Saturday, May 31, 2008

Japanese "Mr Whippy"

In New Zealand children get excited when they hear the sound of the "Mr Whippy" ice cream truck making its rounds. The countryside of Japan is blessed with another kind of truck - the tofu truck! Every Wednesday and Saturday the tofu truck makes its rounds of this area and as I was the first to start buying from it here it now stops right outside our gate and all others who are desperately wanting tofu come running out of their houses as they hear the rather annoying "Tofu, tofu, tofu" loudspeaker. Although the tofu is more expensive than at the shops it does seem to be a better quality and for the large number of elderly women who live by themselves around here and who have no transportation it has become quite a life line. Of course they don't just sell tofu, but that is their main thing. Not quite ice cream, but a nice service all the same!

Today I finally had it confirmed in the first person what a "mamushi" looks like. It is the only poisonous snake in Japan and this particular one was sitting under a bunch of clover that I was about to pull out. Fortunately my husband was there and identified it then promptly smashed it over the head with a garden shovel. Please don't report us to the SPCA..... Triangular head and relatively short - keep your eyes open!

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