I have only had popcorn once since coming to Japan, and that was at a movie theatre in Sendai City. I didn't actually see a movie, just bought the popcorn and left. The nice thing about movie popcorn in Japan is that it is actually quite reasonably priced, and a small size bag (called S size here) isn't microscopic in size like it is back home. I had attempt on other occasions to eat popcorn in Japan, however things didn't work out so well. Since I don't have a microwave, and they don't sell microwave pop corn here anyway, I have been trying my best to make Jiffy Pop over the stove. Well, at least some Japanese type of Jiffy Pop anyway. My first attempt was a disaster. The first one I bought looked a lot like Jiffy Pop back home.. small aluminum pan with wire handle.. except for one important difference. Where Jiffy Pop bags have a specially designed foil cover that blows up as the kernels pop, this one had a tight clear plastic cover. This raised many questions.. Are you supposed to take the plastic off when you pop it? If you don't remove it, won't the plastic catch on fire and where will the popped kernels go? If you take it off, will there be enough heat for the kernels to pop.. and if they do pop, won't they just go flying everywhere. The Japanese instructions were no help as they lacked any nice pictures for me to try to interpret meaning from. So I tossed the thing, with plastic, onto the stove and hoped for the best. After a minute or two I heard a few pops, then nothing. Disapointed, I turned to get something from the fridge when I noticed a bright orange light in the window reflection. I turned around to see an enormous fireball on my stove. For the next few days my apartment no longer had the mouldy smell I have become accustomed to, but now had the even more objectionable odor of burnt popcorn. Today I came across something at the grocery store called "American popcorn". Again, there were no legible instructions.. however this time it had a foil cover. I decided to try again. I turned on the stove and threw it on the flames. Everything seem to be going fine at first.. the aluminum foil slowly grew into a big ball just like I had hoped it would. As it grew steam would stream out of a hole in the middle of the foil, it started off white in color then quickly turned black. I took the popcorn off the stove and ripped open the tin foil to reveal a steaming pile of black mush. Once again my apartment reaks of burned popcorn. A little research on the Internet has taught me that apparently Jiffy Pop is extremely difficult to make. You have to shake the tin constantly and make sure your fire isn't too hot. Now that I'm armed with this information, I'm convinced that I can get it right next time. You think you can defeat me Jiffy Pop? Think again.