Hey guys!
I am so excited for today's video because I've had this box sitting inside my room for probably over a week now.
And I'm dying to see what is inside of it.
I did a お土産 box swap with my friend Sherry who lives down in Shikoku prefecture in Ehime-ken.
Sherry is Japanese, that's her English name.
I met her through my friend Norm, and we became good friends, and we decided it would be fun if I sent her some treats from northern Japan, and she would send me some down from the south.
So I'm really excited to see what is in here, because I've never been to Shikoku.
So I don't know what kind of omiyage they have.
So let's open it up!
S: "Are you Happy?" "I wish you happiness."
Yay, Engrish wrapping paper!
Oh my god, I think I'm going to need scissors.
I got it!
Oh my god!
Oh, wow! There's so much stuff in here! And it's so cute!
Look at this cute little letter that she sent me!
This one says, "Read the other ones first."
So I'm going to start with the big envelope and see what that says.
"Dear Sharla, thank you for doing this swap with me. Hopefully there's something new for you from Ehime, and I'm so excited to open your Tohoku souvenir box because I've never been there...
"...P.S. Open the other envelope when you are done opening all my gifts."
Okay. I will save this one for later.
Let's start with this one that looks like a cracker.
Aww! And she printed out little cards.
You're the coolest Sherry.
Alright, Let's open it up.
"Bocchan dango," I think it says.
A type of dango, maybe?
"This snack was named after a book called, 'Bocchan,' which is a casual but polite way of saying, 'little boy.'
"Which was set in Matsuyama Ehime. If you are familiar with any Japanese writers it was written by Soseki Natsume."
I bet many of you have heard of him, he's a very famous writer.
"One of the most famous novelists from the early 20th century."
Alright! And there's a picture of him. Right there.
Let's open it up, and see what it looks like.
Ahh! Look at them!
They're so cute.
I've never seen a little mini dango like this.
I'm so excited to try these.
I love all traditional Japanese snacks, they're really yummy so..
Itadakimasu!
Thank you Sherry!
Mmmmmmm!
It's so good.
Oh my god.
I'm actually in the process of editing a video that I did about traditional Japanese snacks.
And I talked about how this kind of snack is my favorite.
Let's see if I can show it to you on camera. But it's really squishy.
And it's got a mochi in the middle.
This is so good. Good choice, Sherry!
This is amazing.
Let's open this one up!
This is, "shoyu mochi." Soy-sauce flavored mochi.
Mmm. Really smells like soy sauce.
Mmmm. It reminds me of something...
It tastes really similar to the dango that have the sweet brown sauce on them (mitarashi dango)
They're a really famous Japanese snack, so maybe you guys know what I'm talking about.
It's kind of like that, but it has the flavor built into the mochi instead of the sauce on top.
I love any kind of mochi, so this is really good.
Next is, "Lupicia."
Omg! I can't try this one right now.
I'm going to go boil some water and make some.
But this is an, "Orange peel, and marigold flavored black tea."
So that is going to be so yummy, I love black tea.
I love any kinds of tea.
"If I remember right, you like tea."
Yep!
"I really hope you do because I found Ehime limited edition tea made by Lupicia." (S:I don't know if I'm saying that right)
"Called Iyonoka. 'Iyo' is the old name for Ehime."
Like, "Edo," for, "Tokyo."
Ah, that's interesting, I've never heard that.
"It's black tea with orange peels and sprinkles of marigold. It's good with milk."
Okay, I'm going to make a cup of this later and I will edit in a note right here and tell you guys how it was. I'm sure it's going to be really good.
Yumm~!
Ah, that's so sweet that you remembered I like tea.
Thank you so much~
This is...Oh god, there's French on it. Let's see how good my French is.
Nope, no. Not gonna happen..
Umm...yeah?!
I better read the explanation card that she sent with it because I don't know what is says as there isn't much of an explanation in Japanese and the only words on it are in French.
So, let's see what this is.
"One of the standard souvenirs is called,'poem.'"
"The kanji for 'po' is mother, 'e' is love, and 'mu' is dream."
Oh, that's really cool!
