marathon blog 8, sour monkey

This kiosk on Shibuya station advertises Fuji TV shows, this time it’s a new version of Monkey. Inside, however, there is also a black-vinegar bar.

Vinegar drinks, which supposedly helps combat heat as well as aid dieting, have always been popular in the summer. Recently “black vinegar” drinks have become especially popular. I’m not sure if this is because a few black-vinegar bars have opened inside stations, or if the bars have appeared because of the drink’s popularity.

Whatever — as someone who once drank so much vinegar her lips turned blue, any excuse to legitimately pickle my insides is fine by me.

weider in, morinaga out

I have to be honest. I was a little upset to find this replacing my favorite-ever station kiosk. Morinaga’s Chocoball Kyoro-chan has been replaced  with Weider supplements. The enormous singing bird is now an enormous screen showing TV ads. The fun and cute junk food to the boring and serious health supplement.

But can’t quibble, since it has been a while since I’ve seen a themed station kiosk…

Weider (www.weider.com) make supplement pills for muscle-building and weight training — lots of protein and amino acid stuff — plus those handy-pack jelly food supplements (displayed on top of the kiosk). A lot of the supplements (especially the jelly in the pouches) are for extra energy, which is just as well really because all this is making yaaaaaawwwwwn.

oooii! it’s another kiosk

Yup, a tad dull… but it's a kiosk! Did I mention that I liked station kiosks?

'Oooii' Ocha, Green tea. I think you can see the product there for yourself.

chew chew station

Looks a bit boring, but yes! another kiosk! Hoorah! I do have a thing about station kiosks. This time it's Lotte's unpronounceable Xylitol gum. See www.lotte.co.jp for the product.

Must mention that a fellow tigerbot took this image for me. 

Thank you. x

you say tohato, i say kiosk!

Yay! Another station kiosk. This time Tohato (sweet and savory snacks) and its Caramel Corn character, which at the time was relatively new. Before Caramel Corn came in slightly '60s-style red bags with an image of the corn puffs on the front. Now it's not just caramel; flavors of corn include cheese, green tea, strawberry and more. And each flavor has its own color (still red for caramel) and cute face. See www.japanesesnacks.com/car for the product. The evil looking chillis faces above the cigarette machine are Tohato's Habenero chili snack characters. Check out www.japanesesnacks.com/hab for the product.

Oh and as always in true character good style, Tohato have produced some goodies promoting their goods on tohato.jp Annoying thing, for those fans, is that most of them aren't for sale. You have to collect points or join some campaign to get them.

underground okinawa

Sells only Okinawan food goods and condiments, or Okinawan-flavored candy and snacks (like Chiquasa candy, sugar potato caramels). Quite welcome bit of cheeriness at an underground entrance to a subway station.

it’s all chocoballs

About two years ago, this appeared at the Japan Rail station of my owners place. I think it was the first 'themed' station kiosk I'd seen, and it just so happened to be my favorite chocolate it was advertising (Chocoball from Morinaga). It appeared not long after I'd started belonging to my new owners. Unfortunately I took it as a good omen that my new owners might be perfect. Unfortunately I was wrong…

The kiosk itelf is pretty ordinary: candy, snacks, drinks, cigarrettes, newspapers and magazines. Every hour though, the two big birds (Kyoro-chan) strain to open their enormous beaks and music is played to passersby. Very silly. I love it.

Wanna see the candy? Check: www.japanesesnacks.com

Official Chocoball site (with games!): www.morinaga.co.jp

And an English-writing fan for you: www.geocities.com/chocoballkyoro