The Mao dog

Mao Asada, the former world champion from Japan, has not one food item named after her in Vancouver, but TWO! First, a sushi place named a roll after her (they make it in the shape of a heart, aww) But now – the holy grail of food items now bears her name.

THE MAO ASADA HOT DOG.

Japadog, a popular hot dog vendor here in Vancouver, named a dog after Mao and I headed out to the cart yesterday to sample it and snap some pics for the website. Well – the darn dog is so popular, it was already sold out! The secret to the Mao dog is that it’s a kobe beef dog - topped with whatever you want apparently. Ok, well either that or maybe he said topped with jalepenos… my Japanese is rough and his English wasn’t much better. Someone is headed out today to sample both the sushi and the dog and write a review. We're going to try to get him to judge it skating style - marks for technical components, artistic impression. I said that if it ended up on the ground, that was an automatic 1 point deduction for falling.

Ok, but first of all, let’s come to terms with the fact that japan has their own styles of hot dogs. I saw some topped with seaweed! I tried to be cool about it but inside, my grossed out 5-year-old voice was saying “eeewwww!”

I guess it makes sense that hot dogs are big in japan since they have that Kobayashi guy who can eat like 4300 in 2 minutes or something and he has his own cartoon and probably a clothing line. I just never connected hot dogs and Japan.

Did you know that Red Bull built Shawn White his very own half pipe to train on? And they have to helicopter him in and out each day. I’m assuming because it’s inaccessible to car and he probably wouldn’t want to cross-country ski there – wouldn’t want to ruin his cool snowboarder cred. Can you imagine seeing a bunch of snowboarders cross country skiing in their baggy pants… hold on – that’s really not all that funny… has Olympic-induced insanity started to set in already?

I was updating bios yesterday night and as it got later and later, the first draft of the bio updates got meaner and meaner. I was just trying to add in some info about Vancouver and what’s expected from them here at the games. At first they were all happy and positive, “with a sold skate, he could definitely be a podium party crasher!” but as they progressed, they started to read more like “listen kid, don’t even bother showing up because you ain’t got no shot in hell, seriously. Are you really still here? Ok, and why are you wearing THAT?” Might need to look back over a few of those today…