So you can read this like"母=po恵=e夢=mu" "母恵夢=poemu"
So it says, "poem," in English.
"It literally means 'Poem are made out of a mother's loving grace, and has a taste of dreams. It's got white bean paste filling instead of red bean."
"I personally like to put it in the freezer and eat it like an icecream sandwich."
Hmm...Should I put it in the freezer?
I think I'll eat half it now, and then i'll wrap it back up and then put the other half in the freezer so that I can try it both ways.
Ooo, Look at it!
Oh my god.
That is so good.
Definitely tastes like dreams.
This is actually almost identical to one of my favorite snacks in all of Japan that I sent to Sherry.
So if she likes this one, she's going to like the ones that I sent her from Tohoku.
Mmm. So good.
The outside kind of bread part has a very subtle vanilla flavor.
And the inside is white bean paste, which is a lot less sweet than the red stuff, and a lot more subtle of a flavor than the red stuff as well.
I like it a lot more. I love white bean paste.
MMM! Yum.
Look at this!
It's like a jelly drink! Man, Ehime has cool stuff.
"Chu-chu zerii"
Chu is a sound of slurping up something, so that's why this is called "Chu-Chu Zerii" (Zerii = Jelly)
And it looks like it's orange flavor.
Let's read the little card.
"Chu-chu Jelly. Chu-chu is an onomatopoeia in Japanese for sucking. There is no additives contained and it is a naturally sweetened jiggly orange juice."
"They use many different kinds of oranges from sweet to sour or even bitter, such as 'iyokan,' 'shiranui,' or, 'unshu mikan.'"
I've never heard of those last two types of oranges, so they must be special to Ehime.
"So it's fun to try out different kinds, I picked the most popular one, 'Kiyomi tangor.'
Tangor? That's a type of orange apparently.
Let's try it!
I should probably put this in the fridge so it will taste a lot better, but i'm going to try a sip now.
That is so good!
You know what it tastes like?
Canned mandarin oranges if you like blended those up and made a jello out of them this is what they would taste like.
Oo, this one is in a tiny little box.
"Uzusumi kyu-bu kyarameru"
"This new version of Uzusumi yokan is different from any other traditional yokan."
Yokan is like a really thick jello made from beans.
"Nakano Honpo has come up with a box of small sized yokan bites with caramel and chocolate flavors in addition to the classic red bean one.
"It was a hard decision but I picked the caramel one for you. Enjoy the new style of yokan~"
Omg!
I love yokan. I love the traditional yokan, so that's really cool that I'll be able to try a modern version of it.
WOW!
This looks good.
It comes with a tooth pick so that you can pick them up and eat them.
But they look like these little caramels and I can just imagine the texture is going to be amazing.
I love the really chewy, dense texture of yokan.
Wow
That's so good.
It's like burnt caramel, buttery... Like caramel popcorn. Really close to caramel popcorn flavor.
It's really soft. So when you take a bite it leaves teeth marks in it.
I'm going to go make that orange tea and I'm going to eat the rest of these with that tea later on.
They have the amazing flavor of caramels, but they're not as sweet as caramels and they don't get stuck in your teeth
So they're like a better version of caramels.
So good!
This one looks like a little cinnamon bun or something.
Mmm, what are these?
"Taruto"
It doesn't say what kind, but it just says "tart." So they're some kind of little tart.
"The most popular souvenir is 'taruto' which is a roll cake filled with yuzu."
Oh so it's not a tart...It's a roll cake...But for some reason it's called tart..?
"flavored bean paste instead of whipped cream. They're are three major companies who make them, and each one is slightly different I've included my favorite by 'Rokujiya' and the most popular one made by 'Ichiroku.'"
"Which one do you like better?"
Oh there's two and I have to try them both.
This is Sherry's favorite, and this one is the most famous.
So, I'm going to try a bite of each of them and see what i think.
The texture looks amazing.
I can just picture how this is going to melt in my mouth when I try it.
Yum~
You can really taste the orange.
Again not super sweet, really fine, kind of like a pound cake texture to the cake.
Okay, so that was the most famous one.
