Tokyo Blog

When I arrived in Tokyo, not so long ago, one of the things I noticed were whole shops dedicated to the sale of small bottles, the contents of which I wasn’t sure about. Whilst watching TV, I noticed the ads that were showing this stuff, and realised that they’re somewhere between a herbal remedy and an energy drink. The bottles they come in are often made of brown glass, which gives them the appearance of a bottle of medicine (which I’m sure is intentional). They are targeted mainly at the salaryman, banking on the fact that these guys will be burned out, stressed out and in need of something to give them a ‘boost’, or just keep them alive for one more working day. They normally contain a mix of vitamins and traditional chinese herbal supplements, but also sometimes contain such things as viper tincture or other exotic extracts believed to increase virility. You can get one variety that’s a massive hit of garlic, and another which is supposed to enable you to consume more alcohol. I can’t read everything written on the bottles, but I fully intend to buy some for experimentation. I’ve never tried having 4000 times the RDA of a vitamin before, and really want to see what happens.