Japanese Soft Serve

Soft serve, called “soft cream” in Japan, is everyone’s favorite treat!  In Japan we have so many flavors and some of them are only available at local area only.

Here, people usually go to Hungry Jack, Macdonald’s or maybe IKEA to get soft serve. :p  In Japan, if you go traveling around, you will see sign boards or flag with soft serve illustration at many shops across Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.  Most of them are individual shops, but other are convenience stores such as Mini Stop, and franchise shops such as Sugakiya.

Each prefecture seems to use its specialty food for soft serve. It could be fun to plan a trip to Japan and enjoy each area’s specialty food in soft serve

(Actually, overall many shops try to have unique flavors and now you can find any flavor of soft serve almost anywhere.)

Green Tea Soft Serve

I want to list down the flavors I found interesting …

<Fruits>

• White Peach

• Grape

• Strawberry

• Blood Orange

• Melon

• Apple

• Sweet Potato

• Purple Sweet Potato

• Blueberry

• Sakura (Cherry)

• Yuzu

• Ume Plum

• Avocado

• Walnuts

• Peanuts

• Chest Nuts

• Black Sesame

• Sweet Soy Powder with Black Sugar Syrup

• Mont Blanc

• Honey

• Maple

• Caramel

• Dark Sugar

•  Belgian Chocolate

• Maccha Green Tea

• Black Bean Tea

• Espresso

• Wasabi

• Curry

• Rice

• Sake (liquor)

• Red Wine

• Konbu Seaweed

• Rare Cheese

• Cheese Cake

• Pudding

Does any flavor interest you?  I personally love swirl of vanilla and chocolate, green tea and sweet potato, but I definitely want to try Mont Blanc and Black Bean Tea!  I’m not sure about wasabi and curry though…

aa

Fine Winter Day

JAPAN LOST !! (>0<)

It was a long game against Paraguay yesterday, and the first penalty shootout of the 2010 World Cup was carried out.  Japan lost in the end, but I think they did their best and I’m proud of them for coming this far as a only Asian team.

Anyway…

It was my favorite climate during the day yesterday!  Not too cold, but not hot, little windy and I could feel the air moving around me.  I like looking up the sky and watch the cloud moving.  At a glance it seems to be stopped, but if you watch it carefully the cloud moves pretty fast sometimes.  It’s my thing: I used to look up the sky and think “Australia could be under that cloud!” “I wonder what people are doing right now under that cloud over there…”  Then I felt that the world is such big and my little trouble seemed to be a tiny thing.

I was feeling little down over the last few weeks, as things happened around me and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.  But now, I realized something important after talking to friends and also reading some books.  Now I’m feeling pretty good

One thing that I still feel sad about is my cat.  She passed away just few days ago in my house in Japan.  Actually there’s a little weird story behind this cat, and I loved her so much.

Puu, a cat with mixed colors of black, grey and white, came to my house when I was around 17 ~ 18, I think.  I don’t remember how we started to have Puu, but she was already an adult cat (♀) by the time she joined my family.  She was a little strange cat!  Every night when I was taking bath, she called me “meow” behind the smoky glass in the bath room, and comes inside the bathroom and sit on top of the bathtub (I used to take bath while covering half the bathtub with plastic tub-cover to keep water hot, and she sat on the cover and slept!).  And, every night she called “meow” at the door of my room, then came inside the room and slept on my bed next to me, in my futon.  I had never seen cat that likes taking bath…

She was so smart too, and I felt some connection between her  But, one of her weird hobby - she liked jumping to the tray of kei-truck every time she sees any kei-truck - caused a trouble.  One day, she suddenly disappeared.  We think that she jumped on the tray of a kei-truck which was stopping around my house, and the truck started to move and Puu couldn’t get off the car.  I was so sad, and hoped she would come back soon.  But she didn’t.

After few months, mum told me an unbelievable story.  When my mum went to Lawson, a convenience store, one cat jumped inside her car and sat on the seat as if she was waiting my mum to drive home quickly.  My mum came home with the cat.  The thing we felt so weird was that the cat looked exact same as Puu!  Same color, similar pattern, and same gender.  We really thought it was Puu, but something was little different. (to me) And, the tip bone of this cat’s tale was little broken.  Besides, this cat didn’t like taking bath and sleeping on my bed.  It was a different cat.

