Many people may not realise that Japan is actually not as reserved as you might think – alcohol is a massive social lubricant and pretty much everyone will have a glass of something if there’s an event on. Combined with legal public drinking 24 hours a day and beer vending machines scattered around the place, you could imagine just how often you’ll see someone with a can of something in their hand – even at 8am.

So, with alcohol comes hangovers – the price you pay for getting a bit battered – and while we in the Western world have our own black-magic cures of hair-of-the-dog, or aspirin crushed up into a peanut butter sandwich, in Japan, they’ve gone for the “health shot” option, in the shape of Ukon.

Costing roughly about 250Y, they’re mostly tumeric plus a few other elements to help keep things happy, internally. Tumeric is well known as a liver cleanser and the theory is that if your liver is being kept happy by the Ukon’s tumeric, then it’ll more easily deal with the alcohol you’ve been forcing down your mouth.

I’m not a doctor, I don’t know how true that is, but I do know from personal experience that these things work – and no, I didn’t drink a couple of litres of water as most people do when “testing” a hangover cure. I have two of these on a night out – one just before or with the first drink, and then I have another one at about the 6-8 drink mark or roughly half way through the night. The next day, I’m a bit dizzy but for the most part, I’m fine.

Some people have had limited success with the Ukon though and they really don’t taste very nice (although I kinda like them now), but they’re perfectly healthy and they certainly won’t hurt you.

And if you really want avoid a hangover, drink lots of water and have an aspirin-peanut-butter sandwich.

Cost: 250y.

Availability: Year round.

I’ve seen a lot of carbonated drinks, but I’ve never seen carbonated tea… and there’s a good reason – it’s kinda crap.

I love tea, and I love carbonated drinks, but together it’s not great, and the accent “mixed berries” flavour just doesn’t do enough to really save this. It’s really hard to describe the taste as well – it’s iced tea… but bubbly, and not delicious. I think they were trying to go for a ginger ale style of drink that’s not overly sweet but more of an “adult” taste. Didn’t work.

In a world first, I didn’t finish this.

Cost: ~150Y

Availability: I think this was a Christmas special, but honestly, I wouldn’t touch it again if it was year round.

They say that real men don’t each quiche nor yoghurt… but I’ll happily eat both without question. I dunno what that says about me, but I can tell you that Japan loves yoghurt. The variations of yoghurt itself or yoghurt flavoured food is infinite.

I think this thing was one of the first “what the hell?” foods I found when I moved here – Aloe vera yoghurt in a pouch.

Yes, aloe vera. The same stuff that you put on sunburn.

The plant itself is apparently perfectly edible, so I can see the logic behind this, but I didn’t know what to expect, flavour-wise.

It does have a slight medicinal taste, but its pretty nice actually. Kinda sweet, very creamy with little gel-like bits of aloe “flesh” here and there, its pretty good… I used to eat one of these almost every morning (mostly to get my dairy intake up because the milk in this country sucks horribly. More on that in another post).

The pouch is also a pretty common container here – with so many people on the go, it makes sense: you can’t be wrestling with a plastic tub and spoon on a packed train. The irony is that now I have a decent commute to work, I can’t find anyone who sells these between my place and the station. Very annoying.

Cost: 150￥

Availability: Spotty at best. If anyone else sees these things in their local convenience store, leave a comment.

It’s amazing how when you travel, you come across brands that are generally available in your own country, but with regional flavours that you’ll never see back home.

Case in point, Melon Fanta: Japan’s greatest contribution to modern society.

This stuff is fantastic. If you like rock- or muskmelon, you’ll love this. It tastes exactly like melon, except fizzy and full of sugar, although it’s not overpowering or too sickly sweet. I’ve always wanted to try it with vodka, but never gotten around to it.

There’s other “melon soda” readily available, but they’re just not as good as the Fanta version, in its shiny aluminium bottle. Buy it. Buy it now.

If you can’t, go find an importer who can get a case for you.

Cost: 150￥’ish.

Availability: Amazingly, it’s available all year round, unlike the Peach and Apple Fantas.

These are one of my favourite all-time foods in Japan – Taiyaki, or literally translated “Bream, fried”. The short explanation is that its pancake batter with a sweet filling stuffed into a metal fish mold.  The outside goes a little crispy, the filling gets rocket hot and in winter there is nothing better to nom on whilst walking somewhere.

Most of the time, they’re filled with a sweet bean paste called “Anko” but I prefer the custard cream filled jobbies.  Sweet, hot and I could eat 50 at a time, although the inside is like sugary napalm if they’re straight out of the mold.

Absolutely recommended if you visit J-land.

Cost: About 50-100￥

Availability: Anywhere you can find a fried food stall and at the vast majority of festivals.

Fanta is available in most countries, but in Japan, it’s all about the limited edition flavours: apple, fruit punch, cider, and of course the Summer Fanta, peach.

I dunno why it has travel graphics and “Italy” on the side and frankly I don’t care, because I love this stuff and I never look at the bottle from afar for too long.

The taste isn’t like peach nectar but it’s definitely not a bad fake peach flavour – it’s what you’d expect from a Fanta flavour.

Speaking of expecting, we’re in Autumn now, so we’ll start seeing Apple Fanta in stores soon…