My last in-flight meals and Finnish beer. I hope that I can drink it again in Japan! But...I wonder how I could find Finnish beer? I will have to try to look for it whenever I go.

left:
As soon as I arrived at kansai International Airport in Osaka, I visited my relatives. For the first time in a long while, I had chazuke, which is rice with green tea poured over it. It was a very plain lunch however it tasted great!

right:
My first dinner when I got back from Finland. It was chirashi sushi, which was vinegared rice arranged with pieces of raw fish, vegetable and thin strips of egg on the top. I hadn't eaten a Japanese home-style dish for a long time so it was incredibly delicious. I feel that every food that I ate for the first time in a while is delicious!

I purchased lots of things. Most of all were goods related to Moomin, such as musepad, towels, candies and mugs.

left, center:
Salmiakki candy and Salmiakki powder. Tantei Night Scoop, which is a popular TV program in Japan, has introduced this candy as the worst candy in the world in the past.... Salmiakki is a kind of herb candy. Salmiakki is too unique to eat for Japanese taste buds including me. It has a quite strong flavor and a strang taste, and it is too salty. Anyway...it is really too unique to tell what it taste like! I think that salmiakki is one of the ultimate weapons in Finland. I have never seen anyone Japanese who likes salmiakki yet. If you like salmiakki, you might have been Finnish in your previous life!?

right:
My host mother presented this cute Moomin towel to me!

left:
"Finland Winter Guide" and "Finlandia". It wasn't easy to gather enough travel information about Finland, especially about Lapland in winter. I purchased these books on the Internet from Finnish Tourist Boards. They were useful guide books!!

right:
Brochures for Mikkeli and "Kiitos", which was an in-flight magazine of Finnair.