Blue skies smilin’ at me
Nothin’ but blue skies do I see
Bluebirds singin’ a song
Nothin’ but bluebirds all day long
…
Blue days, all of them gone
Nothin’ but blue skies from now on
Willie Nelson
I have had me a week. Then I had me a weekend. The kind of week and weekend that makes me wanna pour me a strong one and listen to some Willie. For the record, if I ever do own my own bar or restaurant, I am painting the ceiling blue, like a sky, with just a few clouds. Then I could mess with patrons by pointing to the ceiling and saying things like, “Man, I hope it doesn’t rain today.” Or if someone is clearly having a bad day, I could pull out the old quote from Young Frankenstein: It could be worse; It could be raining.” Also, while speaking of Young Frankenstein, I would have Ovaltine on the menu. Only I would list it as “Frau Blücher’s Ovaltine” and then have a recording of Cloris Leachman saying “Ovaltine?” cued and ready to play by remote control if anyone ever order it. And to answer the two biggest questions going through your mind right now: Yes, I do have too much time on my hands; and No, I am not drinking alcohol. I am on my third cup of some seriously superior coffee from Papua New Guinea, its aroma filling my house; its taste taking me back to a place that redefined all concepts of what a sky is supposed to look like.
But enough rambling, pull up a stool, and take a look at the offerings:
In the States there is that aisle in your mega-mart full of rainbow colored sports drinks. There is no shortage of amino loaded and ion filled sports drinks in Japan, but sans the dyes, so sport drink varieties are clear or slightly cloudy. The king of sports drinks here is Pocari Sweat. To quote Dave Barry from his book on Japan, “it’s the best drink ever named after a body fluid.” This is only partially true. While Pocari Sweat is quite tasty, and I must admit, always on hand at our home, there is a better tasting and funnier beverage here named after a body fluid. Yes the king, and I doubt never to be toppled king, of drinks named after a body fluid is Calpis. Go ahead; read that again: CAL…PIS. This is not only a name of a drink, but the name of a company with a wide variety of multi-colored and flavored drinks. For the serious aficionado (or Hannibal Lector wannabe) though, there is the new line of Premium Calpis, that is right, grade A, top quality, pure, 100% Calpis. (And yes, I would sell t-shirts that said “I drink Pocari Sweat and then I take a Calpis.”)
Let’s be honest, sports drinks (body fluids aside) are all well and good, but sometimes all you really want on a hot summer day is a nice glass of iced tea. And the choices are limitless in this class. We have green teas, we have brown teas, we have black teas, and we have machas and oolongs and royal milk teas. Each drink company (too many to count) has a handful of varieties of each. Our favorite tea is called SoKimBi Cha. Sokimbicha is a lightly roasted brown tea. Its title implies that by drinking it, you will increase your beauty and your health. That part hasn’t happened for me yet. But I do like the fact that is feels lighter than water as it glances across your tongue and has a hint of sweetness to go with its smoky undertones. In a word: refreshing. And as an added bonus, if all of your ice melts, it is equally good and refreshing at room temperature. The newest tea of the season is Karada-meguri-cha. It offers you a blend of 8 Chinese herbs and four natural tea leaves. I think it tastes like what the bark of a oak tree would taste like if you licked it after you had cut the grass around it…maple would be too smooth; pine too sweet; walnut too intense; chestnut to pungent…yes, definitely an oak. (And yes, I am still drinking coffee; and yes, I have time to think about such things. No trees were actually licked in the making of this discription.)
As I mentioned, it was a rough week. So let’s move over to the hard stuff. I was strolling through my neighborhood liquor store a couple weeks ago. I will resist singing the praises of Asahi’s Super Dry Karakuchi beer here which is what usually ends up in my shopping bag after a visit. Our little liquor store 
has a wall of sake: big bottles, little bottles, large clay vats of sake as well as a healthy collection of sho-cho. Sake, while often called rice wine, is technically not a wine since it is brewed, and thus not the result of a single fermentation. Sho-cho, in case you are wondering, is its higher alcohol content uncle. Both are categorized the way wines are. By that I mean you can have dry, sweet, fruity, etc, classifications of both. Sake, also, in case you don’t know, can be drunk hot or cold. This determination is usually made given the season. Nicer or high quality sake would only be served at room temperature or slightly chilled. What caught my attention in the chilled section was a bottle of Yuzu flavored Sake. Yuzu, an indigenous bitter orange (yes the same fruit used to make ponzu), is traditionally an aromatic addition to both sake and sho-cho. This particular bottle of sake had plenty of sugar added to it and just a hint of the yuzu giving it a subtle tartness. Basically, its spiked lemonade, so what’s not to love? Since discovering this little gem the local liquor store has been having trouble keeping it in stock.
My most recent discovery, though, is blue apple juice. No, this is not apple juice with blue dye. It is juice from a blue apple. I am walking through the small grocery store in Yanaka Ginza with my wife and daughter. 
We are heading to the check out counter when I stop dead in my tracks, and through laughs, ask my wife to read the label on a container of apple juice. The bottle has a picture of a green apple with a green background. Yet right there, in Kanji and romaji, it says青 “AO,” which is “blue.” In Japanese, the kanji and word for green is 緑, “midori.” Mind you, this is NOT a mistake. Walk up to a native Japanese speaker and ask them what colors they see in a traffic light and they will tell you, “red, blue, yellow.” (OK, you have to ask them in Japanese, and they will answer in Japanese.) But if you ask them in English, assuming you know someone who speaks English, they will most likely look at you, cock their head, pause for a moment, nod knowingly and humor you by saying, “oh, yes, green.” It’s not just the traffic lights either; cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, lettuce, edamame, etc: All blue! Green apples, kiwi, crickets, turtles and alligators: Blue too. Is this causing you to question reality? Question all that you know? Was Shakespeare right? “A rose (apple) by any other name (color) would smell (taste) as sweet.” See, you need a drink now too, don’t you? Just one more thing before you give me your order, you probably think the sun is yellow… come on, don’t be silly, it’s red…haven’t you seen the flag?
OK, I am ready to take your order now…but first cue the music:
(sha la la,
dooby wah,
dum dum dum,
yeh yeh,
um wah wah wah wah)
Don’t you worry your pretty head
I’ll never let you do-ow-ow-ow-ow-own
I’ll always be arou-ou-ou-ou-ound,
Blue angel
(sha la la, dooby wah, dum dum dum, yeh yeh, um)
Blu-ue an-an-gel
(sha la la)
Roy Orbison