Tokyo Bloopers II

Many of the funny mistakes I've made have to do with eating something that packed a punch or surprise. Like the seemingly harmless "okra" sushi. It really was okra, but it was crammed so full of the stuff that I was chewing for the next 20 minutes while toro, salmon, hamachi, mirugai, and other yummy things were served to and downed by my dining partners.

I also make a lot of mistakes at the grocery store. Even something simple like buying a bag of rice becomes complicated when you have severely limited reading skills. I can decipher a lot of things that are written on labels, but only after I've brought the thing home, prepared it, seen the look on my husband's face when he eats it, and then spent an hour scouring the label for something that explains the look. The answer: it was diet rice. After looking more carefully I found that "Calorie off!" is happily proclaimed in pink on the front of the bag.

Similarly, readers of hiragana will spot something interesting about this box of tissue:



In a land where the toilet paper gives off a faint scent of roses, I was still surprised when I pulled a kleenex from this box and felt a tingling/burning sensation in my nose. Upon closer inspection, I found the word "Menthol" clearly written in gold, right under "Lotion Tissue".