Easter Sugar

Christmas is so popular in Japan so it's kind of surprising that people seem barely aware of Easter. I was in the mood to celebrate it this year so I hosted an Easter themed chess tournament and Easter Egg hunt in Second Life with my European friends.

I did find some Easter candy, though, at the department store, just one solitary bag of little chocolate eggs. It's probably just as well, I seem to have completely lost my sweet tooth. I think I may have overloaded myself my first year in Japan. Being an American whose sweets were so often made with high fructose corn syrup, it was kind of amazing to be in a country with so much real sugar. I was eating a lot of doughnuts for a while, now they just make me feel sick. Even if I try to eat just one old fashioned doughnut.

I do still seem to enjoy ice cream. A new shop opened up recently called Blue Seal, apparently a famous chain from Okinawa. I finally had a chance to stop in a couple weeks ago and I immediately ran into two of my former students there eating crepes. They watched me eat two scoops of ice cream--strawberry cheesecake and cocoanut. "Oishii (delicious)?" one of them asked. "Oh, yes," I said. It was some of the best ice cream I'd ever had.

Twitter Sonnet #1573

The living cable clasped the floating room.
And so the house began to build but slow.
The strange events assort the beams to boom.
A wooden voice affixed a word too low.
The eggs were always hid in easy view.
Deceptive bulbs illume the lamps about.
The chocolate dots arrive in bitter queue.
The hands of yellow peeps have traced the route.
Potato lunches stole the breakfast week.
A giant shape condemned the darkened street.
There's many parts of cars exceeding weak.
A helpless song observed a toneless beat.
A carton held a round and limbless team.
The empty egg could yet contain a dream.

Managing Snack Urges

This is one of the many springtime Kit Kat flavours around here. They also had parfait and wheat biscuit flavours. I limited myself to ume, or Japanese plum. They're good--very tart.

I've been in the mood to sample Japanese sweets again. On Saturday I also bought this Kimetsu no Yaiba snack.

It's youkan, a sort of jelly made from red bean paste, agar, and sugar. It's packaged in a green tube made to look like Nezuko's green bamboo bit:

It's good and, just like Nezuko's bit, it subdues hunger for human flesh.

Twitter Sonnet #1444

The whiny wheat was hushed to stock the mill.
Electric boards create an 80s band.
Another rose by pure and petty will.
And plastic flowers sank beneath the sand.
The lousy knees would fail a wire tray.
With walkers, ghosts contain the sculpted team.
Another time we showed the ancient bay.
The seas were dry as heavy puddles seem.
A giant's breath had passed the sleeping kids.
The speaking grass responds in silent waves.
The pots of shade would buck the wooden lids.
And other lights create the beasts of caves.
The brighter colours came to eat the moon.
We heard a song to suss the scarpered loon.