Food, Snacks, and Drinks (October)

A continuation of this post While in Japan, I figured I should be trying snacks and foods that I normally wouldn't and/or can't get in America. Because there are so many snacks to try, I decided to do a monthly review on everything I tried. ^_^ Hope you guys enjoyed this! I apologize for the products I really like because they are probably going to be the shortest or the longest descriptions you'll find! XD

いちごジャム
Strawberry Jam Bread

As you can tell with the previous month, I have an addiction to bread, so it shouldn't be a surprise to you that there will always be a bread mentioned in the monthly food reviews. This month, I started out with Strawberry Jam bread. I was excited! Not only did it have actually strawberry jam inside the bread, but it was on sale too!! (Japan is so expensive!). So obviously I had to get it! Well, to be honest, this one was kind of a disappointment bread. I expected the whole inside of the bread to be filled with strawberry jam. Sadly, only a small section was. I saved that for last. Well, maybe the rest of the bread is flavored to be like strawberries? Nope, not even that. And don't even get me started on the jam flavoring. As much as I love bread, I love flavored bread even more! Don't get me wrong, this was okay but not what I was expecting.

I had to bite into most of the bread just to get to the jelly~ :/

The only jelly in the whole bread

ネクターミックスクリーム
Nectar Mixed Cream (Bread)!!

I had no idea what I was buying when I got this. I just saw it was flavored bread and thought "I must have that!!" As soon as I opened the bag, I knew it was going to be delicious based on the scent that came out of it~ With my first bite, I could only taste the plain white bread. Well, this is boring, I though. It wasn't until my third bite that I tasted the nectar flavoring. It kind of tasted like they put a nectar pudding on the inside of the bread. I'm not sure hoe I feel about the taste of this bread. The way it was shaped and designed reminded me of the Smucker's pb&j sandwiches at school.

パイナップル　カーキ
Taiwanese Pineapple Cake

So I have heard of these before and thanks to the wonderful Amanda Lee, I was able to try one! ^_^ I was very excited when she gave me one to try. I had saw them in Taiwanese dramas and they always looked so good (like most foods from television).
When I first opened the wrapper, it looked so tempting to eat it in mere seconds, but then I remembered my loyal fans (you guys, feel honored). This is a new treat that I never tried before and maybe some of you never heard about it before? It wouldn't be fair to keep the goodness all to myself, would it? The first bite of the Pinapple Pastry was surprising. I didn't know what to expect. Let me tell you this, it is delicious!! I don't normally like sponge cake, but it had a hint of spongecake. However, with the very first bite, the taste of pineapples explode into your mouth. It wasn't like a pineapple flavoring exploding, but as if, you just bit down on a fresh cute pineapple chunk. Oh yeah~ This is possibly in the top five of my favorite dessert lists now. It's that good! All of these feelings are only after the first bite! As of this moment, I am delaying myself from eating the entire thing (like the Pure Peach snacks in the September edition) because I want to savor the flavor of the deliciousness! With teh second bite, it was even more delicious~!! :9 This time I had hit the pineapple jam/cream/center in the middle! I am seriously in love with this snack~!! No wonder why Amanda said this is one of her favorite treats~! I'm pretty sad now that I no longer have it to nom~ :/ someone fix this?

I have the address of where to buy these, who is with me?!?!?! :D
バナナボート
Banana Boat

As I suspected based on looking at it, the covering was also a shortcake type deal. On the inside, there was only a banana and cream. I expected it to be like a banana treat I make back home (with vanilla wafers and vanilla pudding as well as the banana and cream), but it wasn't. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be either. As a person who loves sweet things, this was kind of disappointing. But it was still delicious. I ate it for breakfast that I had skipped and to be honest, it was probably on the same scale of making you full as the cafeteria breakfast here. It was good, but I probably won't get it again.

