Photo Plant and Kimchi Chocolate

In Tokyo’s Korea Town, the merchants are eager to find new ways to sell photos of famous Korean actors or musicians to Japanese customers. In addition to calendars, photo books, figures and DVDs, they occasionally try out new stuff such as the Photo Plant.

The Photo Plant is an ordinary plant with a photo of a star wrapped around it (the Japanese writing means “star photo inserted”). They don’t claim that the plant has any relation to the star, his hair style or if it has been planted by him. But if you happen to look for a plant and a picture of your favorite Korean actor, it’s a great deal.

Another one-off item was Kimchi Chocolate. Kimchi is delicious, chocolate is delicious, so why not merge them? This was obviously produced for tourists, but since I had Korean class mates at that time, I couldn’t resist and bought one. Reactions varied from shock (“no!!!!!!!!!”) to amusement – there are a variety of kimchi choices inside and when you eat a piece you will first taste the chocolate and then the kimchi. The latter doesn’t taste like the real one because it’s only a powder and obviously not fresh at all.

Perhaps most scary about this product is, that they could replace the kimchi powder with almost everything. How about Sauerkraut Chocolate? It’s soooo German!