This post, like many of my posts, is a few weeks late, but please enjoy it nonetheless!
Near the end of the fall season, several towns around the prefecture hold salmon festivals. They round up boatloads of salmon from the ocean and harvest their eggs and sperm for fertilization in fisheries later on. The "harvested" salmon that are at the end of their life cycle are then released into shallow pools at the festival site. Basically, the festival is there to entertain people as a sort of "play with your food before you eat it" activity. The festival we attended was in the town of Oirase in eastern Aomori Prefecture near Hachinohe and Misawa.
For a small fee of 1000 yen, you can participate in the famous salmon catch. Once you have donned gloves and wading boots, you and a crowd of other participants are given 5 minutes to catch the salmon of your choice. Obviously, bigger is better, but there were several fish with yellow ribbon tied to them that would earn you a special prize. There was also a "smallest fish" contest, where the disappointment of catching the smallest fish out of the lot is offset by a consolation prize.
Ready to rumble!
Video of the hunt!
As you can see, the salmon are not small critters. Mine probably measured about 3 feet and weighed at least 5 kilograms. Some participants, like the girl beside me in the video screenshot, were really hyped up to catch the fish at first, but got a little intimidated by their size upon seeing them. "They're like little sharks!" said another participant. They had sharp little teeth at the end of their snouts too!
After we caught the salmon, we waited in a long line to have the fish gutted and filleted. I felt bad as the energetic thrashing of my fish weakened until it ceased moving altogether, but such is the circle of life. =[ We packed the pieces of fish into a large cooler we brought (we were the only ones who had the sense to bring a cooler) before heading out.
Besides catching fish, there were other festivities, like all kinds of international food and a salmon race. I'm not entirely sure how the salmon race went down, but the fish were placed into narrow troughs and "encouraged" from behind by pole-wielding participants.
Since we'd already driven so far east, we left the festival and headed back to the trusty Sasaki Restaurant in Gonohe for a tasty horse meat lunch. We turned down all-you-can-eat barbecue for a taste of 馬刺し basashi, or "horse meat sashimi". I just love this buttery red meat!
Lean raw horse muscle. We DEFINITELY cannot get this in the States...
That's all for this time! Thanks for reading and please look forward to the next (somewhat delayed) posts!
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to go on a trip with a bunch of foreign exchange students to explore the area just south of Aomori City. There isn't much down there but wilderness and a few rustic natural hot springs.
Our first stop was the Hakkoda mountain range. 八甲田山 Hakkoda-san, while translated as "Hakkoda Mountain", is actually a series of volcanic peaks instead of a single standing mountain. During winter, snowfall is immense, so skiing and snowboarding is the only real activity around. While the skiing facilities are very limited and there is only one ski lift, Hakkoda is extremely popular among powderhounds who can bring their own gear and navigate the wild bare mountain faces by themselves.
The peaks are serviced by a single mode of transport: the Hakkoda Ropeway. It's a 10 minute somewhat precarious ride up to the top station, and you can view the drastically changing climate and plant life on the way up. During the warmer seasons, sightseers and hikers frequent the Ropeway, while the winter season services only the most serious of winter sportsmen.
As it is still too early for snow sports, we borrowed some free boots and went out to hike the trails around the peaks. Up here, it's at least 10 C colder than it is at the ropeway base station. We were surrounded by a few inches of fresh powdery snow, and frosty ice crystals clung to the leaves and branches of the surrounding brush.
We were extremely lucky to have perfectly clear weather, so the view was spectacular. The entirety of Aomori Bay was visible from the top, and you could see west to Iwaki-san and Hirosaki, northwest to the mountains around Sotogahama, east to Rokkasho and Misawa, and northeast all the way to Mutsu! Being able to see as far as a 3-hour drive was breathtaking. That's like being able to see Mexico from Los Angeles! We could even see the faint outlines of mountains across the strait in Hokkaido!
West to Hirosaki and Iwaki-san
North to Aomori City and Aomori Bay
Northeast to the Mutsu, with Rokkasho and Misawa on the right
As we walked through the evergreen trees, the guide explained that since Aomori is so cold, we don't have to climb very high to reach an alpine ecosystem. Up here, only one tree, the Aomori fir, can survive the cold winters. The leaves on the branches are shaped like brush bristles, perfect for collecting snow and packing it into a protective igloo to shelter the tree from arctic winds. Meanwhile, the smaller flowering swamp shrub are popular among hikers in the spring and summer, but get absolutely buried in meters of snow during the winter. We strolled down the shorter "30-minute" path and enjoyed the scenery around us, but there are longer paths to see as well. Apparently, it was -3 C at the time, but the weather was so nice that it didn't feel nearly that cold.
