Totoro, no whisk

I had the intention to "just quickly" pop to Chinatown to get some decently priced matcha powder so I could make some green tea ginger cakes over the weekend. I remember seeing some matcha powder at T&T - but when I got there all I could find was a strange mixture of matcha and green tea that could be nice too, but not what I was looking for this time.

Then I suddenly got the urge to find a matcha whisk too, so I headed deeper into Chinatown popping into numerous little shops selling everything between heaven and earth - but no bamboo whisk. After an hour of very interesting browsing - I managed to find several things I'd like to buy, like beautifully carved Mah Jong set made of bone (ivory? hope not) stored in a wooden box, authentic posters from the times of cultural revolution ($9.99), dragon embroided bath robe ($29.99) and about million cute teapots - it started to become very clear to me that I had made the same mistake again. Yes, I was looking for a Japanese bamboo whisk from Chinatown. After that realisation I felt really really dumb - I can't believe I was being this stupid again... Sounds a bit retarded, but it has taken me quite a long time to realise how different the cultures of each far eastern countries really are - and they don't all drink the same tea and eat rice.

I did manage to make some signifigant finds too - I got some green Dragonwell tea (Lung Ching) dirt cheap, and most importantly I found Totoros! I've always been so jealous of people who have been to Japan and seen the Studio Ghibli museum, and those cutest little Totoro soft toys - and to find them in Vancouver's Chinatown was a total surprise. So back to my mistake of trying to find Japanses utensils in Chinatown - so that's a bad idea, but it's totally possible to find stuffed Japansese toys of relatively obscure animations?

Right.

I'll have to come back to those Totoros later hoping they'll still be there - money is still a bit tight this month. After spending almost two hours just immersing myself into the athmosphere of Chinatown I decided to head home and get the match green tea mix from T&T - by now I'd gotten curious about it. So I went back to the huge tea selection they have - and there was matcha, right on my eye level... how I missed previously I have no idea. On my way to the til I also picked up a bag of green tea coated pumpkin seed (mmm... delicious!). So green tea-wise I'm pretty maxed out.

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