Around tourist areas (with lots of places to eat) the sweet aroma of hot baked apple pies floats in the air. Actually, this is the common air fragrance surrounding the food in Osaka.

I discovered Melon Pan, one of my favorite snack in Japan:

Is like a fluffy sweet bread bun (bread roll).

Here it is how is made:

Near the Tennoji Zoo I found one of my favorites places to have lunch in Osaka. I really enjoyed the Wagyu beef lunch. They were offering free hot Japanese tea 🙂 I am starting to enjoy green tea 🙂

Have you heard of Amasake? A nutritional type of sake without alcohol? I recommend it: https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/health-benefits-amazake-1416.html

This is how a Japanese breakfast looks like (I tried one variety of Nato, but I didn’t match it with the right sauce :)):

Before eating they say ‘Itadakimasu!’, meaning ‘I am thankful for the food’. It reminds me of praying before a meal: having God’s blessing and taking the food with a thankful heart.

I was surprised when strangers shared their food with me. I was traveling from Tokyo to Osaka by train and the man next to me shared some nice packaged fried potatoes and welcomed me to Japan. On my way to Nara, I was stopped by two Japanese teenagers and shared hot cheese snacks with me. Do I look like Ronaldo, the football player? This is what they thought :). It was funny.

Sharing is a good thing.