Just gathers all the fluffy goodness!
We headed back down the mountain and returned to our bus to head back northwards toward the city. We stopped by Moya Hills to have a massive soba assortment lunch, and we looked at the beautiful fall landscape out the wide glass windows. I pointed out the Hills Thunder track to the other participants, although it seems like they already ceased operation for the winter. My need for speed will need to wait another year, I suppose.
Our next stop was in the neighborhood of Yokouchi at the very outskirts of Aomori City proper. We went down a small road that passed some dilapidated buildings and parked in an empty lot in the woods underneath the elevated bullet train tracks. Next to the lot was a small eatery with a sign "out of business". On a single sign was written "Nebuta no Sato", which pointed down an empty pathway.
As we strolled down the path through the trees and by a small brook, we heard the faint distant sound of flutes and drums. It was the music of the Nebuta Festival, which brought back many memories. Some of the other participants weren't familiar with the Nebuta Festival because they had arrived after it ended. I asked if they knew how to "jump", and then pranced around foolishly on the path to show them how (I'm fairly certain the tour organizer took a video of it).
We ended up at a couple lodge-like wooden buildings and a metal gate. Several guides came out and showed us some old pictures of Nebuta floats of bygone eras, as well as some paintings that were used as the basis for Nebuta construction. I had been to Wa-Rasse Nebuta Museum in downtown already, so I wasn't particularly impressed. We picked up our tickets and headed through the metal gate.
We walked up a steep slope to something that looked like a warehouse. Parked in front was a familiar sight: the 2-story high taiko drum that is the centerpiece of the Nebuta Festival. I marveled at the size of it, and told the guides I wanted to play it. They smiled and vaguely said, "That's great!" They then led us into the warehouse, where they store a bunch of winning Nebuta from over the years. Some of them were a bit dilapidated, but that's no surprise considering they're older than I am.
They brought us through the long cold building, which opened up to a huge warehouse the size of a hanger. Inside stood a huge bust from the top of a Goshogawara Tachineputa, along with a Hirosaki Neputa in the other corner. We wandered through a few more old Nebuta before they sat us down in the crafts section.
Being enlightened with the Goshogawara Tachineputa
They told us that children can make small goldfish nebuta lanterns here, but that it takes several hours and we didn't have time. I was disappointed, until they wheeled out a large wooden and wire structure. It was the bare frame of a miniature version of a nebuta float, and they handed out sheets of tough paper and cups of paste. They demonstrated how to form and cut the paper, and how to glue it on the frame. They told us to find one spot and fill it in. We were all having too much fun to stop, so we continued until we ran out of paper.
After they dragged the nebuta frame out of our hands, the led us up to a stage with some taiko drums. They also brought out a few flutes and cymbals for us to play. They taught us the rhythm, and we had a few musical sessions, stopping only to switch instruments with other people.
When we were finished, we got off the stage and sat in the seats facing a large open area. Another tour bus with Taiwanese tourists had arrived, so they sat down in the rows beside us. The guides then pointed to one of the Nebuta floats and said, "We are going to move that." Holy cow, really?!? That's awesome! "It takes at least 20 people to move it, so we're going to need some helping hands." They told us where to stand and how to hold the giant wooden guide bar, and we were off!
One we'd maneuvered it into place, we stepped out from underneath and made a circle to practice the Nebuta "jumping". A young lady dressed in Nebuta traditional garb led us in the dance, while the other guides played music. At the end, we pushed the float back to its parking spot and started to depart the building.
As we gathered at the entrance again, the guides pointed to the huge drum again and said, "Now, we will let you play the giant taiko!" Hell yes!!!!!! We all jostled for position to play the drum, but I clamored up first. I gave it a hard double thwack, and the deep rumble reverberated through the valley. Kristin joined next to me, and we played the authentic Nebuta beat with the guides on flutes and cymbals. Everyone eventually had their turn before we left and headed home.
Compared to Wa-Rasse, Nebuta no Sato is far out of the way and situated in the wilderness instead of downtown. It's big, cold, empty, filled with bugs, and a bit run-down, but I thought it was a lot more fun because of all the things to do rather than just see. The extra friendly staff there made us very comfortable as well. If you decide to visit Aomori and can't come during the Nebuta Festival, Nebuta no Sato is the place to go to experience the festival vibe and activities. You'll even get to do things you wouldn't be able to do during the real festival, like experience constructing a nebuta or being a taiko player! I would go visit again just to play the giant taiko one more time!
