I love fall in Japan. The weather is great, my favourite flower blooms (I don't know what it is, but it is a shrub and it is small and orange coloured and has the most heavenly citrusy floral scent - wonderful), and there is some pretty darn cool food things: nikuman, oden and hot drinks. Nikuman is basically meat inside a steamed bun. Nice and steamy hot. The convenience stores carry a variety of other flavours as well like pizza, curry, an (bean paste), and this year, chocolate.

Oden is a personal favourite. For some reason 7-11 has the best oden. It is basically fish cakes and other stuff (hardboiled eggs, daikon slices, cabbage rolls, wieners in a blanket, seaweed and konnyaku) in a broth. The stuff at 7-11 sits there all day out in the open (no sneeze guards in Japan) and, well, it is just yummy.

The other fall event is the conversion to hot drinks. North America is totally missing out. The convenience stores now have the heated display cabinets - so you can get hot canned / bottled coffee, tea etc. I haven't seen a vending machine yet, but I haven't been paying attention recently. When you can buy a hot can of tea from the vending machine, you really do know fall is here.