roarfish

Hello Kitty goes up-market.

Casting off her familiar lollypop pink livery, Hello Kitty, the definitive symbol of 'kawaii' (Japanese for very cute), has taken on a classier look in readiness for February 14th. - St. Valentine's Day. This year's chocolate packaging is done out in a warm, rich chocolate brown, with beige type, and a beige and pinky-orange logo. The boxes are tied with a real cloth ribbon, in the same colors, and have a small metal ornament (real metal) chained through the ribbon. This is probably meant to become a mobile phone decoration - which young Japanese people love - after the chocolates are consumed. You can still see the familiar pink packaging in the range photo, shown as the small bag on the left. This is about the only 'traditional' Hello Kitty pack I saw. Maybe left-over packaging from last year, which might be why the re-design.

Traditional Japanese sweets

Anybody who has had a Japanese meal will know that the serving of sweet desserts as afters doesn't happen. Usually one is offered exquisitely cut and arranged fresh fruit, but cake, or pudding, should not be on the menu. Western style cakes and desserts are very popular now in Japan, but are eaten as snacks, with afternoon tea or coffee.

Traditional sweets (wagashi) made from sugar, flour and glutinous rice, stuffed with red bean and sugar, usually served with bitter green tea.

Traditional Japanese sweets, or cakes, are also eaten as snacks, but served with unsweetened Japanese green tea, or matcha. Or used as a sweetmeat to be taken with the bitter Japanese powdered green tea. When I say traditional sweets, the eating of sugar as a snack only dates back to just before the Edo period, in the late fifteen hundreds. Hideyoshi became fond of taking sugar with his tea, to curb the bitterness. Hideyoshi was a great follower of tea ceremony, and used these gatherings as forums to discuss matters of state. Tea ceremony grew in popularity throughout the Edo period, and the manufacture of sweetmeats dates from that time. It is difficult to know exactly how sugar was introduced into Japan. Some historians say by the Chinese, others by the Dutch. But it is known that the Dutch traders bought sugar into Nagasaki as one of their imported goods. The road between Nagasaki and Kyoto was called 'the sugar road'.

Vending machines

There has been much written by foreigners about vending machines in Japan, but generally by way of highlighting some of the more unsavory items that can be purchased from them, such as the stories that the Western media love to tell about the machines in Tokyo that deliver soiled schoolgirls underwear to deviant patrons. I have only ever seen one of those machines, in a fairly sleazy part of Tokyo, in all my time and travels here.
A range of 24 hour drink vending machines on a suburban street corner in Nagoya.

And that would compare to the hundreds of thousands of very convenient, and very useful vending machines that one can find all over Japan. The vending machines I am talking about are mainly drink machines, stocking all kinds of hot and cold beverages, from cold beer, sake, soft drinks, cold and hot tea and coffee, sports drinks and vitamin tonic beverages. There are food machines that deliver rice balls, sandwiches, noodle packs, etc., but they are not that common, and are often installed inside premises such as shopping centers, and roadside stops. It is the hot and cold ordinary beverage vending machines that are most common, and most convenient.

A raw seafood delight

If you are into trying raw seafood (apart from the usual sashimi tuna, or salmon), then there may be no better place to head for in Japan then the Hakodate Asaichi, or Hakodate morning market. The market opens early in the morning, and closes just after lunchtime. It in itself is well worth a look, as it sells all kinds of large and small, fresh and cooked crabs that Hokkaido is famous for, and many other sea creatures. You can arrange to have them shipped to your home anywhere in Japan, and they will usually arrive at around the same time you do.

But the real treat to be savoured here is the Kaisen domburi, available from one of the many restaurants that constitute Domburi Alley, an undercover street adjacent to the market. Kaisen domburi consists of a large bowl of hot, steamed rice, topped with may kinds of raw seafood, sometimes garnished with shredded omelette, or a raw egg, and wasabi. You can add a little soy to make it salty, stir in the wasabi as you mix the rice and seafood, and eat up! Of course it is commonly available in other parts of Japan, but Hakodate, and Hokkaido generally, is famous for its fresh, delicious seafood.

Nagasaki Castella

Japanese tourists who visit Nagasaki and come home without at least one bar of Castella cake are certainly heading for the cold shoulder from family and friends. It is one of the most cherished, and requested, souvenirs of a Nagasaki trip, and it isn't even Japanese!

Castella (or Kasutera pronounced by Japanese) is a rich, heavy yellow sponge cake, a lot like an English pound cake, introduced to Japan by Portugese merchants in the 16th century. It is thought to have originated in Spain, and the name is derived from the Portugese for 'bread from Castile'. It would have been good food to carry on board ship, as it keeps quite well, necessary on long voyages. It became a fashionable food among the wealthy, due mainly to the cost of sugar, during the Edo period. It is still expensive, but much more affordable for todays affluent middle classes.

The most cherished Castella is sold by an old Nagasaki shop called Fukusaya, founded in 1624.  The cake has been adapted to suit Japanese tastes, and the rich, sweet offering from Fukusaya is well known for its crystalline sugar base, which separates out during baking.

It is sold in bars of various sizes, wrapped in the instantly recognizable yellow packaging, and on Sunday afternoons you can spot tourists carrying the tell-tale yellow carry bags towards Nagasaki station from the very busy, very crowded bakery.

RK

Drying kaki

Persimmon trees, or 'kaki' as they are called here, are a feature of the autumn landscape anywhere in Japan, and nowhere more so than in Saga, around where I live. They are a beautiful sight in autumn, after the red-tinged leaves have fallen, leaving the bright orange fruit standing out against the twisted, black branches.

There are two major types of kaki fruit; a flat, bulbous one that is good for eating fresh, and a smaller, rounder variety, pointed at the bottom. This rounder fruit is too astringent to eat fresh, and is mainly used for drying.

Tea 'ceremony'

Last Friday (November 25th) , at Daikoozenji Temple in Saga Prefecture, near Tosu, I had the perfect opportunity to enjoy a cup of Omatcha (green tea) and the usual sweet that accompanies it. It was very relaxing to sit under the eaves of the tea house, eat the sweet, in this case a beautiful, whole chestnut cooked in syrup, and then slowly drink the very refreshing tea, while gazing restfully out into the autumn garden that is a feature of this temple.

Omatcha (green tea) and accompanying sweet, served on a fresh autumn leaf.

When I first came to Japan to live, I often saw these tea houses when visiting such tourist attractions as the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, or the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. A handful of people would be sitting inside on soft Tatami mats, or outside on cushions, at bright red cloth covered low tables.