The Incredible (Occaisionally Inedible) Food of Japan

One of the most -- ahem -- adventurous parts of visiting Japan was the food. Even "American" breakfast wasn't quite American; the most defining feature of it seemed to be that it involved hot dogs:

At least one of us (quick quiz: try to guess who!) liked to order the Japanese breakfast, though, which included fish, rice, and pickled vegetables... but we enjoyed it so much we forgot to take any pictures!

For dinner, the easiest way to find something we liked was when restaurants displayed their options as fake food. Sometimes, the whole menu would be arranged in front, in an array of shiny plastic soup, shiny plastic noodles, and shiny plastic meat:

Delicious!

We also found some excellent Japanese junk food, including ice cream already wrapped in a cone:

[cone]

and an "apricot" donut, which tasted more like bean paste, but was delicious nonetheless. Look how much Nicci liked it:

Last but not least, the most traditional meal either of us -- well, just Eddy -- had was a dinner on the first night of the conference. The star of this meal was definitely the fish course... which was a whole fish:

"How do you eat this?" all the westerners at the table asked. "Just start at the head,"our Japanese host replied.