Thursday, April 16, 2009

On tasty, doughy, molded delicious

The spring Takayama festival was on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Tuesday night would have been the parade of floats through the old streets, except that the weather was crap. Rain, all day. We had gorgeous weather the week leading up to it, and it cleared up in time for Wednesday too. But Tuesday? Naw. Rain.

So, no floats this year. But they did have the festival stalls, which are conveniently located along a street that has covered walkways ^^ I decided to go, even in the rain, to see old friends and, more importantly, the call of taiyaki was just too strong...

Taiyaki is the most fantastic festival food I have discovered. And there are a LOT of fantastic festival foods. There's this misconception that all Japanese food is healthy, but these events are the proof that this is just not so. Karaage (fried chicken), giant baked potatoes covered in butter, yakisoba, takoyaki (balls of fried dough with bits of octopus inside, quite tasty!), crepes (yes, the Japanese have fully embraced this feature of French culture and taken it WAY beyond anything I ever saw in Paris), chocolate-covered bananas and strawberries, okonomiyaki (sort of a fried mish-mash of noodles and toppings that vaguely resembles a pizza), various kabobs, some delicious pita sandwiches, frozen chocolate-covered fruit, ice cream ... the list goes on. and on. and on. ^^

But, the best is taiyaki. Which is a fish-shaped cake filled with any number of delicious fillings, usually azuki (red bean) paste. (wikipedia link)

This year I found a shop selling miniature tayiaki, that you could buy as sets ranging in size from "little delicious" to "whole-world delicious" (^o^) I got a "little delicious" variety set, filled with tiny surprises of custard, chocolate pudding, green-tea, and of course, azuki. Which is my favorite.


Welcome festival season! My stomach and I look forward to enjoying you ^^

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Concert!

eeek! Haven't updated this in almost a month! m(_ _)m sorry sorry! I've got a few interesting stories to share, and no time to share them at the moment... the new school year is going to start.... in about 2 hours. Yeah, we had a nice long week and a half break between school years, ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway, I went to a concert in Nagoya on Saturday, Punkspring 09. Five bands played, three of which I was familiar with - NOFX, Bad Religion, and Rise Against. NOFX and Bad Religion were probably my two most favorite bands when I was in high school and college, there was basically no way I was going to miss this show ^^

It was also my first concert experience in Japan. For the most part, it was the same as at home - mosh pits, pushing, shoving, loud music (ah, the hallmarks of a good punk show), except that between songs the crowd got real quiet. The bands were also a bit less interactive with the audience, vocally wondering onstage if anybody could understand anything they were saying, ha ha ha ha ha

The quiet did work out for me during NOFX's set though, when I shouted "I love you!" to Fat Mike (the lead singer) and he said "that's sweet, but let's try to keep this more of a friendly relationship" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

I love that band.

I didn't take my camera in, but here are a few pics from the show I got with my cellphone

Rise Against

Bad Religion

NOFX


Hooray for spring!!!