ココアメロンパン
Cocoa Melon Bread

I was not sure it would taste. I was curious, excited, and scared to try this treat. It really does taste like a melon with chocolate covering. As much as I am a fan of melon bread, I am not so much one with cocoa melon bread. I think cocoa strawberry bread would be a better idea, but that is just me. The cocoa does taste similar to Swiss Mix hot chocolate, which is one of my favorite winter drinks. I will not getting that again. :/

メロンパン
Melon Bread (yes, more about melon bread)

So, like the other melon bread I had reviewed in the past, this is a different brand so it might taste different. This one in particularly I don't know if you can see in in the photos or not, but it has a more distinguished sugary layer. And OH MY GOSH, THIS IS AMAZING!!! It has a different taste than the other melon breads I had. It's more sugary, sweeter, buttery-er, and kind of melts in your mouth. Best part about it, I got it from a vending machine. Yup, so I originally had little expectation for its taste based on that. The other vending machine items are usually not as satisfying in my mind. But this is so delicious and if I was a teacher and grading it, it would receive an A+. It would have an A++, but it contains milk, so I unfortunately had to bump it down a little.

だんご
Dango

Dango is a (delicious) Japanese treat that is similar to mochi, but on a stick. I like the Mitarashi dango. Mitarashi (Me-ta-rah-she da-nn-go) is a soy sauce flavored dango. I can't really say it's my favorite because it's the only one I ever tried to this day. ^^;; But it is still very delicious. The white balls is made with a rice flour that also used for mochi (hence the first sentence). It is glooey and stretchy kind of material, but don't let that scare you. It is actually quite enjoyable. The soy-sauce covering doesn't (at least to me) have a soy-sauce flavor. It is very sweet and kind of has a caramelized taste to it. I don't know. Others might taste it differently though? Please try it if you come to Japan. It is very popular, available in different flavors, and available year-round. ^^

Pulling it out of the container is hard to begin with so try doing it with a camera...

After pulling it out of its container... it molded the shape!
ビビッツソーダ
Vivit's Apple Soda

Okay, confession time: I bought this at a 100105 yen shop, which is the same thing as a dollar store in the States. My expectations of this drink was not that high, but they kind of were due to the fact that it is apple flavored. So far, I have not tasted a single apple product that I didn't like. (I haven't tried tasting any of the i-Blank Apple Products in case you are wondering. I am not THAT weird.) To my surprise and to the surprise of others (that I offered them to try a sip), it was actually surprisingly delicious. It does have the authentic taste of apple with a fizzy taste of soda. Like, it really does taste like you are having a juicy red apple. It's that good. So, don't be afraid of 100105 yen store foods and drinks. They aren't as bad as you think they may be.

Baskin Robbins 31: Halloween!

I got the Majo no Trick and Popping Showers again

The Halloween edition cost a little more... but it was worth it. It included a fudgy brownie, a ghost, genie lamp, a pink pumpkin, and huge purple pumpkin cookies. They were hard and frozen though. Still very delicious~!

Cute themed containers

I got "Strawberry Cheesecake" (top) and "Love Potion #31" (bottom). Both of them were really delicious and complimented each other well. From the Baskin Robbin's website: Strawbeery Cheesecake - "Cheesecake flavored ice cream loaded with cheesecake pieces and tied up with a nice little ribbon of strawberry." Love Potion #31 - "Fall in love with white chocolate flavored and raspberry ice creams, a raspberry ribbon, chocolate chips, and raspberry-filled chocolate flavored hearts." I don't like the taste of raspberries, but this was absolutely delicious~!! I am so glad I picked it! :9

First Onsen Experience

I wanted to write all my blogs in order how they happened, but this was the most recent thing that happened and I so badly want to write about it! Thus, as the creator and author of this blog, I get to do whatever I want to do with it! :p I will catch up with the other blog posts that I haven't gotten around it. Gomen~

On the 27th of October I went on a field trip with my classmates at AIU. We took three buses to go to a theme park and a Gorge. I will post about that later, I promise. I just want to focus on a small part of the trip in this post: the onsen.

For the American readers, you probably don't know what an onsen is, right? Well, it basically is a public bath house. They are mostly separated by gender and designed so neither gender can peek at the opposite gender while they are bathing. So it's almost total privacy.

Sadly, I did not take pictures of the outside of the onsen we went to, but I did happen to find some online; however, they are all of the guys bath. There are no guys in the picture, thankfully. The women's section was like the guy's except it was flipped to the opposing side. You'll see what I mean eventually. The bath that we went to was an outdoor onsen or "露天風呂" (translated as "open-air bath"). The one we went to was called "Mountain Campsite Thoroughly" through Google Translate. -_-;;

So as you probably guessed, you are completely naked when you are at an onsen, hence the separate gender baths. That's the first thing you do. You then proceed to rinse off your body with soap and water. As a foreigner, my professor had told my class, the older people will stare at you to see if you are doing it right. Luckily, there was no one there that wasn't an AIU student to judge us gaijin~. After that, (or at least in the onsen that I have been to), we went through a door that lead us to the outside baths.

