caaaake!

It's free cake day! Earlier today I went to Kyoto Station to meet up with Koami for lunch. As we were walking back to the bike garage to get my bicycle, we passed a crowd of people gathered in front of the main entrance of the station. So naturally we went to see what it was all about, and it turned out there was a game going on for which people were lining up for. Basically you just had to pull a trigger at the right time so that the bullet thingy hit the correct spot on a spinning wheel, and then you won a cake. It was a publicity stunt for this certain kind of cake that is apparently very popular here, and also quite expensive, as I was told by Koami.

Now if you think that I actually managed to hit the red spot... I didn't. But while we were lining up to play, the host asked me where I was from and what I was doing here and stuff, and since I was a foreigner, of course they gave me a consolation prize. So, thanks for playing, Finn, although you suck!

As I got back home, I read (on the small info sheet that I found in the box, and online in English as well to confirm the bits I didn't really understand) that the cake is only made in Kyoto, from ingredients that are very much all produced in Kyoto. The green stripes are matcha-flavored, and the white part is made with, and this was emphasized, soy milk.

And since no one else seemed to be home to share with, and I really wanted to try it right there and then, I made a cup of coffee for myself to go with a piece of cake. Eventually I ended up devouring the whole thing within 30 minutes. Simple but addictive, and I just love everything that's made with matcha. And it's not like it was that big a cake anyways... right? No but seriously, it was quite light and not too sweet, just the kind of cake that you can keep eating without feeling sick.

So that was an eventful day! This holiday just keeps getting better and better. Now I even know why they have the holiday - it's Silver Week! And what that is, I don't know, but I'll do the googling now so that you don't need to do it for me ;) I'm very good at googling, I just seem to have so much stuff to google about since I arrived here that I forget about half of it before I get a chance to go online. See, right now I nearly clicked on "Publish" since the sentence was so long that I didn't remember what I was previously talking about.

Alright, so this is what Wikipedia knows about the subject: Silver Week is actually just a term they came up with because there just happen to be a few random holidays in a row. On Monday, it was the Respect for the Aged Day, and on Wednesday, that is today, it's the Autumnal Equinox Day. And apparently, in Japan, if there is just one non-holiday in between two holidays that day becomes an extra holiday. That's lots of holidays. But tomorrow it's over... for two days, until it's the weekend again. Student life here is so hard. And right now my stomach is so busy digesting that cake that I'm just exhausted. Gotta go lie down for a bit.