Food (Mis) Adventures

Sometimes I feel like I don't have much to say about Japan ...
 I think that means it's become home.  I never have exciting
things to say about home.  But every day I wake up and I know
 this is one extended adventure!  For example, how crazy is it
to watch sumo wrestling on tv?  Or to go to the grocery store
and not know what I'm buying?

Food in Japan is always a surprise. Everytime my housemates and
I think we know what we're buying, it's something completely
different.  For example:  My housemate bought a bag of candies and
sweets.  Inside almost every one of them was a sweet bean concoction,
either jellied or creamy.   Really, it's not a bad taste once you get
used to it (at least the creamy stuff, I don't like the jellied version). 
However .... it's the same color as chocolate.  So, you can guess how
that went over.  And this story is funny now: my housemates bought
a parfait-thing at the neighborhood convience store.  Looked like
whipped cream and chocolate pudding.  This time, the "chocolate"
was coffee jello.  Coffee jello.  Now, I love coffee more than anyone
in this country, but I can not grasp the concept of coffee jello. 
Japan loves coffee jello.

I just don't get it.

There's a truck that drives by every now and then playing music and
smelling of inscense.  He sells baked yams (like an ice cream truck
sells ice cream).  Oh, and speaking of ice cream trucks, there is a truck
that we hear sometimes that sounds exactly like an ice cream truck,
but for the longest time we couldn't figure out what it was.  Today I
heard it coming and I ran to the window to find out what the mystery is ...

...drumroll please ....

It was the garbage truck.  Can you believe it?  I nearly fell down from laughing so hard.

The food (and non-food) adventures continue.