**UPDATE: Nebuta no Sato is now CLOSED! Only a few weeks after we visited, Nebuta no Sato closed up shop, and all the floats were moved to a different location. It's really unfortunate because there is no better or more authentic taste of the Nebuta festival outside of the week it actually takes place. Oh well...
This past weekend, I went on another tour with a bunch of other foreigners in the area. Most of them were college exchange students studying something related to the Japanese language, so my language skills were far outgunned. Even so, that wasn't going to stop me from enjoying the biggest agricultural industry in this prefecture: apples!
After gathering everyone from different pickup points, we set foot on an apple farm in Hirakawa City, a small city half an hour east of Hirosaki and about an hour southwest of Aomori City. We were basically told: "You can all pick 3. The ones that are yellow are delicious. Go!" We all looked at each other uneasily before asking how to pick them and what kind of apples they were.
The kinds of apples we picked were yellow-skinned Toki apples. Compared to your standard Fuji apple (which the farm grows as well), Toki apples have less wholesome juiciness and more sugary sweetness. We wandered through the groves looking for big apples to pick. They told us not to pull the apples, and that the correct way to pick an apple is to bend the stem and snap it with leverage.
What a beautiful apple...
Honeybunny doing the deed
Showing off our haul in front of Mt. Iwaki
After our short apple-picking session, we moved over to Hotel Apple Land, which is a surprisingly fancy hotel and tourist destination in an otherwise rural area. We went inside to first grab some lunch. They guided us to the main dining hall, and we sat down in a spacious tatami room with a giant open window facing the rice fields and apple orchards.
The hotel is rather new, so everything was shiny and gorgeous.
We were soon served a set meal of 海鮮丼 kaisendon seafood and rice bowls, tsugarusoba buckwheat noodles in a tsuyu soup, pickles, and bamboo shoots in goma sauce (my favorite) on the side.
Our purpose for visiting Apple Land was for opinion exchange to help improve their operations for foreign visitors. They wanted us to rate the taste of the food and give feedback for the facilities offered by the hotel. I chuckled a little watching them try very hard at little things like interior decoration and food selection when they didn't even have an English speaker. It seems a bit naive to think those things would make a difference if they cant assist people who don't speak Japanese. After all, only a very small percentage of foreigners can actually communicate in Japanese. I brushed that thought aside and just did what they asked.
The food itself was pretty standard. The kaisendon, topped with salmon, tuna, amberjack, bream, and salmon eggs, was tasty but small, and it paled in comparison with the fresh fish you can find at Nokkedon. We also had to remind the coordinator that many foreigners are still uncomfortable eating raw fish or meat, so having and alternative would be a good idea. The tsugarusoba was the most mediocre of all and seemed like something you could find in any noodle shop. My favorite thing in the meal was the bamboo shoots in goma sesame seed sauce because the bamboo was soft and supple like I've never tasted (and I'm a huge sucker for goma).
After food, the main coordinator lead us around the entire hotel site, which is large and has many different venues to offer. They showed us the hotel rooms, which were VERY nice (and, I can imagine, expensive), as well as the main buffet and main events hall. They pointed out the window of the 5th floor and showed us a massive female Buddhist figure perched on the roof, holding an apple above her head. The coordinator explained that they were trying to make a "power spot" there to attract visitors, and I couldn't help but scoff at the blasphemy of it all.
Finally, we headed down to the ground floor and went to the bathing areas. Here, they have some very famous apple onsen baths. Inside the baths, hundreds of apples float around in the hot water and release a nice light fruity fragrance. It's a little unnerving to willing hop into fruity water, and I couldn't help but think of it as a waste of fruit, but many people really enjoy the experience. Unfortunately for us, because of time constraints and the fact that the baths were particularly crowded that day, we had to skip the main baths. We only had the opportunity to go to the foot-bath outside.
Entrance to the apple baths
The outdoor apple foot-bath
A few minutes of foot soaking and some underwater apple soccer later, we headed to our final activity for the day: apple pie making! They led us to yet another hall and had us sit at different tables. They first gave each pair a Fuji apple and a knife and told us to peel the apple. Everyone seemed very impressed that I could peel the skin off in one long strand, even with the piece-of-crap knife I was given. I guess nobody expects men to be any good at cooking in this country.
When we were done, they told us we could just eat the apple since we didn't have time to boil the apples anyways. The provided us with slices of apple that were already prepared to be put in the pie, and we enjoyed the delicious Fuji apple after cutting it on a plate. Well, at least we thought it was a plate, but it turned out to be the frozen pastry sheet we would use for the pie. Actually, it was much closer to an apple tart than an apple pie, but let's not try to confuse the Japanese people, shall we?
