Asian food store bonanza.

[Heads up, this entry is full of Japan stuff.]

To balance out the mediocre curry restaurant, today was also an Asian food store bonanza. We went to Nijiya, Mitsuwa, and Ranch 99 in search of dashi (soup stock) ingredients (the usual dried shiitake mushrooms, dried sardines, and kombu (dried kelp)) and udon flour (which doesn't seem to exist down here, I just got a high-gluten wheat flour instead). I also helped my dad pick out some nodoame (throat-soothing candy, not quite cough drops). He's pretty into it. We also found one of our favorite candies ever, the fizzy Mitsuya cider ones. My dad's a Big Fan. He bought three bags. Awesome. Also grabbed a box of the kurogo pocky, which is full of five kinds of black things, but I can only recognize two. Any exciting new pocky flavors in Japan I should keep an eye out for? I didn't check for the weird kitkats, but those weren't my favorite. Fruit parfait-flavored? Sakura-flavored? Green tea-flavored? Don't miss 'em.

I saw the conditioner I used in Japan. Twice as expensive. Dammmmit. All the other ones--Lux and a few others I recognized--were pretty close to Japan prices.

I also bought a Kateigaho magazine, which I still don't approve of, but it had an article on Konpira-san, so I had to get it. Stupid expensive though. The American subscription price isn't that bad, but I put down almost 20 bucks on a single issue. Ugh.

For people who haven't seen a Kateigaho magazine before, it's a beautiful, glossy magazine about Japanese arts and culture. While there have been some really fascinating articles about woodwork, textiles, and uhm, other stuff, they're fond of putting geisha on the cover. The guilt I feel while reading it is the same feeling I get when I read a women's fashion magazine.

Tonight the dashi stuff is soaking, tomorrow we're having udon! With real (frozen) Sanuki udon! It's packaged by Shirakiku (nationwide brand), so I doubt it was even made in Kagawa, but still, Hooray!