O kome.

Here is a rice field in the middle of a two hundred thousand people city. But really having lived in a two hundred thousad city myself in my own country, the japanese city really feels small. The train stations are very busy places kind of fun to hang out on weekday nights. It's always full of Pachinko parlors, which are full of people. Yesterday I ate local specialties cooked in front of me on a gril installed in or on a pick up truck. Looked kind of crappy but it's Japan and I am a hundred percent sure I won't catch syphilis or typhoid fever from it, unlike... hum, developing countries. I also tried tiny mochi balls on a stick dipped in caramelized soy sauce. That means it's supposed to be sweet. I got worried about my teeth yesterday and I bought a 60YEN toothbrush and FINALLY found some decent, roll dental floss. It is unpopular here. But they don't eat steak, sweets or fibered fruit/veggies like some do in other parts of the world. They seem to have a variety of sticky food though. We really are stupid, eating unlimited amounts of candy or sweetened prepared food, then wondering why we become fat and get cavities all over the place.
From this rice field emerges the national OKOME (venerable raw rice?). I love rice and what treasures have the japanese come up with it! Assorted donburi, exquisite paper, tender and subtle and beautiful mochi... I love mochi and the azuki paste. Whenever I have to choose a flavor (for ice cream or juice or whatever) I try to choose mattcha and/or azuki. The other very popular flavors are melon, pineapple, mango, nashi (delicious big round juicy japanese pear/apple), mattcha, vanilla and chocolate. I would have expected crazy flavors like we see in america, like blue cherry/starfruit or cranberry/passion fruit. Very conservative flavors to my spoiled eye and tongue. Okay whatever.

Well those comments are pejorative. I live in Kansai. Maybe it is different in other areas of Japan. Actually I should stop calling 'it', the place where I live, 'Japan', but actually 'Kansai'. Similarly, Texas is very different from Vermont, isn't it. Same for New-Brunswick and Yukon. (That's in Canada fyi. Oh today I was told by a Stater that Canadian food was just like American food. Yeah right.)