robbieinjapan.com

The last couple of years I have been in Japan, I never had this problem but tonight it has happened to me for the third time here. I have never had this problem in America, either.

I went to an izakaya (Japanese restaurant/pub) with Ayaka for dinner and asked for Coke which in Japanese is “kora” (for “cola”) and when the waitress brought back my drink, I took a sip and immediately realized it was Diet Coke and not regular Coke! I checked the menu quickly and realized that they only had Diet Coke on the menu… there was no regular Coke at all!

As I said, this has also happened to me twice before this past month I have been in Japan. Once I was at the movie theater and wanted a Coke, so I went to the vending machine and all they had was Pepsi NEX Zero (diet Pepsi), no regular Pepsi.

Another time, I was at a restaurant that had a “drink bar” which is basically where you pay maybe 200 yen (a couple of dollars) and you can go to the self-serve area and drink as much as you want from the various drinks they have there. They have a fountain machine and they had Diet Coke… but no regular Coke!

It seems pretty amazing to me that here in Japan, the diet drink is fast becoming the standard choice whereas the regular soda is no longer even offered on the menu or in the vending machine.

Yet again, this seems to be another way that in Japan, I am dieting without really choosing to do so! Even if I want to drink a regular soda, if it is not even available at the restaurant or in the vending machine, I have no choice but to drink the diet version. In Japan, food servings at restaurants and other places are always much smaller than food servings at restaurants in America. So, as you can see, even if you desperately wanted to gain weight through consumption of more calories during your daily life, it is nearly impossible. I have known about the small serving sizes here in Japan for some time now which was fine by me since I tend not to eat much anyway but this diet soda only trend that I have come across is new and also annoying for me since I really would rather drink the regular version!

In any case, the izakaya (Japanese restaurant/pub) was quite nice. As is the style at izakaya, we ordered a bunch of small dishes that we shared. We even got french fries and pizza which I ate using chopsticks. I don’t think I ever thought back in America that I would see the day that I would use chopsticks to pick up a single fry and dip it in ketchup before eating it, or the day I would use chopsticks to split apart and pick up pizza to eat it.

I’m off to sleep again now. I am slowly fixing my sleeping schedule so that I am waking up earlier and earlier. Today I set my alarm to 12:30 and was able to get myself out of bed at 12:50 so I am doing quite well so far. Hopefully tomorrow I can wake up 15 or 30 minutes earlier!