Not Japan specifically, but I’ve got say I’m jealous as hell about the snack scene in east Asia.
I generally don’t have a sweet tooth, and things like potato chips don’t have that umami I like. I try to keep snacks around because I forget to eat, but nothing appeals to me. But man… all those pre-packaged tofu squares, various bits of marinated meat… that’s my deal. There’s one solid “Asian Mart” near me, I’ll stock up a few months worth at a time.
Closest you get in the US is basically jerky/slim jims, which are great but expensive and kind of one note for flavor.
Not overly high tech but such a good fit for the culture and extremely convenient:
Self-filling, self-warming baths
Put the plug in during the day, press the button to fill the bath at the remote keypad in the kitchen. Baths fills and a little jingle announces that the bath is ready at the perfect temperature.
Yeah, I’ve got a self filling one. Nice to run a bath without even getting out of bed. Although if you forget to put the plug in first, you’ll arrive to an empty bath.
It’s kind of a relic of the past now since everyone uses a streaming service of some kind now but right at the end of physical media’s lifespan, Japan had some key advantages over the US specifically because it was legal to rent albums and I believe individual songs, just like a Blockbuster. Eventually they had the music purchasing equivalent of Redbox in the form of kiosks as well with the advent of recordable Net-MD minidiscs, which only really ever saw success in Japan.
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