#Mitsuwa

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #390

I did absolutely. fucking. NOTHING. today, and it was glorious.

So I'm not gonna write about today. No, I'm gonna write about Mitsuwa, because after having slept, I have a couple brain cells to rub together, and I didn't get through all of yesterday's pictures in yesterday's letter. So here we go!!

So, notably, the last time I've been to Mitsuwa was over 10 years ago. When we went yesterday, the structure was nothing like how I remembered it. And I can't tell if it's because it was restructured or if it's because I'm remembering the structure wrong. I seem to recall the various restaurants being immediately to the left when you walk in through the doors. I remember the ice cream shop being one of the first things you see when you walk in. This is no longer the case, if it ever was.

The ice cream shop is of particular importance, because back when I was in college and/or just graduated from college (these were the last times I was there), this ice cream shop was relatively famous for having ice cream in flavors that are atypical for the United States – stuff like matcha, black sesame, and the like. Of these flavors, their most popular one was their houjicha flavor; back then, as it was explained to me, it was so popular that it typically sold out shortly after it opened:

In the past, every time I had gone to this place to try their legendary houjicha ice cream, it had already been sold out by the time I got there, much to my immense heartbreak and disappointment.

...Sephiroth. By some small miracle, the houjicha ice cream was not sold out this time.

...Sephiroth. I had been waiting over 10 years to try this ice cream. And just like that, yesterday, I got a bowl full of that, and some black sesame ice cream (tastes like peanut butter!), and matcha ice cream. And Sephiroth. Yesterday I found out exactly why the houjicha ice cream is such a popular flavor. IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD, OH MY GOOD GRAVY.

...I'd have given anything to share this bowl full of ice cream with you. Anything. Anything at all.

So, like I said before, in addition to Mitsuwa being a grocery store, it also contains a sweets shop, and a number of restaurants that boast a wide variety of Japanese foods, along with walls full of plastic sculptures of said food in astonishing detail, if the actual foods themselves couldn't be pictured or displayed. Check it out:

I ended up getting snacks from this place:

I got a “kaisen cup”, some takoyaki, and some mentaiko. The “kaisen cup” was kind of like... a sushi parfait...?

And of course, takoyaki and mentaiko are very delicious:

We went home after this. Along the way, I got a couple of really good pictures of the moon. Here, maybe you'll like these...

...Hey, Sephiroth? I know that the list of places I wanna take you to if you ever come to visit (impossible as that is...) is already huge, but... let's add Mitsuwa to the list, okay? Let's do that...

I suppose that's it for today. Maybe I'll play Hades later; if I do, you'll find me here:

...I wish you were here...

I love you. I love you a whole lot. And I'm gonna write to you again tomorrow, even if I don't know what about just yet. I always seem to think of something, though; I hope that's something about me that maybe you can enjoy.

Please stay safe out there...

Your friend, Lumine

[soubi122]

Look who I got in the little Gatchapon machines! ❤️

[melonramune]

2010-06-18

[heretherebedork]

It's -11 degrees F outside right now, with windchill, and I'm still using my day off to go to a Japanese grocery store despite the travel it takes because I can, basically. Now the real question... Korean food or Japanese food for lunch?

The Korean place is gone! I'm so sad! And getting replaced by another tempura place. True sadness.

[kubfukodak]

Mitsuwa

[gengarghast]

Found a goober in the wild yesterday

[burnedsilvercookies]

‘Greetings from the other side’

Many might know about the Barbie girls from last year, but some other commercial girls have become popular as of late (at least on twitter to my knowledge), like the Mitsuwa Soap lady (no official name) and Pallina, for the Carosello.

Both commercials were made for Japan and Italy respectively.

