Category: Japan

Pankun and James make Sanuki Udon

Udon (饂飩 （うどん）, Udon) is a type of thick wheat-flour noodle popular in Japanese cuisine. Sanuki (讃岐) udon is a thick and rather stiff type [of undon] from Kagawa Prefecture.

Pankun, (sometimes spelled pan-kun) is a young chimpanzee in Japan often featured on the NTV television show “Tensai! Shimura Doubutsu-en” (“天才！志村動物園”, lit. “Genius! Shimura Zoo”) and the TBS program “Doubutsu Kisou Tengai!” (“動物園奇想天外!”, lit. “Unbelievable Animals!”). Most of the segments feature him and his bulldog friend, James, embarking on a variety of “human” tasks, like buying groceries, planting a rice paddy, or catching insects.

Hungry? Enough to Eat a Mammoth?

Momofuku Ando (安藤 百福, Andō Momofuku), (March 5, 1910 – January 5, 2007) was the Taiwanese Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd., and the inventor of world’s first instant noodles and cup noodles. He was dubbed as Mr. Noodle and The Noodle Papa.

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of the elephant family and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair.

Hot Calpis

Calpis (カルピス) is a Japanese uncarbonated soft drink, manufactured by Calpis Co., Ltd. (カルピス株式会社), headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. The beverage has a light, somewhat milky, and slightly acidic flavor, similar to plain or vanilla-flavored yogurt, or Yakult. Its ingredients include water, nonfat dry milk, and lactic acid, and is produced by lactic acid fermentation.

In English-speaking countries the beverage is sometimes called “Calpico,” because “Calpis” may sound like “Cow Piss”.

Japan belongs to the temperate zone with four distinct seasons, but its climate varies from cool temperate in the north to subtropical in the south. In winter, a high-pressure area develops over Siberia, and a low-pressure area develops over the northern Pacific Ocean. The result is a flow of cold air eastward across Japan that brings freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls to the central mountain ranges facing the Sea of Japan, but clear skies to areas fronting on the Pacific.