You never appreciate something as much as when it’s gone, and as an American living in Japan I’ve learned to treasure the things I can’t find locally. Last night after my family was done eating dinner, I brought out a surprise for them: a can of A&W root beer that I’d spied at an import shop. Because the Japanese have a special disliking for the taste of root beer, thinking it smells like those Salonpas pain patches, it’s nearly impossible to find the stuff here. (Oddly enough, root beer is the most popular drink in Okinawa, which has more A&W restaurants than McDonald’s.) My family loves root beer, and the four of us split the can between us, mixing it with vanilla ice cream to make delicious (if small) root beer floats and drinking them as slowly as we could. We were in heaven.
Living in Japan makes you appreciate…root beer?