We cut the sheet in half, stabbed hundreds of holes in the bottom sheet, laid apple slices on top of that, and sealed the sheets shut with a fork. Then, we got to decorate the top of the tart with the discard strips of pastry.
Laying on the apple
Decorating finished!
The chefs then took our pies and baked them for half an hour while we waited and socialized. 30 minutes later...
Tada! 出来上がり！
The tart itself was really tasty. It was very simple, just pastry and boiled apple, so it wasn't disgustingly sweet like most pastries I've had. Since we used Fuji apple instead of the more traditional Granny Smith used in America, the apple flavor was very mild and not pungent at all. They gave us two different kinds of jam to dip it in so we could personalize the flavor and sweetness. All in all, it was fun to make the pie, but it was pretty simple and nothing challenging enough to be proud of.
Anyways, that's the end for this time! Thanks for reading, and see you again!
No matter where you are in Japan, summer is the time for festivals. Last year, I only had the opportunity to go to Aomori City's Nebuta Festival. This year, I took a trip outside the city to Goshogawara to see the Tachineputa Festival.
Goshogawara is a smaller and older city compared to Aomori City. The streets are narrow and are lined with lamp posts and power lines. Because of this, they can't parade very wide floats like in the Nebuta Festival. To make their floats bigger and more impressive, the only direction is upwards! Tachineputa itself means "standing Neputa float", and some of them are towers reaching 6 stories!
Your standard Nebuta float.
And a Tachineputa float by comparison.
A relatively small one is still taller than your standard convenience store sign.
While the Tachineputa festival features the same instruments as the Nebuta Festival (flutes, cymbals, and taiko drums), they play a different rhythm and melody. They also have a different chant. In the Nebuta Festival, they say "Rasse-ra, rasse-ra!" which is supposedly derived from the war chant "dase dase!" meaning "drive ['em] out!" In the Tachineputa Festival, they yell "Yattemare yattemare!" which roughly translates into "beat the crap out of ’em!" In any case, they are all aggressive and war-related.
Getting to Goshogawara is fairly easy by train, and doesn't cost too much either (~500 yen). I am fairly certain there is a bus that runs there too. I've even considered biking there, since it's only 25 km from Aomori City. The only problem is how to get back home, as the trains and buses stop well before the end of the festival. The best option would be by car, but we made a wrong turn and got stuck in some horrific traffic thanks to a navigation blunder made by our friend. That, and you also have to park a short distance away from the actual festival route because of the crowds.
We parked at a department store called ELM about a mile away. On the way to the car after the festival, we walked alongside a river area and heard an oddly familiar cow mooing noise. We were confused at first, but a Japanese friend explained that they were frogs called ushigaeru, or bullfrogs. As we walked down the path, each successive "moo" from the river made us burst into laughter.
That's all for this time! I hope to bring you more festival footage from different places in the coming years!
We arrived in Narita Airport pretty late at night. We took one of the last few trains into Tokyo proper, and immediately went to our hotel to go to bed.
The next morning, we took an obligatory trip to Sensouji Temple in Asakusa to see the kaminarimon "Lightning Gate" because Kristin hadn't been there yet. All around the place were rickshaw pullers asking people if they wanted a ride. I later found out that the word "rickshaw" actually has Japanese origins, and the original word is jinrikisha, or "man-powered cart".
Anyways, we made our way through the temple complex and around the shops surrounding it, looking at stores selling goods that were CLEARLY overpriced tourist traps. We ate some menchi-katsu, which is like a deep-fried meat patty, before heading to our main destination:
Akihabara! The last time I went to Akiba was during winter break, so it was great to back during summer. I brought Kristin with me so she could see it for the first time. We spent a few hours wandering around the street, patronizing anime and game shops, snatching up anime character plushies and figures, and looking for used Nintendo DS games.
We passed a group of white adolescent boys intensely discussing whether or not they could sneak into the 20+ adults section of a store just because one of the kids is abnormally big for his age. Of course, even when you're not in the 20+ section of stores, there's still plenty of scandalous stuff scattered all about, like these boobie cushion mouse pads:
Using these must be very stimulating...
This time, since Kristin was with me, we decided to try something that is hard to find anywhere else: a maid cafe. I'd be much too shy to go by myself, and I wasn't able to go when Kevin and Wesley came to visit Japan, so this was my only chance! There were maids all over the place handing out flyers in the streets, so after wandering about looking at the different options (there are many different companies and themes), we settled for the largest and most prominent one: MaiDreaming.
