Aichi Prefecture

It’s started. The summer is swelling, the heat is ramping up, and the humidity is already off the charts. Needless to say, that’s par for the course in Aichi. Fortunately, there are a number of ways of beating the heat, but nothing quite trumps getting an ice cold ice cream on a scorching summer’s day. In Japan, the word ‘ice’ covers all types of ice cream, from soft serve, to scoop, to gelato and anything in between, but interestingly not ‘shaved ice’, which they call kakigori. There are loads of places to get great and interesting ice cream in Nagoya, mostly around the Osu area. Of course, this being Japan, many places go for the cute, ‘instabae’ (instagramable) style, but that doesn’t make them any less delicious. Baskin Robins (31) Probably the most popular ice cream store in Japan is Baskin Robins. Known here simply as ’31’, I probably don’t need to tell you about it’s background as you’ve undoubtably been to one in your home country. However, it’s worth checking out here, not least because they have a number of seasonal flavours only available in Japan. The Sakura [cherry blossom] flavor is really good, but for me, with popping…