We had the choice of three tubs to enjoy. The first one was extremely hot. I could not handle it. At all. The next tub was better for me. It was similar to the bathwater temperature I take at home. It was very nice~ we then switched over to the final tub, which someone said was about 31 Celsius which is similar to 80-something Fahrenheit. That one was the best. I preferred that tub over the others. Perfect temperature! Kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears... it took three tries to find the tub right for me.

Where we paid admission price (360 yen for unlimited time... SCORE!)

The changing/shower house. The door that is open is the guy's side. The girl's is directly across from it. They are separated though!

Although this is the picture of the boy's bath, this was the third tub for the girls. They look very similar just on the opposite side of where it was placed.

We didn't have a cool tree just chilling out, but whatevers. This was the girls second bath. Like the previous comment, it was on the opposite side.

That is still the boys' side, but that is what the stair layout was for the girls as well. And where you see the tan blinds that are lower than the left-hand side is were the first tub would be for the girls if you flip it. Confused? Good.

We were able to see this bridge while we were bathing. It was strange, but gave it a new beautiful look for me at least.

Okay, so that was the actual onsen thing. But I want to talk a little about not being comfortable in your skin. Most of the people that knows me might not realize that I am not perfectly comfortable in my skin. I am going to be 100% honest here about myself and my views of myself. I accept the flaws I have. I accept the fact that I don't have a "prefect" body based on what beauty standards of today's society is. I have burn marks from a wart removal process on the left-hand side of my torso from when I was a child. It wasn't until my teen years were that made me self-conscious about those markings. I don't have a flat stomach (believe it or not). I have scars on my body from falling down and getting hurt. I am insecure about my toes... no joke. My arms are too long for my body's height. With all these things that built up within me as a teenager, I didn't let it get me totally down. Sometimes I would see girls with no wart burns on their sides and feel a tad jealous (especially if they have a flat stomach). Sometimes I catch myself thinking of those negative things about myself, and I remind myself that it is not because I have a perfect body that I am loved, but because I am a good person and that those things should not matter in our society.

When I was changing in the room down to nothing with the other girls in the room covering up with a towel wrapped around me, I was not thinking of those things I had mentioned above, but I was thinking of how exciting it will be to try my first onsen. And I am sure the other girls were thinking similar things. We were all nervous to have nothing cover our bodies at first, but we followed the phrase "when in Rome..." and let go of those thoughts and feelings. After that, we enjoyed ourselves. There was nothing sexual about being naked, there was nothing to be ashamed of, there was nothing that made us feel insecure about ourselves at the moment. There was nothing wrong with being in your own skin.

To be honest, I have been working on my self-confidence in my body for awhile now. When Chao and I first started dating, I was embarrassed to be seen in a bikini in front of him. Slowly, he made me feel comfortable in my skin, not afraid to show that I have a small stomach and that I have scars from the wart removal and scars from falling down. As time went by, I grew more acceptance and appreciation towards my body. I don't care about the scars anymore, I don't care about the wart burns, I don't care about any of them... Well, truth be told, the toes things bother me still, but that is besides the point.

In the moment you are at the onsen, these "imperfections" don't come to mind. And if they do, they don't stay for long. Going to an onsen had actually increased my confidence in myself because there was nothing there to feel embarrassed or scared about. No one is staring at your body (except for maybe the old ladies watching you as you clean off to make sure you aren't a filthy gaijin) and no one is judging you for the body you have. Onsen are good, clean




Thanks for reading everyone. I am sorry that it got a bit emotional and personal to me. I just know that many people may find themselves thinking about those "flaws" and "imperfections" and think less of themselves or feel embarrassed about their bodies. I personally was that way before, but I learned to accept that they are all a part of me and there is nothing I can do nor would do to change it. I hope you all enjoyed reading this and took something away from it: whether it is what an onsen is, how to prepare for going into the onsen, or that even with these negative thoughts and feelings a person could still enjoy an onsen and have a wonderful experience with friends. (It's much better to go with friends. You will grow closer together over this bonding experience.) Thanks once again. My next post will be more fun and less serious towards the end of it unlike this one. ^^ Comments are always appreciated and welcomed. ^^