Things I Will Miss about Japan #5 RICE!!

If you would have told me that I would become enthusiastic about rice before I came to Japan or even a year ago then I would have chocked in disbelief. I mean I've always enjoyed it as an accompanyment but I've always thought of it as the filler, what you havewith your delicious meat dish or whatever. When I first arrived in Japan I wasn't too keen on the starchy, sticky, short grain rice here. It was soo plain and stodgy. And they seemed to give you it by the bucketload. I missed flavoursome long grained basmatic rice. O_o I also found it bloody ridiculous that a lot of japanese people say their favourite food is rice. I felt like this was like saying your favourite food was air. God I can waffle on a lot about rice. It's important here! They've brainwashed me!
As I've been here for about 20 months and have eaten rice at least once every day I now have to admit that...I LOVE RICE! I even crave it. How Japanese am I!?I love the smell of it freshly cooked and its the main thing I look forward to in school lunch. And its not just me! Loz has admitted similar affiliation!
Another thing thats makes Japanese rice mint is that its impossible to f*ck up when cooking. I even burned it recently and it was still yum-mmm bibinba!
I will surely get withdrawl symptoms like a junkie for crack when I leave this place! Eek my soul will suffer! I even like onigiri (rice in seaweed you can buy everywhere as a snack) although I'm not as nihonjin as Smac who craves it even when drunk (give me a kebab anyday)

Some "interesting" facts about RICE:
-Some Japanese car companies are named after rice! Toyota means "bountiful rice field" and Honda means "the main rice field" (right alex...?)
-Rice is a staple food for over half the planet.
-In Japanese folklore, legend has it that soaking rice before cooking it releases life energy, and the person who eats the rice will have a more powerful soul.(maybe this explains why they shovel it into their mouths as if theres no tomorrow)
-There are about 120,000 varieties of rice known to exist.
-Rice is the only cereal Japan is self-sufficient in.
-The average Japanese consumer pays an average of five times more for rice than the average U.S. consumer.
-At various times in Japanese society,rice was an instrument of trade, functioning as hard currency. Rice measured the wealth of the daimyo (lord) and provided payment for samurai.
-Throughout the almost 4,000 7-Eleven stores in Japan, fast food sales figures show rice snacks continuing to outpace bread snacks.

And for those who don't live in Japan:
-A lot of people have rice for breakfast (mental)
-The smallest packet of rice in the supermarkets are usually about 2kg. They make you eat more rice!!
-The word for cooked rice is "gohan" and this also has the general meaning of meal.
-"Mochi" is pounded rice made into a cake. Its weird and sticky and people love it here. I draw the line there.

RICE: It's More Than Just a Food