粗挽きマグマチーズバーガー

I recently wrote a post about Lotteria’s “Tower Cheeseburger“.

(Click here to read it).

I also mentioned last year that, in Japan, spicy food is popular in the summer and I showed some of the spicy menu items that were on the fast food menus in Japan last year.

(Click here to read that post).

Well, for this summer, the Japanese hamburger chain “Becker’s” (which is owned by Japan’s largest train operator, Japan Railways (JR)) is currently offering a new spicy burger on their menu.

It’s called 「粗挽きマグマチーズバーガー」 (“Magma Cheeseburger“).

It costs ¥820 for the burger, fries, salad and a drink or ¥470 for just the burger itself (単品).

New Prime Minister

Yukio Hatoyama was the most recent Prime Minister of Japan…but he resigned yesterday due to his inability to keep his campaign promise to have some of the U.S. military bases in Okinawa moved off of the island.

Many people outside of Japan are surprised that he’s quitting for that reason. Politicians often make campaign promises that they’re unable to keep but in Western countries (America, etc), those politicians stay in office for their entire term no matter how unpopular they become.

But in Japanese culture a leader is expected to enforce the will of the people and if he is unable, he should step down to express his regret. Japanese people respect that more than someone who stubbornly refuses to admit his failure.

In the twenty years that I’ve been living in Japan so far, I have seen fourteen different Japanese Prime Minister in office.
But in those same twenty years, only four different men have been President of the United States.

It’s almost certain that Naoto Kan will be Japan’s newest Prime Minister.