Friday, June 22, 2007

“something-green” and “something-white"

It is 8:22 and I am sitting in the computer room of my department. Everything is so quiet. Life starts here between 9:30 and 10:00. Armin is on his way to Kashiwa Campus as he has Japanese lessons today. Today, I have the feeling, will be a long day….so I might as well start it with something pleasant…

There are numerous intriguing small shops along the various streets that we take on a regular basis to either come to university or to go shopping. One of these sells crackers of all kinds; some look rather appetising, especially during the “hungry” hours of the day, while others just simply have a bizarre appearance to them. I think I will pull Armin into the shop tomorrow.

One shop we have tried is a rather posh-looking one that sells nothing less than Japanese sweets. One must know that Japanese people are lovers of sweet things…and when you don’t believe me then the fact that there is a whole floor in the basement of one of the major department stores in the heart of Tokyo that sells nothing else other than sweets, might just change your mind.

After having decided that we would finally try something of the wide assortment offered by the small shop, we were confronted with the difficult task of actually choosing something. It is a challenge to order in a language you do not speak, but it is even more of a challenge when you are not quite sure what you are ordering… After a bit of hesitation, and a number of puzzled looks from the woman at the counter, we picked something green and something white. These two items where carefully wrapped and neatly packed in a nice, little, posh-looking white box which was handed to us carefully with the usual torrent of sentences with which customers here are greeted. And so off went with our precious new possession.

At home we made green tee and finally tried the “something-green” and the “something-white”…

The green-sweet was very sweet and had pieces of prune inside it; the white-sweet had a sweet outer core and an indefinable inner darker core, which somehow reminded me of beans. More I could not distinguish. I am rather curious to find out what the exact ingredients of these sweets are…so hopefully, after having played Sherlock Holmes with my stomach, I will be posting again to clear-up the mystery behind the “something-green” and the “something-white”…

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