Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

      I may/may not have mentioned that I tested out extra-strength Lactaid pills on one of the last days that I was back at home...and they WORK!!! Oh, the joy. I cannot even possibly begin to describe the sheer and utter happiness that's resulted from this lovely little supplement. Seriously. Whoever first thought of producing this stuff should get a Nobel Prize. I mean, imagine NEVER being able to eat cheese, milk, butter, yogurt, most dressings, or anything containing even a decent amount of these ingredients without having your stomach immediately spasm and cause you severe pain. And then of course there are the after-effects that we won't go into, but we all know what they are. Yuck. 
  Admittedly, they make some pretty good soy-based products that I've been substituting over the years, but some things just can't be reproduced. Plain yogurt, for example. Pizza with REAL CHEESE! Real cheese in general! And while there are a few soy ice creams that I like better than most real ice creams, it's still a pleasure to be able to have sooo many more varieties to choose from now!! Imagine going from: vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate soy ice creams that are offered here to.....just about any flavor imaginable!

                     My first piece of pizza with cheese in years. Dad, next time you don't have to buy soy cheese! 

  I thought for sure that I'd immediately pack on about 15-20 lbs now that I can eat dairy again, but the funny thing is, I haven't been eating all that much of it still. Plain yogurt for breakfast now, yes, and sometimes ice cream....but pizza is a little hard to come by here anyway (well, not hard to come by, but expensive to come by), and I think that the mental aspect is still playing a part. Every time I think about taking a bite of something with dairy in it, I still anticipate that all-too-real feeling of my stomach cramping up.
  That being said, I did sample this amazing little daifuku ice cream treat last night. Daifuku is a type of manju (see the last post if you don't know what that is), usually just a round ball with the motchi on the outside and anko inside, sometimes with beans spotted throughout the motchi. This kind of frozen daifuku had chocolate ice cream and fudge replacing the anko, though. After the first taste, I found it incredibly hard to believe that the calorie count was only 100 kcal per daifuku, but I went ahead and ate them both anyway. Delicious. Who knows, maybe I will finally put on a few pounds!!
                  Double Chocolate Daifuku
                   
           Ok, so it doesn't look all that appetizing in this pic...

              This photo does it justice, though!