I had to drop by in the office today to meet Tomoko to prepare for the Japan shoot. It's 10 more days until the both of us leave for Fukuoka ahead of the Sumolah crew, who leaves on the 28th.

Tomoko brought over some mochi which her parents sent over from Osaka.

Mochi (Japanese 餅) is the Japanese variant of Chinese rice cake, which, like its Chinese origin, is made of glutinous rice, pounded into paste and molded into shape; however, unlike the Chinese variety, it is molded right after it is pounded, whereas the Chinese variety is baked once again after to solidify the mixture as well as sanitize it.

I liked that it came in nicely wrapped like a peasant's bag. But I didn't get why it came with a stick. And it got more puzzling when I opened it to find a little plastic bottle filled with some liquid. I'd always known mochi as that transparent glutinous balls with red bean paste in between. (Now I know that that's the daifuku mochi)

So Tomoko had to show me how to do it. She took the mochi and the peanut powder out of the white container and propped it upside down onto the plastic wrapper. Then squeezed out the contents of the tiny plastic bottle onto the mochi and peanut powder. It's basically black sugar syrup.

Which you then mix up all together to eat with the sweet chewy mochi, already cut into three pieces.

Yum.