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When I tell my friends that I miss the food in Kyoto, they nod sympathetically. They know how much I love to eat, and they understand that for any foodie worth their salt, Japan is something of a culinary promised land—a place where streets are paved with freshly caught sashimi, and rivers flow rich with savory dashi broth. What they don’t realize, however, is that I’m not just reminiscing about Kyoto’s hearty bowls of ramen, robust cups of matcha, or delicate pieces of tempura.

I really miss the pizza.

This isn’t to say I don’t think fondly of my late-night visits to neighborhood takoyaki stands, where thick wedges of octopus are battered and served, piping hot, under a mountain of green onions. Nor does it mean I don’t fantasize about the mom-and-pop sushi restaurant down the street, where a sumptuous chirashi bowl — overflowing with eel, salmon, and squid — costs less than a bus ticket. It’s just that I go to school in L.A. County, where good Japanese food is always within driving distance. But there’s only one place in the world where you can order a Domino's “Sakura Pizza.”

For reasons that continue to elude me, it’s incredibly difficult to find a pizza that captures the sweet ephemerality of the sakura cherry blossom, whose brilliant pink flowers bloom for just one or two weeks before fluttering away with the wind. I didn’t study abroad in Italy, but I have to assume that pizza in Naples doesn’t come topped with strawberry-flavored tapioca balls — just as I imagine their mozzarella isn’t mixed with sweetened condensed milk, and their crust isn’t stuffed with a blend of cheese and cherry-blossom-infused chocolate. Indeed, Sakura Pizza is exclusive to Japan. How could I not take advantage of such an opportunity?

And well, the Sakura Pizza is, perhaps unsurprisingly, pretty gross. Maybe there’s a reason they don’t put tapioca on pizza in Naples: the combination makes for a perplexing, rubbery, eraser-like gumminess. The cherry blossom gives the mozzarella-filled crust a floral cheesiness, so that each bite feels like you’re gnawing a hunk off a used bar of deodorant. Did I mention that there’s chocolate in there too? It’s a total sensory overload — eight slices of sweet-and-savory sacrilege — and oh, how I miss it so.

It’s not the taste of the Sakura Pizza that I miss (though I am fond of it in a Fear Factor, adrenaline-spiking sort of way). I miss eating Domino’s with my Associated Kyoto Program friends at our monthly “parties,” where we’d rent out an event space and invite some friends from the local Doshisha University. I, of course, would take care of the catering, and I miss letting go of all inhibitions on the Domino’s website. I miss ordering the “Cheese Volcano Giga Meat” pizza, complete with a bubbling cheddar caldera. I miss bonding with new friends over slices of “Izakaya-style Asparagus and Bacon,” “Cheeseburger Quattro Happy,” and — of course — the Sakura Pizza.

I had plenty of “authentic” cultural experiences in Japan. I visited ornate Shinto shrines, soaked in natural onsen hot springs, and discovered that I look pretty darn good in a traditional yukata. I have fond memories of all of it, but now that I’m back in the States, I find that I really miss the funny little things — the pieces of Japanese culture that aren’t advertised in travel brochures or included in the program’s pre-departure handbook. I think the real joy of living in Kyoto was embracing these fragments of daily life: noticing the different jingles that play depending on which train line you’re riding, discovering a grape sour candy that fizzes in your mouth, and realizing that, in Japan, you can put just about anything on a pizza.

A few weeks after trying a Sakura Pizza for the first time, I was able to score a reservation at Kyoto restaurant Monk, a restaurant made famous after appearing on an episode of Netflix's original series, Chef’s Table: Pizza, a restaurant renowned for its creative and considered approach to Italian-inspired cuisine. Every ingredient at Monk is locally sourced, and every ingredient passes through Chef Yoshihiro Imai’s wood-fired oven; the night I went, the tasting menu’s pizza de resistance was half venison ragu, half shirasu — baby whitefish, the size of your fingernail, eaten whole. Unlike the Sakura Pizza, the venison/shirasu pie was complex yet delicate, familiar yet completely original. I don’t think they put shirasu on pizza in Naples, but maybe they should consider it.

As I waited for the check to come, I struck up a conversation with the American couple sitting next to me: a pair of foodies visiting Kyoto on their honeymoon, capping off the trip with dinner at Monk. They marveled at the quality and the creativity of the meal, the likes of which they had never really seen: “Can you imagine a pizza with more creative toppings than this?”

Boy, could I.