Ice-cream in Japan

So my desperate fandom of ice cream is nothing new to those who know me. I once braved the cold out in December for nothing more than to walk three blocks to the nearest crepe shop to get an annin ice cream cone then come back to where my friends were hanging out at. Ice cream and popsicles can be found in any convenience store around the country, but with summer coming on and the weather warming up I have noticed a profusion of new varieties, not just in conbinis but also in  the local supermarkets.

がりがりくん Garigari-kun so named (I believe) because gari-gari is the sound your teeth make when you chew on the little tiny ice pellets all throughout the popcicle. It is the cheapest option for conbini ice, averaging about $0.70 depending on where you get it, and comes in a multitude of flavors. From normal to I cannot believe they are actually trying to sell that. I've tried their white soda flavor, which is actually light blue, and tastes like any of an assortment of fake fruit flavors.

Ones I have also liked are Pineapple, Kiwi, Nashi (a type of delicious Japanese pear), and Peach. Ones I'd like to try are cream-puff (also called shu cream) and grape. Flavors I've seen that I think I'll avoid... Stew, yes folks stew flavored popsicles, speghetti, which I've been told has actual chunks of tomato in the popsicle, and corn soup, good when hot but as dessert?

チズスーチーク lit. Cheeze stick. This is not actually an ice cream bar. It is baked cheesecake, frozen, dipped in a white chocolate shell and sold in $1.20 increments. Need I really say more? Sooo good.

My personal favorite is Annin (pronounced an-neen) anything. Annin is a Chinese desert kinda like runny pudding, that I think tastes like marzipan. You can get it in various shapes, forms, and consistencies, but given my love for all things ice cream this one tops the list. There's a shop not far from where I live (refer to anecdote in first paragraph) called Hakusan Crepe that takes vanilla ice cream and puts in all the flavors to make the thing you ordered and mixes it in a blender right there! They have a cantaloupe (melon) flavor that also has fresh fruit in it and tastes pretty good. There's also a convenient bench sitting out on the sidewalk so you can sit and enjoy your cone without the hassle of walking at the same time.

Japanese Food

When I was getting ready to come to Japan, one of the tings I looked forward to most was the food. I'm not a fan of sashimi, and haven't been brave enough yet to try natto, but pretty much everything I've eaten here has been, if not delicious, then at least not bad. One thing I didn't think about enough was cooking for myself. Sure I knew I'd be doing it, but I just kinda assumed that it wouldn't be any different than back home. Well I come from a small town in the backwoods that has not very many options for ingredients, and to me that wasn't strange, then I got here and had so much more at my disposal, so I didn't even know where to start! Not to mention everything is written in Japanese on the food packages themselves. (When I'm lucky it's katakana which I can sort of read and sort of sounds like English when said out loud, with guesswork... Ugh)

So on to my food adventures, I'm a poor college student so I started with a bag of rice. 2 kilos 500 grams (I'm American I have no clue the equivalence for that in pounds it feels like about 4-5) for 1900 yen. Easy enough. Here's a fun fact almost nobody in Japan knows how to cook rice on a stove! So I've one-uped them in that way at least (when you don't think that I really can't use a Japanese rice cooker cause all the buttons are written with kanji).

Japanese (Short Grained) Rice - Recipe

It doesn't matter if the cup you're using is American or Japanese because the amounts in the two measures are different, just make sure you don't measure part of the recipe with one and part with the other.

1cup rice, rinsed so the water is mostly clear (Japanese people say this is important, I don't know why)
1 cup water
Saucepan with lid that fits (to keep steam in)

Bring water to boil, pour in rinsed and drained rice, give it a stir.
Turn heat down to low, set timer for 20 min, put on lid.
Do not remove lid until timer is up unless you want al-dente rice.

Want more rice? 2 cups rice = 2 cups water etc.
Using long grained rice? 1 cup rice = 2 cups water
And that's it. Simple enough.