My Life in Japan: JAPAN LOVES FOOD

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Academic Disclaimer: This blog is a class project for my Visual Anthropology class; as such it is for educational purposes only. All photos posted here are taken by myself unless otherwise noted.

Sanrio's Hello Kitty obento from Sanrio Puroland.

Tira Misu Arrange Latte from Cafe La Vent in Hatanodai.

Everywhere in Japan, the presentation of food is equally important as its preparation. Food is edible art. Japan also prides itself in hosting a variety of creatively themed cafes in which patrons can enjoy their expertly crafted meals, sweets and beverages. I myself have been to a multitude of colourful restaurants and cafes such as Swallowtail, which is a well known Shitsuji (Butler) cafe; The Lockup, an izakaya style restaurant where you dine in prison cells and spooky jail ghouls come to haunt you during lights out; Ginza's Vampire Cafe and Shinjuku's Alice in Wonderland cafe where your servers and hosts are dressed as Disney's Alice, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter. The aforementioned are just a handful of the cafes I have visited, as recounting all of them would take too long. Visiting these locations and sampling these beautiful treats has long since become a hobby of mine, but what excites me most when I'm ordering is the photo opportunities.

Since I moved to Japan over 3 years a go, food has become my favorite thing to photograph. This is not an uncommon past time in Japan. I often see Japanese people of all ages photographing their Starbucks frappuccino, for example, before taking the first sip. In my experience, the most artfully crafted treats Japan has to offer are sweets and lattes. Please enjoy a sampling of some beverages and food I have photographed during my residence in Japan.