Lately...

So lately I haven't been up to anything "exciting" I've been enjoying myself a lot though. Today, I got to partake in a pretty fun activity that I think Susanna will enjoy. (Susanna is my little sister in America. She's 7. Just kidding she's like 19 or something, we always forget her age... Just kidding Susanna.)

Today was my Japanese Traditional Sweets Making class. I woke up early to go check it out. So many people signed up for this one that they had a lottery to get the actual spots... I won.

There's a real beauty to Japanese sweets. Most of them aren't that sweet which I enjoy, but then some of them are SUPER sweet which are meant to be enjoyed with macha, which is really bitter green tea. They tend to be whacky colors or shapes and have really weird ingredients including my personal favorite Anko (red bean paste.) It's so nasty sounding but so tasty. I swear if you eat it like 3 or 4 times you'll never stop wanting it. Except once my Nagoya host mom fed me a lot of Anko and butter on bread when I had the flu. I pretty much didn't want Anko for a year after that. But now I'm back in the game.

Anko is basically just sugar, it's called red bean paste but it's basically like beans that were boiled and cooked in sugar so there's no real bean in it anymore. Sometimes they leave the bean skin so it still looks like a bean, but it's just sugar. And it's delicious.

Here are the ones I made, one is supposed to look like a morning glory. Here are some pics...

This is my morning glory...



Here is my group and our Manju (it's basically just dough with bean paste in the middle)




Here's the middle of my Manju (the brownish/purple is the anko)


Here's the one the teacher made, he was a total badass (obviously. look at that thing I'd never be able to eat it, it's art.)

I brought home the flowers for my host sisters and I ate one of my two manju and brought the other home for family. My host sisters tore them out of my hands before I even said they were for them and ate them and fought over them. I guess it's nice to know they liked them. My host mom got one of the flowers in the end and enjoyed it. They gave us really good anko, so that helped...

I'll update you soon with some Karaoke info...