Halloween Pumpkin Ramen

I bought this at a convenience store on sale a day after Halloween. It's a snack; dried pieces of pumpkin flavored ramen. See the tape on the little witch's cheek? That's a boo-boo (a sore caused by an accident.) I've seen that on other Halloween decorations here. Maybe it's becoming a Japanese Halloween motif.

Like KitKat, Doritos sometimes has seasonal flavors.

Yakimochi

There are vendors outside the Jindaiji Temple grounds. This sign advertises cooked mochi, glutinous rice cakes. They are filled with adzuki beans. This steam basket has sweets wrapped in bamboo paper.

Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds

Click on the picture to enlarge it. See the pictures in the two white boxes? You probably can't read the Japanese, but can you guess what that indicates?

Taiyaki Ice

That's what it says in red letters.

This is ice cream and sweet bean paste inside a cone shaped like a fish. Yum. It is yummy!
Do a blog search for taiyaki.

Year of the Rat

This is the Year of the Rat. It comes around every twelve years. Little Brother was born in the year of the rat. He will be twelve in February. For a snack one day, we ate these manju with an imprint of a rat. Manju is a wheat cake that is filled with sweet bean paste called an or anko.

For another snack time, Aunt bought this butter roll shaped like a rat at a bakery. Its eyes are raisins. It is filled with sweet bean paste, too.

Best Wishes for the Year of the Rat!

Kids Web Japan--other sweet bean cakes

Wakame Snack

This is a wakame snack. It comes in its own little plastic tray. There is also a moisture absorber pack with it. Who wants soggy wakame?! The strips are chewy like gummy bears. It's a little sweet, but I think it smells like pickles.

This is the package. It's small. It is only 10 x 14 cm. This wakame is ume flavored. Packages are on display near the register at my grocery store. This snack can also be found at convenience stores in the candy section.

A toothpick is included on the back of the package. You use it to pick up and eat the strips.

Holly Thompson and Kazumi Wilds have a new picture book coming out called The Wakame Gatherers. It is published by Shen's Books. Check back in the next weeks to find out more about wakame. The author and illustrator may post something here!

Making Taiyaki

I bought three custard taiyaki at the new shop and asked if I could take a picture through the window. They were making some. The worker on the right is making okonomi taiyaki (see post below). She is closing the iron mold (actually it looks like Teflon).

The worker on the left is squirting batter into a mold. She has already squirted batter into one side of the mold. She will then squirt custard or adzuki beans onto one side. She will close the mold when the outside of the cake is browned. Then she will flip the closed mold from one side to the other on top of the stove.

The cooked taiyaki are placed in a rack in the window. The sign says "custard 130 yen".

Taiyaki

This is a taiyaki. This one is filled with custard. The other side looks like this, too. When it stops raining, I'll try to get a picture of them being made.

Shop Opening

A new shop opened in our neighborhood on the 29th. It makes and sells taiyaki. A pancake-like snack shaped like a fish. This shop sells them filled with the usual azuki beans, but also with custard. there is also one called okonomi taiyaki that is filled with cabbage, carrots, bacon and mayonnaise.

Too bad it was raining on their opening days, but people were still lining up to buy them.

Well wishers send big bouquets of flowers for a shop's opening day. On the third day after the grand opening, the arrangements were separated into small bouquets and put in pails outside the shop. A salesclerk was handing them out to customers.

This is the shop's sign. The blue fish on the left is holding a real bamboo fishing pole. In Japanese, it says yume aru machi no taiyakiya san. Big Sister translated it as "A Taiyaki Shop in a City that has a Dream". Papa called it "Dreamland Taiyaki Shop". That doesn't really mean the same thing, does it?

Five Black Grain Cookies

This brand of cookies may be familiar to some of you, but have you ever seen black cookies? Now that I think about it, there is a black cookie in The States. We can also get those here.

These cookies, though, are made from five black grains; black sesame seeds, black rice, black beans, black Chinese quince, and black pine nuts (the tree's name must be "black pine" because the nuts don't look black.)These cookies are not very sweet, but they're good.

A Souvenir from a Business Trip

Papa brought this box home from his business trip. It is from the Ise Peninsula near Nagoya. The expiration date is stamped on it. Click on the picture to see the purple circle.

The date written inside the circle is 19.6.23. The year is Heisei 19, the 19th year of the Emperor's reign. 2007 is also used here in Japan. 6 is the month of June and 23 is the day. Papa bought this on the June 23, 2007. We should eat it by the 24th.

This is the box without the paper wrapping.

It is a box of balls of glutinous rice covered in azuki bean paste. They are called akafuku. Yummy! There was a wooden spatula(on the right) included to spoon them out. Click to enlarge and you can see how akafuku is written in hiragana. It is written on the wooden spatula.

Boxes of sweets, rice crackers, and specialty foods are sold at train stations and rest stops. Each area of Japan has its own selection that it is famous for.

Kids Web Japan--hiragana

Edamame

Edamame is sold in bundles here. This bundle is taped at the top and at the roots. Sometimes twine or rubber bands are used. People carry bundles of edamame down the streets of our neighborhood during the summer. I once saw a farmer walk into his field, pull up a bundle, and then walk home. Mud dropped from the roots as we walked along. Talk about fresh!

Big Sister cut these from the stems. She used scissors and cut the top of the edamame at a slant. Then, according to Baba's instructions, the edamame were washed in salt water. Then they were put in boiling salt water for a few minutes. We ate them warm. They are also eaten cold. They are a tasty snack.

Another Boy's Day Treat

It looks like a dorayaki shaped like a koinobori. It's not filled with beans, though. It's filled with mochi, glutinous rice. Yum.

What is this?

I have seen this for the first time this spring. It is packaged as a Boy's Day snack. See the helmet on the little boy and the koinobori, string of carp? In March, it was packaged for Girl's Day, too.

Do you know what it is?

Can you tell now?

It's cotton candy! I have seen it at festivals served on a wooden chopstick.


Kids Web Japan--Constitution Day

Window Display for Boy's Day

Irises are displayed and kashiwa mochi are eaten for Boy's Day, May 5th. We have eaten some several times already. Kashiwa mochi, that is. Click on the "Boy's Day" label below for more information about the day's celebration.

A full view of the window display.

Cherry Blossom Ice Cream

We had soft cream when we went to Jindai Botanical Garden the other day. There was only one sakura (cherry blossom) soft cream left. We all took a taste. The one on the right was the sakura soft cream. It had a light taste. It didn't taste like cherries. Cherry blossoms have a different flavor. The one on the left was strawberry.

Cherry Blossom Cake

This is Baumkuchen, a German cake. It is usually a plain yellow cake. See the sakura on the package? This one is sakura or cherry blossom flavored. It doesn't taste like cherries.

Look at the tiny layers.

Sakura KitKat

There is a picture of cherries on this KitKat package, but they don't tast like cherries. They are sakura flavored.

Note the shape of the sakura blossom.

Cake Shop

After the ceremony, Papa and I went to a cake shop. The shopkeeper gave us cups of tea and samples of cake. The design at the bottom of the cup is an ume blossom.

This is a chalky "cake" that is sold during this time of year. (Papa doesn't know what it is called or why it is sold.)We didn't buy any. It isn't our favorite.

We bought sakura mochi to celebrate Big Sister's graduation. We also bought some of these. They have black sesame seeds and bamboo charcoal powder in them.