Ale Vidal: My Japanese Fieldtrip

I can't tell you how much I love the e-mails that Jose sends me. What do you think about doing this on Saturday? And the e-mail will contain a link to some sort of festival, museum exhibition, or restaurant.

So we hopped on the train this past Saturday to catch some of the Japanese Festival happening in downtown Phoenix...

My first thoughts: Um... scary.

And no, I'm not talking about the awesome costumes and performance these masked guys did. I'm talking about the PEOPLE who dressed up in some of the freakiest costumes! A guy literally had fake blood coming out of this mouth and smeared on his shirt.

I'm not familiar with manga characters, but why did I see like 5 joker look alikes?

Then Jose got embarrassed that I took a photo of this lady's hair. I had to! Look at those curls!

I know. Absolutely nothing to do with Japanese culture.

And then there were things that stopped us dead in our tracks. The incredible plants!

I wanted to take one home, but Jose reminded me that I have NO green thumb.

My favorite!

And then we picked up two of the most delicious things that day.

Salivation starts.... NOW!

I don't think the coconut macaroon has anything to do with Japanese culture (in fact, Wikipedia confirms this), but that SODA!!! This oh-so perfectly carbonated, fun to open, hint of bubble gum soda.

(Do not mind that hot mess on my nails. Someone get this girl some acetone QUICK!)

Rumor has it that the reason soda was called soda "pop" was because of the marble you had to pop into the bottle to create the fizz (another classy way to say carbonation). When you unwrap the plastic, a green thingy will come off the top that you use to push into the marble inside.

This is what it looks like before the marble is popped inside. It's lodged at the top:

And here is Jose popping it! (Notice the green thingy on the far left photo)

Fizz!! And deliciousness.

They have them in watermelon too (AMAZING!). I first had them at the Soda Gallery in Dallas (Bishops district).

We also had this weird doughy bread filled with beans that were sweet. A little too doughy for me, and the sweet beans were a bit odd. But very interesting to eat :)