Nothing erases the traumatic effects of a trip to the doctor where one gets jabbed with a needle (twice, as it seems they couldn't find a vein the first try) than an ice cream cone. You can imagine my excitement as I saw the shop - they had soft serve!!!!! - the closest thing to Carvel I was ever going to see here in Tokyo. We entered the shop, bypassing all of the gelato type ice creams and went straight for the vanilla/chocolate swirl - one for her, one for me. Now looking at the picture, the cone seems almost as big as she is and it was true - it was huge. But, just like her mama, she ate the whole thing in a messy "smear it all over me" way. Very unlike the Japanese child, there with her mother and grandmother who was being fed the soft serve cone by her grandmother spoonful by spoonful. They looked over at us and smiled. We smiled back, but our smiles were probably hidden by the ice-cream covering our mouths.
Yet another example of the difference in cultures evident every day I am here. Here, the ice cream shop was spotless, with not only napkins out for the customers, but little wet towelettes, packaged in plastic. There were doilies, white doilies!!!!! on every little table. We used up about 17 napkins and 4 wet naps; they used one of each. We ended up with ice cream all over us - they had none. Another woman came in while we were there and actually pulled out her own rather large cloth napkin, spread it on her lap and only then did she proceed to eat her ice cream, which was neatly piled in a cup. But no matter how we all ate, it was clear everyone enjoyed themselves.
Until, the Japanese grandmother asked if Ariana was a boy.....
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