Random Picture #140

One of my more Quixotic impulses, and I actually have few of them left at the ripe old age of 48, is to try and let people see that Japan isn't all sushi, geisha, Mt. Fuji, minimalist beauty, and, of course, funky KitKats and weird Pepsi flavors. A lot of life in Japan is just as boring, lacking in creativity, and just generally unspectacular as things at home. One of the things that tends to happen when you rely on any published material to inform you is that you get the relative gold panned from miles and miles of boring river water. Trust me, there is much more river than gold dust and that is why I put up today's picture. These are big bags of bulk hard candy which were on sale at Niki no Kashi in Ameyokocho. The red and white ones are cola flavored, which not only are boring because they're hard candy, but also because they're one of the worst flavors of said candy. The black and white ones to the right are coffee flavor, which makes them marginally better.

The question I asked myself after seeing these was, "who buys them"? Seriously, who would need to  buy a big bag of hard candy like this. I've never seen them available in stores or even kids bubble vending machines. Are there hordes of Japanese grandmas out there stocking up on crappy candy for when the their grand-tykes pay them a visit? If my readers have any ideas, I'd be curious to hear them. To me, these are just giant bags of unfortunately flavored tooth decay.