A maid ushered us into a small elevator, and as she spoke on her walkie-talkie, she started every communication with "moe moe". I couldn't help but giggle a little bit, which made her giggle awkwardly too. As we got to the floor, we walked into a heavily decorated room with basic dining furniture and a small makeshift stage. Even when decorated, it's still apparent that the location is just your basic small office space in Tokyo, but whatever. I was there for the maids, and they were all ridiculously cute and spoke a decent amount of English. I guess that makes sense, since they have a lot of tourist patronage.
The prices aren't that bad at all. Food costs about the same as your normal tourist trap spots ($10-20 for an entree), but they tend to snare you by showing you only the package deals and not providing an a-la-cart menu. A meal for the two of us ended up being just under $60, mostly because of the drinks, dessert, and souvenirs we got in the packages. I'm sure if you told them you didn't want a drink or extras, the prices would be much better.
Yummy omuraisu with my name on it! Kya~~
Bunny ice-cream sundae.
Souvenirs
The coveted and rather expensive picture with the maids!
The omuraisu tasted better than average, and the fact that it had my name written on it by a cute girl somehow made is tastier. The maids also do a magic routine to "make the food more delicious", and they have customers participate in the silly ritual too. Near the end of the meal, there was a concert of sorts, where the maids danced and sang along with some recorded music. It was all pretty standard, until some of the maids started headbanging pretty hardcore for no apparent reason, which cracked me up. My only real complaint was that they served the ice cream sundae (they call it a parfait in this country) in a glass that wasn't chilled, so it melted within minutes. Sad, melty bunny...
After lunch and a bit more shopping in Akiba, we headed to Ueno to wait for our night bus back to Aomori. We killed time by walking through Ueno park and renting a rowboat to lounge on in the small lake.
Captain Honeybunny on deck!
After an hour of that and a few more hours of wandering and trying various foods around the station, it was time to put an end to a good vacation. Thanks for reading all the way through, and see you next time!
As I said before, while in Tenri, we took a day off to go visit Nara City.
Nara was Japan's first permanent capital after unification, even if only for a very short period of time from 710-784. Nara City is located at the very northern end of the prefecture, but it's only a 15 minute train ride from Tenri.
The main attraction in Nara is Nara Park. It has a large amount of historical sites, like shrines, temples, and a large wooden gate. It is also home to the largest Buddha statue in Japan, although I didn't bother to go see it.
Big ol' gate.
Structure that houses the giant Buddha statue.
Probably the most popular attraction in Nara Park isn't a landmark. Instead, they can be found wandering around on the grass, prostrated in the shade, or conglomerating around tourists waiting for a snack.
Moooooooooo
The park itself is very large, and near the center, there are packs and packs of these spotted deer. Apparently, they used to be wild, but decades of people feeding them has somewhat domesticated them. Throughout the park, you can also find stands selling deer biscuits (or crackers), called shika senbei, that you can feed to the deer. The only problem is that the deer tend to gather around these cracker stands, and when they see tourists buying some, they start swarming.
The deer themselves aren't very large, maybe the size of a large breed of dog. However, they are pretty aggressive. Tourists organizations say that these deer are special because they will bow their heads to ask for crackers. In reality, they do something more on the lines of a headbutt, and the ones with big antlers will bow just to whack you in the arm with their headgear. They're also known to nibble at rears and crotches, and I had the privilege of watching a Chinese tourist get a hole bitten through his T-shirt. Imagine a pack of about 15 of these guys all trying to get at the crackers in your hand. The result is a lot of terrified tourists fleeing for their lives:
We bought a few packs of crackers and managed to escape to a place with relatively few deer. Then, the feeding began:
Good deer... please don't gore me...
Kerchomp!
I'm sorry, I have no more.
The deer are definitely aggressive, as some Japanese friends have warned me, but there is an easy way to repel them. They will get all up in your business, but they actually hate being touched. If they're getting too close for comfort, all you need to do is start patting them on the head. They'll recoil and back off immediately. If you try to keep petting them, they'll bob and weave like boxers to avoid your hands.
As we were taking a break on a bench under an awning, we noticed a very calm and gentle deer sitting beside us. We decided to have a bit more fun feeding this one by making it into a photoshoot!
Nyam~
After we were done feeding the deer, we ate some omuraisu omelet rice, bought some frozen mango cubes from 7-11, and got on the train back to Tenri for the rest of おぢばがえり.
At the end of that, we took the train back to Osaka to catch our flight back to Tokyo. Before our vacation was over, however, we still had a day to have fun in Tokyo! See you next time!
