The Second Great and Bountiful American Empire

So yesterday was rather cold. And at lunch time (about 5pm) I was feeling like a warm drink. Due to my aversion to both coffee and tea, this pretty much leaves me hot chocolate as my beverage of choice (not that I'm complaining, I like hot chocolate).

Now over here, if you like coffee or tea you are spoiled for choice. Hot and cold coffee of different strengths, flavours, varieties, celebrity endorsements, brands and what not, from shops and vending machines. But not much in the way of hot chocolate.

But, I did see one possible source of that which I desired. An organisation I have never really felt much desire to visit, as they concentrate on beverages I don't desire, and in most places there have been alternative sources of warm chocolate drinks. But in this land, I did not see much by way of an alternative, except not having a warm drink.

And so I went to Starbucks. Except for the prices being in yen, and having katakana above the English on the menu, it seemed pretty much identical to the Starbucks I walked past a lot in the Myer Center. At lunch I got a grande premium hot chocolate for 480 yen (I usually pay that much for lunch). It was pretty good, which was a bit of a surprise, as I was expecting something a bit more average. I ended up going back after work finished for a tall one, which I drank on the train (they're a lot less paranoid about that sort of thing over here, although I did get odd looks from one lady).

Anyway, I've just looked and there does seem to be one near my usual work (I was doing overtime in a school far away yesterday), so I may be frequenting the Second Great and Bountiful American Empire a bit from now on.

End Post
Writing time: 13 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
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Oh yes, bonus points for whoever identifies the source of the phrase Second Great and Bountiful Empire.