Amezaiku – Kurayami Matsuri

Not the first post on the fantastic Kurayami festival in Tokyo’s western Fuchu City, and not the first post on the very skilled traveling candy artisans, but I couldn’t pass up on this man! He is one of the amezaiku (飴細工), or sugar craftsmen, who puts up their booths in festivals all over Japan. With a pair of scissors and some simple wooden tools they create animals and creatures out of colored soft sugar. This guy was certainly one of the better I have seen and was popular with both adults and little children. If you are in Tokyo and want to see some really good amezaiku at work there’s a shop near Sendagi station, at the Dangozaka. Their creations are too beautiful to consider eating though!

Fanta Ume – Plum Flavored

I am a sucker for new soft drinks, and as much as I try to stay away from commercial stuff I can’t help but following all the new flavors put out by Pepsi and Fanta. Here’s a shining new star in the Fanta family – the Fanta Ume. Ume is the Japanese plum that is inedible to humans as a fruit but delicious when properly prepared, for example as pickled sour umeboshi or as a super sweet umeshu, ume liqueur. This one however is not sour at all, but sweet, very similar to the Apple flavored Fanta. Easily one of the best Fanta flavors ever, I give it four and a half fruits of five possible – it would have scored perfectly if it had been a bit more sour or even vinegary in taste. Still, it will be hard to go back to normal boring orange or grape Fanta after this.

By the way, I really wish Fanta would sponsor me for writing about these things. One can dream…?

Mankyu Misoten – Asakusa

One of the best things you can do in Tokyo is to get lost. I was wandering the back streets of Tokyo’s Asakusa district, just a few streets west of the famous Sensoji temple, and briefly lost my bearings. In one of the little back streets that I walked through once I had determined the correct route back to the station I suddenly came across this store, a specialist in miso, that superbly Japanese food you’ll get served in one form or another in almost every meal or restaurant throughout the country. These days most Japanese buy their miso from the supermarket but in the good old days people used to make their own and every village had their own special taste or variety of miso paste. The Mankyu Misoten (万久味噌店) has been in business in the same spot since 1804 and the current master is the sixth generation to continue selling all kinds of things related to miso. To be honest, the store looked so much like a large whole seller that I really hesitated to enter, until I saw the small sign for ice cream! If a shop sells ice cream, it means they are really happy to have people come in and browse! The store sells miso in large vats of many different varieties. Most customers get very confused by the many choices but since all Japanese grow up with miso there is one surefire way of knowing roughly what variety will suit them best – just ask the customer where they grew up and pick something that is similar to their hometown variety! If you are a foreigner wanting to try making your own miso soup at home – or my favorite, use it as a raw dipping for raw vegetable sticks – you can always start by asking for the Edoama Miso, a light, sweet miso that is native to old Edo, present day Tokyo. After all my years in Japan I have pretty much developed my own tastes when it comes to miso: I want yuzumiso for my vegetables, red miso for my soup and “the darker the better” miso for all kinds of cooking. After half an hour in the shop I exited with a big bag of purchases so now I’m loaded up with the best miso money can buy for the foreseeable future! I also got a bottle of rice vinegar from Kyoto (for making sushi) that I really didn’t need but the wrapping was so beautiful, some miso snacks wrapped in sea weed for my tea time break and of course, ice cream! The store has two kinds of ice cream, Salty Edo and Pepper! I tried the pepper flavored one and it was pure heaven. Easily one of the best alternative ice creams I have ever tried. Even if you don’t like miso, I recommend going to this store just for the ice cream, and of course, the ambiance! I also couldn’t help but sharing these seriously kick-ass daruma dolls, look at those eyebrows!

Oh, and how about the old photo of the store in 1927? They are all so cool! If you are interested in visiting, here’s the Google maps location.

Evangelion – Sweet Smelling Marketing Stunt

Right outside Akihabara station you can enjoy an innovative marketing stunt: automatic street testing of a new Evangelion themed perfume! It works, the fact that I picked it up on this blog is proof of that. Go up to the center and put your hand in front of the sensor to get a short spray of the perfume! The warning signs says rather strongly that you should not put your head in front of the sensor. I do not know much about the Evangelion series of animated science fiction, but the perfumes were nice enough I think. If you want to go and try it out yourself, you might find the GPS coordinates helpful. Enjoy!