Let’s eat at a Kaiten Sushi!

Jun 14 | Evan | No Comments |

What you should expect when eating sushi at a kaiten sushi, converter belt sushi. 

Do you like sushi? Who is excited to go to Japan to eat fresh sushi? 

Well, sushi has become an internationally well recognized Japanese food in the 20th century. However, not everyone has been to kaiten sushi, the sushi that comes around on a converter belt! Today, let’s learn about kaiten sushi and what you should know before going to one so that you can prepare yourself for the photo tour of Japan, especially when you have an opportunity to venture out to eat! 

What is “kaiten sushi?” Is it different from regular sushi? 

So what is kaiten sushi? You all know what sushi is so what does “kaiten” mean? Kaiten in Japanese means “rotaining.” Thus, kaiten sushi is a particular sushi that comes on a converter belt, which rotates around the restaurant. 

Sushi comes in many different forms in Japan, which also varies in prices. In general, you can consider “kaiten sushi” to be a cheap option. In comparison to sushi where you eat at a counter seat, kaiten sushi is much more relaxed, casual, and accessible to everyone. The matter of fact, because of such nature, it is popular among families to go to kanten sushi. Of course it is a sushi restaurant, so you will have a lot of different sushi, but at kaiten sushi, many other options such as sides, soup, and desserts can also be ordered at an accessible cost as well. 

Make sure to pay attention to the colors of the sushi plates! 

One thing you might like to be aware of is the color of plates. Yes, kaiten sushi is much cheaper than other options, but depending on the colors of plates, some are more expensive than others so make sure you are aware of the colors of plates, thus prices. Otherwise, you could be eating all expensive options, thus at the end of the day, you will be paying a lot more than you were originally planning. 

In general, at kaiten sushi, the different colors of plates indicate different prices. It is usually 3,4 different colors of plates that are rotating so it’s not that hard to keep a track of the price. You also keep all your plates at your table where you eat so that staff can count the number of plates at the end to calculate the cost. 

This clear identification of price is so crucial and why kaiten sushi became so popular. For example, some or all of the items are market price so you may not know the price till the end at high-end sushi places like eating at a counter table. Kaiten sushi is created for its accessible/cheap cost and clear identification of price so different colors of plates is one of the key features of this venue. 

History of kaiten sushi 

So how did kaiten sushi come to life? Originally, sushi was an expensive food, which was not for everyone. However, everyone wanted to eat sushi and the idea of kaiten sushi came to life. At the beginning, it was more like “all 100 yen ($1),” but later on, different colors of plates, thus different prices of sushi, automatic tea dispensers, and sushi robots were introduced. 

Interestingly, the idea of kaiten sushi was born in Osaka at a beer factory in 1948. 10 years passed since the idea emerged, the first ever kaiten sushi opened in Osaka in 1958, called “Mawaru Genroku Sushi 1st Store.” Since then, the first franchise opened in Sendai city in Miyagi Prefecture in 1968, followed by the creation and placement of automatic tea dispensers in 1973. From 1975 to 1985, the kaiten sushi boom came to Japan with the introduction of sushi robots, major chains entering the competition of the industry. 

By 2007, kaiten sushi became a 500 billion yen industry and now it is becoming international. If you are around the Los Angeles area, you might have seen “KULA,” Japanese kaiten sushi chains. There are around 10 KULA stores around the LA area and is popular among American people. As well as KULA, another major chain “Sushiro” is focusing its international market expansion in Asia, opening stores in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong in recent years. In 2018, there were 12 stores internationally and in 2019, there were 13 more additional stores opened, a total of 25 international stores operating outside of Japan. Currently the international market is expanding more than Japanese market in that each international store produces more revenue per year than a store in Japan. 

Conclusion

So who is hungry for sushi after reading this article? As you learned, there are different chains of kaiten sushi in Japan so if you are so keen, you can try different chains of kaiten sushi when you are on the photography tour of Japan to see, which one suits you the best. Each kaiten sushi has unique features that are different from one another so try a few and let me know what you like about each kaiten sushi! Of course, with COVID19, kanten sushi is most likely not the same today, but let’s hope that in 2021 when we are on a photo tour of Japan, we can go to a kanten sushi to enjoy fresh fish together!

