Japan, which brought back many happy memories.\u00a0 I think I found them hard to deal with until now as they represent the demarcation between pre and post quake (I left the day before it hit).\u00a0 But I bit the bullet and looked at them for the first time since my travels, and I felt ok.\u00a0 I tried to think of my friends rebuilding their lives post-disaster and somehow getting by thanks to their hope for the future.\u00a0 As trite as it sounds, at this point they are taking things one day at a time as that is all they can do in the midst of the immense uncertainty that remains.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On a lighter note, one of the things that I love to do when I go back to Japan is check out the new flavors of items in konbini<\/em> and other stores.\u00a0 One brand I am always sure to find is Kit Kats, as they offer varieties we would never see in the States.\u00a0 This time I found some old favorites like sakura maccha<\/em><\/a> and Uji maccha<\/a> (<\/em>top 2 in picture)<\/em>, as well as some new tastes like annin dofu<\/a><\/em> and wasabi<\/a><\/em> (bottom row)!\u00a0 As for the latter two, almond tofu was somewhat close to the Chinese dessert, but wasabi was definitely an acquired taste.<\/p>\n

I went down south\"\"<\/a> to Kagoshima in a quest to climb up to the 7000-year old cedar tree in Yakushima said to have mystical properties and designated as a World Heritage Site.\u00a0 In the airport I found some Kyushu gentei<\/em> or limited to Kyushu) versions.\u00a0 As pictured on the left, the flavors were beni imo<\/em><\/a> or purple sweet potato and yuzu koshou<\/em><\/a> or yuzu zest with chili pepper.\u00a0 As expected, the former went well with the white chocolate Kit Kat, but the latter left a spicy taste in my throat and didn’t seem well suited for the accompanying sweetness.\u00a0 Try them all out on your next Japan trip!<\/p>\n

In more serious news, a few recent articles from the Times regarding Japan’s radiation issue.\u00a0 One is an editorial<\/a> that comments on the actual threat, another<\/a> profiles a mayor of a city directly affected by contamination who appealed to the world over YouTube, and from today a front page article<\/a> talking about how nearly 90% of nuclear power plant workers are contract employees who receive less benefits than full-time staff and are essentially seen as disposable labor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. I finally had a chance to sort through the pictures from my recent trip to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,1,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t