So there are these energy drinks in Japan. I see the teachers drinking them the odd time and I didn’t really think anything of it. They look like bottles of cough syrup, so that has kind of deterred me from trying one. So a couple days ago I saw one of the teachers drinking one and during our conversation I decided to pick it up and take a look at it. Upon asking her to tell me a bit about it, the teacher said it was a “refreshing tonic” with vitamins in it to give you energy. So I figured I’d take a look at the side of the bottle and read the contents:
Vitamin B1
Vitamin B2
Nicotine
Caffiene
and the list went on…
“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. This has nicotine in it! And 30mg of it to boot! That’s one way to get you addicted to the stuff.
An example of an energy drink in Japan
Case in point. When you eat or drink anything in Japan, it’s nice to be able to read Japanese. You have no clue what goes into this stuff, or even what you’ve ordered. Believe me.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Tom // May 4, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Nice!
Three cheers for addiction and the smart marketers who utilize it for profit.
However, as I always like to say, no one forces people to buy into these marketers’ schemes.
That’s even worse than Canada with the unhealthy amounts of caffeine they throw into everything.
Crazy.
2 Michael // May 14, 2008 at 7:18 am
Fuck!
That goes on my “things that would be illegal in Canada that no one bats an eye at here” list, along with the cute anthropomorphic apple logo for Mori Drugstore — far cuter than Joe Camel — who looks soooo happy with the big frosty mug of beer in his hand.
Did you know, by the way, that it’s legal in Japan for someone to get pissed drunk in the front passenger’s seat?
3 admin // May 15, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I think I remember one of the teachers I work with telling me that. It’s also illegal to bike while drunk, and it’s recently been made illegal to ride a bike with headphones on now too.
The great thing is all of the above can find me minus one month’s salary or fired if I commit the offense. Ah, the pitfalls of Japan.
4 Michael // May 16, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Illegal to ride a bike drunk, with headphones, or with an umbrella. It sort of makes sense– you can’t do any of these things on a motorcycle in any country that I know of, so why not bikes? On the other hand, as someone who regularly uses his bike to get to and from enkais, who can’t find a rain suit that fits in Japan and has an unhealthy iPod addiction — enough to spell the ‘p’ in with a capital, I am personally offended by these laws.
5 guy carpenter // Aug 20, 2009 at 7:22 am
This stuff rules, tried once and now addicted to nicotine..just bought my first carton of cigarrettes yesteray and already down to 6 pks left! cough!!!
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