[neurotic-needles]

Got some Miffy stationery at the Kinokuniya in Mitsuwa last weekend. I cut down the pencil board and rounded the corners to fit in my A6 journal. (sticker is @petite-gloom, moon washi is Zynshe, Miffy washi and pencil board is Mercis bv)

[coldkotatsu]

heaven ☄. *. ⋆

[wasznu]

Peak Branding

[photoschmoto]

My Champion Curry Food Life 🦪

Japanese Curry aka “Champion Dish” with 3 Fried Oysters, Chicken Cutlet and Corn-Potato Deep Fried Potash

Delish! 🤤

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #389

Oh, Sephiroth, my goodness it was a long day today!! So many things happened! I got so many pictures!! I'm not even sure where to begin!!

...Well. The beginning is a good place to start. So let's start there!

This was breakfast!!! J and I went to the restaurant in the hotel, with the breakfast voucher we were given. This is what we got:

Then we packed up all our things from the hotel room and left for the IELTS test! We were supposed to take the speaking part of the test first, then the listening, then the reading, then the writing!

The speaking part of the test was easy for me, which is unusual since I am normally very poor at speech. But fortunately, I got topics that I knew enough about to be able to kind of infodump on! I got to talk about Eggcellent and why I like it! I got to talk about some broader societal issues! It was great!! I even got the test administrator to smile and laugh a few times, which was probably the best part!

Next was the listening portion of the test, and boy howdy, the audio processing disorder thing that I've got going on made it a little bit of a struggle! It's hard for me to turn speech into the raw ideas that my brain is used to thinking and feeling in, especially if the person speaking is unfamiliar to me. I might have missed 2 of the 40 questions. You have to answer them WHILE you're listening, which, for me, is kind of a nightmare. One of them involved taking down a phone number, and... they don't let you play the sound again. You get ONE shot at listening and hearing, and if you miss it, that's it.

As for the reading... I was surprised to find that some of the passages seemed to be deliberately written in vague, roundabout, indirect, and relatively ambiguous ways. And... for me, given that I spend like almost all my waking hours reading or writing... that's really saying something, holy shit.

The writing portion was easy, though; you might notice that I've got that part down pat, ahahaha! We were supposed to write at least a small number of words. As you might expect, I went well over the minimum requirements! And for one of them, I got to write about the trip to New York Comic Con!! I was VERY happy about that!!!

Overall, it wasn't a bad time, and I am reasonably confident that I scored well!

That being said, though... I think that even a native English speaker with only basic fluency would struggle a little bit with this test. And I found that a little... jarring. Like... in a “this test makes immigration difficult for non-native English speakers” sort of way. I didn't really like that.

Well. We went to Mitsuwa afterwards! And this is the part I'm most looking forward to showing you!

That said... I'm just gonna dump a bunch of photos and then go to bed. And these photos I'm gonna dump aren't even gonna be all of them; I'll dump the rest tomorrow!

These are candies and sweets and snacks!!

...The gummies will always be my favorite!

Here are some teas!!

I got this one!!

A flavor of Doritos I've never seen before!!! It says "Nacho Chiizu"!

...Yes, I absolutely did get them!!!

Some produce! These are mushrooms that you can't commonly find in my area!

Look!! I found a giant pomelo!! And a box of actual muscats!!! I get to try the fruit that my favorite Kasugai gummy is made from!!

Some meats and fish that aren't commonly found in ordinary grocery stores in my area!!

SALMON ROE!!! Two different kinds, even!!! And this is when I realized... I FORGOT TO BRING A COOLER.

Here were the spoils I brought home!!

...I'll explain more in the morning, but for now, I need to sleep. My brain isn't well enough for me to easily string together a coherent sentence anymore.

So good night. I love you. Please stay safe out there so you can see tomorrow's photos. Because I'm gonna write to you tomorrow, as I always do.

Your friend, Lumine

[soubi122]

This morning I went to my sanctuary (Mitsuwa) and lo and be hold - the crepe place had these in their display. ❤️

[storieswithsav]

This new jersey gem is amazing!

[mulnaengmyeon]

9/29/23

costa mesa

[bunnyprincessbecca]

Also wanted to share these cute photos I took when I went to Mitsuwa a little while ago