entry nº 12 // 20171011

On the top of Mont-Blanc snow of choco has fallen What a amazing

news it is! Mont-Blanc is the highest in Alps. And Black Mont-Blanc 

is the highest in taste, of all ice-cream. 

–descriptive paragraph on the front of the box of Black Mont-Blanc ice cream bars

so the best ice cream bar out here is, of course, BLACK MONT-BLANC. how can a humble ice cream bar be so delicious? very hard to say. anyhow, the BLACK MONT-BLANC is a popsicle-stick-based affair: vanilla ice cream w/ a hard chocolate coating topped with these little crunchy reddish-brown nuggets of who knows what? it doesn’t matter (just kidding, i know, EVERYTHING matters, duh). the whole thing is so delicious it’s nearly unbearable. i sit there eating one, from time to time, and w/ every bite i just simply can’t believe how something can taste so good. it’s so basic and the packaging is kind of old-school and i think they’re local, at least to kyushu, and all of that certainly adds to the appeal. they’re inexpensive, too: they were on sale at the drugstore the other day for, like, ¥71 i think? jeepers creepers that’s like, 65 cents. it’s likely the bargain of the century. the best part, though, is that once you get down to just the popsicle stick, i.e., after you finish eating, a HIDDEN MESSAGE is revealed at the previously-ice-cream-capped end of the stick that lets you know whether or not you are a WINNER of a free Black Mont-Blanc ice cream bar. shoko won once and it was a very happy day, indeed. lately, too, they’ve been doing some sort of additional weather-themed contest? where now if you, like, line up three little lightning bolt characters on your popsicle stick you get some sort of prize, and there’s some kind of point system involved now that i haven’t taken the time to look into the details of, but also on each wrapper is a little ticket that you can cut out + collect five of + send off to the company to be entered in a drawing for some additional free ice cream. i, of course, having as of last night completed dutifully collecting my five tickets, intend to mail them off first thing tomorrow. 

shoko + shoko’s friend erika + i went to the yearly itoshima fireworks event a little while back. it was awesome. earlier in the day there was a sort of food “grand-prix” (??) festival/market type of event, w/ a bunch of different restaurants participating, and you could show up + buy some tickets and go try a bunch of different foods out. we all kind of got full after the first thing we tried, though? so there wasn’t much sampling going on, really. then they had a place where you’re supposed to drop your ticket stub in a can corresponding to the restaurant that you want to “vote” for as having the best food of the day, but like, having only tried out one place, what the heck am i supposed to do? don’t they know i’m full? so of course i voted for the place i ate from, because it was delicious, and it’d really go against the spirit of the whole day to cast my vote to some place i hadn’t even eaten at. 

maybe the highlight of that event was they had an area where they were making mochi, and apparently the way it’s made is there’s this big stone bowl, like an oversized pestle of the classic mortar+pestle duo (unless it’s the mortar? i guess i don’t know which one is which, really), and you stand around it w/ a couple other people and take turns whacking the mochi w/ a big ol’ wooden hammer. a bit tough to time it all out, of course, so you don’t whack at the same time as anyone else, but there were four guys in there who had it going pretty good. anybody could try it out, too, and shoko encouraged me to try it even though i got shy and resisted, though i obviously wanted to try. so erika was a good sport and came and tried it out with me. it was fun. first time in my life i ever whacked a squishy rice blob w/ a giant wooden hammer. 

anyway, night falls and so it’s time for fireworks. you think: fireworks, what’s it all about? here’s what fireworks are all about, far as i’m concerned: warm summery evenings, the collective holding of breath, hushed excitement, loud sounds reverberating over wide open spaces, colors and shapes, nostalgia, a palpable sense of wonder, bright flashes reflecting off the smoke hanging in the air. and so on and so on. these fireworks had all that (and lasted for well over an hour!) EXCEPT the minute the fireworks started they started blaring loud pop music over the speakers for the entire duration. at first i thought, “oh, they’re playing this overly energetic, neon-colored pop song to kind of kick things off, and then it’ll end and fade away into the night as the singular power of the fireworks takes over?” but, nope. another song after that, and another, and another. it really kind of killed it. was everybody else there loving the music blasting the whole time? i kept looking around and thinking, “is that person loving it?” it could have at least been, like, some sweeping movie soundtrack music, or something. i’m not saying it has to be tchaikovsky or some shit, but at least, you know. either way, music aside, it was great. love that night festival ambience so much. warm light + good smells from the food stalls wafting over, people of all ages there, kids allowed to stay up past their bedtimes, everyone’s eyes turned toward the night sky. really good stuff.