I couldn’t believe what just happened.  This cat already started to feel at home and sleeping in front of tv.  The personality of the cat was obviously different from missing Puu, but we started to love this cat too.  We named her “Puu”, the same name as the previous one.

“Puu Ⅱ” was pregnant when she jumped in my mum’s car, and gave birth to 6 beautiful kittens.  She was really like a normal cat (very my-pace) but very adorable.

Since then she stayed with my family.  I really thought she had some kind of power, as she seemed to know everything!  For example, when I was walking towards my house from my friend’s house and started to see my house from the distance, ”Puu Ⅱ” was already sitting in front of the house and looking at me.  And she looked at me with the look: like “hey you”.

“Puu Ⅱ” passed away because of the age.  I never knew how old she was, but she lived her long life like Mimi, my dog.  I hope she was very happy.

aaa

MillPoint Caffe Bookshop

It was lazy afternoon for me…  I had to wake up very early to do some work.  Around noon I thought I should take a little nap, but didn’t feel like going back to bed.  Then I decided to surf the web for a bit, and I lost track of time!  When I shut the computer it was already around 3pm.

I had headache, but thought I should get out of the house.  Because it was Sunday I didn’t quite know where to go.  I was driving around Swan River, then popped into this book cafe in South Perth.

I knew about this cafe from before but it was my first time to go inside.  Once I stepped in, I realised it was an actual book shop where you can buy books.  I thought it was like a cafe where you share the books with other customers and read while sipping on coffee.  They had many kids books, novels and some other types.  I liked all the books they sell.

There’re a few tables near the book shelves, but all the seats were taken by customers.  I walked towards the back, and I found a cafe counter and tables in the terrace.

I felt like something warm, so I ordered flat white.  My husband ordered latte, and one apple & blueberry crumble to share.

We sat on a sofa, then realised we couldn’t take the book to read into the terrace.  We read the paper in stead, and shortly a waitstaff came to us with our order.  All the staff were very friendly!  And, the coffee was just how I wanted… perfect

We could totally relax there.  I want to go back to this place, definitely.

<MillPoint Caffe Bookshop>

Cozy Afternoon

Although the mornings and nights get really cold, the daytime is still pretty warm and I like hanging around at a cafe and having a little time for myself.

As I sat down at Fiorentina in Fremantle and ordered a glass of latte, I started to hear some Italian people talking.  Then  I remembered my friend’s blog writing about her trip to Europe last month.  She showed some photos of cafes there, and pastries and tartlets in a showcase looked so delicious.  I liked the atmosphere of those photos.

I like this cafe in Fremantle, although the sweets here are little too sweet to my taste, I enjoy the atmosphere.  I noticed their kitchen has been changed from my last visit.  There’re more staff working in the kitchen too.  I guess their business is well.

The other day I had lunch with friends at Vinh Hong in Northbridge. I was curious what’s Vietnamese coffee is, so I ordered one Vietnamese white coffee.

It was drip brew coffee mixed with condensed milk…  The taste was just like normal coffee with condensed milk.  I thought it has different aroma or some spiced added :p  Anyway, it was just as nice.

I didn’t like this Beef Brisket Noodle when I just came to Perth, but since sometime I realised how much I like beef.  I like the ethnic flavor of the soup and tender bits of beef.  It warms up chilled body

By the way, I baked souffle cheese cake that I was talking at here.

It is very sponge-like, and very fluffy and soft.  Should I call it “cheese sponge” ?

Kit Kat in Japan 3

Beauty + chocolate?  It’s like… every girl’s dream coming true! I

Kit Kat in Japan is now selling special collaborative items - with TBC : one of the most popular beauty salons in Japan.

The flavors of the “Kit Kat x TBC” are Aloe Yoghurt and Bitter Almond.  Sounds delicious!

And, there are new flavors in Japan’s Kit Kat in addition to my previous posts Kit Kat in Japan and Kit Kat in Japan 2.