Learn Japanese Today – “I want to go to Mt. Fuji.”

Jun 01 | Evan | No Comments |

Learn how to express when you want something and want to do something. 

When you travel somewhere new, you probably want to express what you want, such as where you want to go and what you want to eat. In this article, let’s learn how to use”want something” and “want to do something” in Japanese so that when you join the photography tour of Japan, you can express what you want and what you want to do! 

“I want this” and “I want that.” 

At this point, you already know how to say “this” and “that” in Japanese. When you are at a store in Japan and you want to point to something you want to get, which you can hold in your hand, you can use below.

Kore ga hoshii desu. 

これ　が　ほしい　です。

これが欲しいです。

Here “hoshii” is “to want” in Japanese and means “I want this” in English. 

As you already know, when you replace kore to sore or are, you can indicate an item, which is far away from you. 

You also know a possessive, “no.” Thus, if you want to say “I want that book.” it looks like this below. 

Ano hon ga hoshii desu.

あの　ほん　が　ほしい　です。

あの　本　が　欲しい　です。

Let’s learn how to say “I want to go to ~”

Let’s try something a little harder… Are you ready? 

When you visit Japan, I am sure you want to visit everywhere you have long been dreaming of. If you want to indicate where you want to go, you want to say like this below. 

Let’s say “I want to go to Mt. Fuji” first!

Fujisan ni ikitai desu.　（In Japanese, the particle “to” is “ni.”) 

ふじさん　に　いきたい　です。

富士山　に　行きたい　です。

In Japanese, we indicate where we want to go first. Thus, you simply need to change the location you want to go by replacing “Mt. Fuji” to somewhere else you want to go. Why don’t we replace it with “Tokyo Disneyland?” 

Tokyo Disneyland ni ikitai desu. 

とうきょう　ディズニーランド　に　いきたい　です。

東京　ディズニーランド　に　行きたい　です。

*In Japanese, we do not need to put a subject like “I” all the time. If you decide to include “I” it is not wrong, but we know from the conversation that the subject is “watashi” so we can omit it. 

Ru-verb using want to

When you want to use an expression “I want to ~” using a verb is a little more complex. It is because depending on the type of verb, it conjugates differently. Let’s look at a possible scenario when you want to eat miso ramen in Japan while being on a photography tour of Japan! 

Miso ramen wo tabetai desu. 

みそラーメン　を　たべたい　です。

味噌ラーメン　を　食べたい　です。

Here, the verb we are using is “to eat = taberu.” It belongs to a “ru-verb” and when you want to use “want to = ~tai,” you drop off “ru” and add “tai” to the end of a verb. Below are a few examples of ru-verbs and how to conjugate. 

Ru -verb (Drop “ru” add “tai”) 

Taberu Tabetai たる　　　たべたい
Shiraberu Shirabetai しらべる　　しらべたい　
Tsukuru Tsukuritai つくる つくりたい
Oshieru Oshietai おしえる おしえたい
Miru Mitai みる みたい

It’s a lot to learn how to conjugate verbs in Japanese all at once so let’s just stick to “ru-verb” for now and learn more verbs and how to conjugate in the next lesson. 

Before we conclude, here is another example of ru-verb with “to see = miru.” 

I want to see Mt. Fuji. 

Fujisan ga mitai desu. 

ふじさん　が　みたい　です。

富士山　が　見たい　です。

Are you now comfortable to express what you want and what you want to do? This lesson is probably more complex than the previous ones, but don’t worry! Since verb conjugation is challenging, we will continue with how to express when you want to do something with different verbs in the following lessons. Also, there are a lot of verbs to learn so I hope you can play with the ru-verbs I introduced to you today. Let’s pretend as if you are on a photography tour of Japan with your friends and family and use “ru-verbs.” You are now one step closer to travel to Japan with more knowledge of Japanese!