Melon Pan Madness!

Today I had my very first melon pan. 

My very first melon pan!

A comparison: my hand and melon pan

Melon pan is a type of bread that is sold in various flavors in conbini and supaa nation-wide. It does not, as its name suggests, taste of melon in any way. This morning I tried out chocochippumeronpan (チョコチップメロンパン) also known as chocolate chip melon pan. In Japanese, the word “pan” (パン) means “bread.” This word was imported into the language from Portuguese, I believe.  Melon pan is huge, but very light and full of air bubbles.

Despite what the top of the bread might look like, I found that the chocolate chips were only on the top of the bread and not dispersed through the whole bread as I thought. This is due to the fact that the top of melon pan is actually a thin layer of cookie dough! Cookies for breakfast, yay! Melon pan is a sweet bread, but, as are most things in Japan, very less sweet than the sweet breads in America. I’m not sure about other countries, but everything in America is super sweet (a byproduct of our consumerism, I believe), but in Japan the sweet is very subtle. Anyway, the melon pan was delicious, filling, and a great start to my day.

The typhoon is supposed to hit hard today, but so far it’s only been slightly overcast with a gentle wind. I’m sure that the moment I try to step outside to go somewhere, however, there will be a sudden downpour, drenching me! But I need to go out and get some tape to wrap the present for my host mother. Silly me, I brought everything but the tape for wrapping! Hopefully she will like the picture book of Wisconsin and the nice chocolates I brought. I mean, I like the nice chocolates I brought. Maybe if she doesn’t like them, I can eat them… ? XD Just kidding!

ETA:  So, I just received a message from Kansai Gaidai telling me that I should probably not go outside today due to the mercurial temperament of the typhoon. Guess it's gonna get worse...