Sweets from a confectionary shop and supermarket

I went to Azumaken, my favorite confectionary shop in my town on the New Year’s Eve. There are several confectionary shops in the town, and I think Azumaken is the best. They might be a little expensive but their sweets look beautiful.

These are the sweets we bought at Azumaken. They were around 200yen each.



I also found some confectionary at a supermarket. They were about 100yen each. I don’t usually find this type of confections at the supermarket, but I guess it’s New Year so there are some demands. I bought them to compare how different from sweets at Azumaken.


The sweets from Azumaken were about double in the price, and looked sophisticated. The sweets from the supermarket were harsh in the color and crude in the design. Supermarket ones were not bad. I love these reasonable sweets, but they pale when compared to expensive sweets, as a matter of course.

There was a same design of sweets at both Azumaken and the supermarket. It was a plum-blossom-shaped confection. Do you see the difference?

They are made of sweet bean paste, and nothing taste like plum, though.


These are confectionary from Azumaken. They are images of crane and tortoise. Crane and tortoise are lucky animals in Japan.




These are also confectionary from Azumaken. The pink one on the left is an image of the rising sun with a design of big wave on it. I like the pretty color of hte sun and the great composition of the wave. I think the wave looks like The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg).




We had osechi, a special meal in the morning of New Year Day. After osechi we enjoyed the confections with matcha.