Tag: Halal

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Welcome to Japan: A Peek Inside My Stay In Tokyo

As promised, here is an update from my first 72 hours since leaving New York on Friday morning. I will add some pictures in this post to highlight some key things I am writing about but visit this page for my entire photo album from my stay here in Tokyo.

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A ‘Welcome to Japan’ sign is one of the first things you see at the airport after getting off the plane

 

Saturday morning, we were guided through a short tour throughout our community in Tokyo and were shown local supermarkets for our everyday needs, some places to eat/shop and how convenient it is to take the Tokyo Metro to move about the city.

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This is a view of what a typical living room looks like in our building.
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There was a nice welcome Starbucks package containing coffee, popcorn and pretzels when we first arrived into our rooms.

Prior to even considering a role that would move me half way around the world, one of the first things I did was do a little research on the availability of halal restaurants here. I found that there were specific restaurants that only served halal food but I was not prepared to see halal items on menus at your regular, local restaurants and supermarkets here. This welcomed surprise will certainly make it easier to have a more balance diet here.

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I have been more than surprised at how conveniently halal items have been available whether at the supermarket or at a restaurant.

Since we have been taking the metro during off-peak hours, it has been relatively easy to figure out our way around the various lines and where to transfer/exit. Based off of a mere two days of experience riding the metro, I think it has been a relatively easy process to figure out way around the various lines and there are probably two main things that our subway system can learn from the process here:

1) They have very clear signs indicating which train cars are ideal for you depending on your destination or transfer point and

2) There are glass walls/doors on the newer platforms that restrict passengers from accidentally falling onto the tracks while they wait for the trains to arrive. Once the train has ‘docked’ into the station, only then will the doors open allowing you to enter the train with no access to fall onto the train tracks. I can only imagine the number of lives that could be saved and injuries that could be reduced if the MTA and the Port Authority were to implement this back home.

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A nice, calm view looking out from my apartment.

 

As a preview/teaser for my next post, we were greeted with this welcome present on our first day of work. Something to get accustomed to in Tokyo, I suppose.

 

 

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Re: Oreo Cookies and Halal Products

My cousin over at Chill Yo Islam Yo raised a very important question last week when he asked whether the Nabsico products sold in North America were halal because they are self-proclaimed NOT halal-certified in Europe.

“Before you start throwing Oreo cookies at me,” as Saad said, I contacted the Nabisco Customer Service regarding the issue and have enclosed the entire conversation below for your consumption (get it?).

If the pictures below seems too long for you and you don’t want to read it (tl;dr), Nabisco basically stated that “to the best of their knowledge” as long as the Oreo product is not “Reduced Fat” or of the “Sugar Free” variety, you are good to go. Their answer is the first thing you read in the image and my initial question is found below the dotted line in each picture.

Below is the FAQ from Nabisco’s European website that Saad pulled up:

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Clever McDonalds Marketing

I found this fascinating the other day. I got something in the mail which I ended up showing my my cousin over at Chill Yo Islam Yo. He wrote up a good piece on it and I’ll quote a little below with the picture of the mailing:

When I met Shaykh Hamza Yusuf at the ISNA convention this year, I told him maybe if McDonald’s and Burger King started serving Halal across the states, more Muslims would start eating it, more halal means less haraam. He said “it’s good it’s not halal, it’s bad for your health anyways, you shouldn’t be eating it regardless”. Ha-ha.chillyoislamyo.com, Chill Yo Islam Yo, Jul 2009

You should read the whole article.

“Taste zyada, price kum” means ” More tasteful, less pricey”