Abby and I just completed the first segment of our flight to Thailand and are now sitting in the Taipei airport waiting for the food court to open (it’s 6:00am here). The flight was pretty uneventful, though we had a classic “what is it??” moment after I ordered porridge for breakfast on the plane. My food came with “Flavored Tuna Floss”. Sounds delicious, but What is it??
After a brief hiatus, Allison springs back into action and wins the eighth round of “What is it??”. Yes, the delicacy being produced here is Yomogi Mochi, also known as Kusa Mochi. We found this machine in Nara, Japan with an audience of spectators and patrons. As Allison noted, Yomogi Mochi is infused with mugwort, which gives it its green color, and inside was a sweet red bean paste. Tasty!
Also note that this machine represents a huge advancement in the production of Yomogi Mochi, and is far safer and less tiring than the traditional method:
Courtesy of japanvisitor.com
As we have entered the final week of our 18-week journey, we thought we would kick it up a notch and introduce the first video installment of What is it??. Same rules apply. Best of luck.
P.S. We are purposely not revealing our current location to make things a bit trickier.
While we thought this was a tricky one and wanted to give all of our loyal readers a chance to chime in, it turns out that the winning response was submitted less than nine hours after the original posting. This round’s congratulations goes to Dani! As her research proves, these are the phone numbers of concrete drillers offering their services. So if you’re interested in a good Skype prank-call, one of these may be a good choice.
We learned a lot about our readers this round as we saw guesses roll in related to gangs, “professional women,” and illegal business. It’s not that these activities do not occur, but they are advertised in different ways.
Why are there numbers painted on many of the walls in Hanoi?