Im going to try and remember that flavor.
As I try Sherry's favorite.
Let's see what one is better.
Don't see much difference in the appearance at all.
Looks like this cake is a little less dense than the other one.
I can see some more air bubbles in it.
The orange flavor isn't as strong in this one.
I kind of like the texture of the cake better.
Yep. I'm with Sherry. This one is my favorite.
I don't know what it is. I think it's mostly the texture of the cake that I like better.
It's a little more...It's gotta little more, not crunch, but it's a little dryer so you can feel the texture of the cake a little more when you're eating it.
The other one is really soft, so it kind of just melts in your mouth and mixes with the bean paste.
Alright there are two more things left in my box.
Aww! Smile :)
"Pon Jyu-su mikan gumi"
I didn't know that pom juice came from Ehime.
"As you probably know, Ehime is famous for oranges. One of the biggest orange juice companies in Ehime is 'Pom.'"
"You may see it's signs in Tokyo since Pom is known throughout the country. I wanted you to try something new so I included 'Pom Juice flavored gummy candies' instead of juice."
I love gummy candies.
And I love orange!
So I'm sure these Pom juice gummie candies are going to be really good.
Oo, they're really squishy.
They look like little mandarin pieces.
They have a really cool texture.
Let's see if I can explain this part.
So the bottom part is a light orange, and the top is a darker orange part and it's a lot softer. So when you bite into it you'll bite through the really soft part and then you'll get to the harder gumi part and you'll have to chew it for longer.
So it's really cool that it has like two different textures you can enjoy.
Alright! And the last thing in my box is a cute little flat package that says, "Enjoy."
Are these stickers?!
That is awesome.
She sent me cute little stickers.
I love stickers. I have a sticker collection which is gigantic because I love them so much, every time I see cute stickers I'll buy them.
And you know Japan, they tons of cute characters so I see them all the time.
I'm assuming that this is the Ehime mascot.
"This little guy is my favorite, his name is 'Bariisan.' He won the Yuru-Kyara Contest in 2012. He represents a city in Ehime called 'Imabari,' where towels are famous."
"You can learn about Imabari by just looking at him, he is a chicken with a Imabari towel around his waist, the Shimanami Kaido bridge as his crown, and a ship for his wallet."
"Yay! You are now a Imabari master!"
So he's got a lot of Imabari icons involved in his design. So you can learn about the place just by looking at him.
That's really cute.
I'm going to stick some on my computer. And probably all over my room.
Alright, that is it. Thank you so much Sherry!
Alright, now that I have tried all the snacks it is time to open up the little envelope that was on the back.
So let's see what she wrote in here!
"Yay! You are now reading my second message which means you have read all the descriptions. Take a look at the description cards and read the highlighted words in numerical order."
Omg! As I was reading them I was wondering why some of them were highlighted. She made like a secret message. Sherry you're too cool!
"After you figure it out, thank you again for doing this collaboration video with me. This has been really fun!"
Okay, let's figure out what the message is.
Number 1... is how.
[In-audible sped-up talk]
"How. was. my. Ehime Souvenir. Box. ?."
"Hope. You. Had. Fun. With. It."
That was so cute!
Thank you so much Sherry! You put so much work into this and I really appreciate it.
I really enjoyed trying all the snacks from down in Ehime.
Because I've never had a chance to visit there, so this was really nice to be able to get a taste of some of the stuff, and it made me really want to go down there.
As soon as possible and visit so I can buy them all again and eat them all again because they were so good.
My all time favorite would probably have to be the first ones that I've tried.
The Bocchan dango. These were so yummy, really, really good. So if you're ever in Ehime I definitely recommend buying some of these.
For yourself, and for your family as souvenirs.
But yeah, make sure you guys go check out Sherry's channel so you can see what I sent her.
And subscribe to her channel if you're interested in learning about Ehime. She makes her videos all in English.
She's an amazing English speaker and she loves to show you guys around her town and teach you a little bit about the country side of Japan.
So if you're interested in that subscribe to her Channel, I will link it right here!
And also down below in the description box. Thanks for watching guys, bye!