Japan is well known for having extravagant and sometimes strange packaging. Often times, it seems more efforts are put into the packaging than the product contained within. I had many interesting experiences, living in Japan. (Not being able to read Japanese adds significantly to the mysteriousness of most things…)
Even though I’m not in Japan, anymore, I still manage to acquire various Japanese products. This particular one, I received from a home-stay student we hosted; it’s sweet red bean paste, あんこ (“anko”). It’s in an extremely stylish package: a plastic bamboo tube with a peg jutting from the bottom. I’m only aware of the contents because the student told me.
But.. how do you get the paste out from the top of the tube? With a spoon? Chopsticks? I puzzled at it for, what seemed, quite a while (remember, I’m hungry). It must have something to do with the peg at the bottom… I break off the peg, leaving a small hole. Syrupy liquid slowly oozes out of the hole. Great. I turn the peg around and plug the hole. 
While that was strangely satisfying, it still wasn’t giving me any anko.
Finally, I had an idea. I pulled the plug out, and sucked at the top end of the tube. I had no trouble inhaling the anko. I’m always impressed by Japanese packaging! Unfortunately, I was so eager to decipher the package that I forgot to check for expiry dates: 04/10/13. Hmm…. Oh well, it tasted alright. The only question is, do I bother eating the other one….?
Off to buy some tofu – gonna try making Korean style tofu, tonight.
(testing gnome-blog‘s image drag-and-drop!)
Update: drag and drop didn’t work (maybe because I have a non-standard directory structure?) – had to add images in the old-school FTP way. So gnome-blog is currently not suitable for me for anything other than very basic posts. But I’m looking forward to further developments on it.
