{"id":1750,"date":"2008-10-15T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-15T18:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2015-11-04T09:19:48","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T14:19:48","slug":"mitsuwa-or-eat-joy-feel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/mitsuwa-or-eat-joy-feel\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitsuwa or Eat Joy Feel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last week I went to Mitsuwa, a Japanese marketplace<\/a> with a number of stores across the country, including one in Edgewater, New Jersey. A $3 bus from the NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal will take you there, but you have to know where to get off and walk across a parking lot. I went with my friend Angie<\/a>, who grew up near there for a few years and so knew what bus to take, where to depart, and what we were about to see (although admitted it had been around 5 years since she’s been here).<\/p>\n

If you ever spent time outside of any super-dense urban center in America, then you probably have some association with Mitsuwa’s setup. A big food court with some adjacent stores, some weird shops owned by lonely men with exotic hobbies, a bakery or two, and a grocery to top things off, with an expensive restaurant near this mini-mall of sorts. Mitsuwa’s difference of course being that it’s a strictly Japanese and Asian styled market, so you’ll find tempura instead of french fries; ramen instead of pizza; green tea instead of coffee. If you’ve ever traveled to Asia, you’ll recognize the clash, or rather mutual combination, of east and west approaches:<\/p>\n

The Food Court<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything is displayed and decided based on visual layout and aesthetics. You can see what you’re about to eat, and it’s coated in a type of resin that gives it all a glossy seduction – it’s hard to not<\/em> want to eat here!<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Grocery<\/strong><\/p>\n

is I’d estimate 90% imported goods from mostly Japan, but also South Korea and a few other Asian countries. I only recognized one-half aisle of cold refrigerated goods from Western sources, and these were overpriced since they were, given the context, exotic. There were palettes of rice; a seaweed aisle; Asian candies; a Pocky section; over 30 types of mushrooms; strange fruits; some really delicious Japanese iced coffees; very few butchered meats and many many types of seafood; and so-on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nmanga hair dye aisle (this one’s for you Cassie!)<\/p>\n

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\nthey even have a seaweed aisle! wow!<\/p>\n

The bookstore<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\ngolf books section, complete with 3d model! They even had golf manga. Really strange adaptation of a Western sport, apparently it’s a big seller!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The place<\/strong><\/p>\n

is actually much larger than my images make it out to appear. The foodcourt could easily seat 300 people; the grocery is a full-size supermarket, as big as any Costco, Dierbergs, or Jewel-Osco as you might find throughout other parts of the country; there’s a full-size bookstore; a nick-nack store; a dinnerware store (lots of kettles, chopsticks, soup bowls, etc.); et cetera et cetera et cetera. From the back of the Mitsuwa marketplace there’s a really great view of the Upper West Side of Manhattan including some buildings I’ve never seen before, as they are otherwise masked by some obstruction – a taller building, some density of trees.<\/p>\n

The view<\/strong><\/p>\n

of Manhattan from New Jersey, heading back into the city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I went to Mitsuwa, a Japanese marketplace with a number of stores across the country, including one in Edgewater, New Jersey. A $3 bus from the NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal will take you there, but you have to know where to get off and walk across a parking lot. I went with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[751,121],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journeys","tag-journey","tag-new-jersey"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/mitsuwa-crunky.jpg?fit=500%2C281&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6OfVu-se","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15604,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/15604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}