FOOD, DRiNK, FOOD. DRiNK. FOOD! DRiNK!!

I love food. I think it is a big part of culture that no one should miss out on when visiting a new place. And so far, the food in Japan has been interesting. Three meals a day, at a set time. Lots of stuff with rice. I've probably eaten rice at least twice a day since last Friday. I've tried fish cake squid looking things, lots of different snacks and a lot of other things that I cannot remember at the moment. I found good, interesting or that I plan to try before I leave this country. The following pictures will guide me.

Kind of like an OtterPop, but not. This was given to us after a cultural lesson about wearing the Yukata (which I will upload pictures of at a later date) and mannerisms (i.e., sitting, bowing, and standing up). I have no idea what flavor this was but it wasn't bad. Kind of reminded me of some type of yogurt.

Kiwi is one of my favorite fruits, so it amazed me that there was a yellowish (but it doesn't really look like it in the photo) kiwi and I never even knew it existed. And it was actually pretty freaking good.

Above is corn, that I picked with my bare hands. We visited the Agricultural College which is near my accommodations. We were split up into groups to either harvest vegetables, make noodles (which I wanted to do, but the groups were already chosen for us) or planting flowers. Although I wasn't put in the group that I wanted to be in, I thoroughly enjoyed going out into the fields and picking my own vegetables. And the students that helped us were very nice.

They boiled some corn for us and it was delicious!! This experience definitely made me appreciate farm workers and it also sparked an interest for me to start my own little garden of veggies.

Japanese curry and rice. We made this from scratch with the students over at the Agricultural College with all of the veggies that they grow and harvest. It was great!!

So, I didn't eat this stuff but it looked good! I'll probably go back and buy a slice.

Mmmmmm. Bread! Fattening but oh so good! And as soon as we walked into the bakery area, I was tempted to try some. I bought that cheesy deliciousness above. Boy was that a bad idea. I can't read Japanese and I bought something with ham in it. Mind you, I do NOT eat pork. That was 360 yen down the drain. :( At least it smelled good, I guess. And I gave it to one of my omnivorous classmates. He enjoyed it.

Sushi. How can you go to Japan and not have sushi? It just seems so ridiculous to me. I only bought Inari (rice stuffed in fried tofu) though. I want to find a sushi restaurant. Just seems more authentic than store bought sushi.

We went to this coffee shop down the street. The menu was very limited so I ordered a slice of cheesecake and apple juice. It tasted a little different than what I'm used to. Isn't it pretty though?

Just some snacks. San Mei (the office coordinator at my job) gave me and my co-workers some of that candy before and I thought it was so yummy. Now that I'm able to buy it for myself, I'm absolutely addicted. I feel like there are stores in the states that sell it. I must find them. But I will be stocking up before I head back.

There are lots of differnt juices available at the grocery stores here in Okazaki. I just want to try them all.

This here is a rice ball. It's a seaweed wrapped ball of rice with something in the middle. Mine hand a piece of salmon. I thought it was gonna be kind of yucky, but it wasn't. I ate two of these things!

I have more food and other aspects of Japanese culture to talk about, but I'll leave it here for now!!

Peace, Love & Blessings from the other side of the Pacific!