“Super Bowl Monday”
Watching the Super Bowl in Tokyo always feels a little off.
Super Bowl Monday in Tokyo is a work day. You have to cue up the live stream at the office while you pretend to be hard at work. You listen to the broadcast through headphones. You try to make yourself excited and interested like you would be back home, but adrenaline is hard to conjure when those tinny iPod earbuds are involved.
If you happen to stumble across an actual TV carrying the game, the local stations don’t include the commercials. Instead they cut away to crowd shots. The announcers stop talking. We see groups of fans in crazy war paint, not acting crazy because they know they’re not on TV. Only they are on TV in Tokyo. There is no sound. Just drifting shots from around the stadium. Then the station theme song flairs up and the announcers start shouting with all of their energy again.
Then there is the food situation. There are no family-sized bags of Doritos in the stores. Guacamole doesn’t come pre-blended in a jar. No cans of chili. Cheese doesn’t come in an aerosol can. Cheese in general is just really damn hard to come by. No foods that make you feel guilty if you snack too much on them.
Maybe you can go crazy and get yourself some of those wasabi flavored rice crackers…
