11/25/2006

Happy Pumpkin Day in Japan!

Thanksgiving has past here in Japan. In one of those odd coincidences, Japan and the US celebrated their Thanksgiving on the same time but not the same day thanks to the mysteries of the International Dateline. Or, maybe it’s the other way around—I get confused.

Japanese (labor) Thanksgiving Day — Kinro Kansha-no-hi — was November 23. In the old days, even the rice was reaped in last August or September, Japanese never would eat newly harvested rice until the Emperor made Animist-voodoo offerings. But hey, a day off is a day off.

While I’m still eating leftover pumpkin pie, but here’s a picture of “kabucha ice” aka Japanese pumpkin ice cream I ate for desert tonight with some hot hojicha — roasted green tea.

Actually pumpkin ice cream is pretty common here, as you can see below.

Pumpkin ice cream, yes! Pumpkin ale, no-way-Jose’!

Posted by Taro in Not exactly news but it's news to me | 5 Comments »

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1. Ryan A Says:
   November 26th, 2006 at 11:08 am

   Pumpkin ice cream will be something I am on the look out for next time I go to the market. Interesting that the days are close, and leftovers are always nice after Thanksgiving! (actually just finished some yummy things) ^_^

2. ziggy Says:
   November 26th, 2006 at 11:53 am

   Sorry about the offtopic, yet:
   I greatly enjoy your blog, but is there any reason why all images display as a “be happy” square 95% of the time, and is there any way to avoid that?

3. den4 Says:
   November 26th, 2006 at 1:24 pm

   I wonder what kind of kabocha they use for the pumpkin aisu? Sounds interesting….

4. Taro Says:
   November 26th, 2006 at 11:37 pm

   My pumpkin ice cream riff here on 3Yen.com comes in response to the author Daniel Pinkwater’s comment on my Japanese Thanksgiving menu.

   I offer for consideration what will probably be the most important item of information to appear on this site:

   Pumpkin ice cream.

   It exists. I have experienced it. Imagine a comestible with the characteristics of pumpkin pie, only not slimy, combined with the texture and temperature of premium ice cream.

   Words fail me.

   Japanese 31 Flavors ice cream stores are featuring “Pumpkin Ice” right now.

5. Taro Says:
   November 26th, 2006 at 11:54 pm

   >Is there any reason why all images display as a “be happy” square 95% of the time?

   If you see images displayed as a “be happy” square 95% of the time it means that either:
   — You are using a proxy or your Internet feed passing through another computer or router.*
   –Or, the damn blog software has gone kaplooey again.

   *The “be happy” square is to prevent other websites from stealing images by direct hotlinking.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotlinking

   I’ll forward this to the webmaster. DOES ANYBODY ELSE HAVE THIS PROBLEM?

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