maya rucksack market

Saturday, we met up with Satoshi's friend and his son to go to the Maya Rucksack Market.

Maya is the name of a mountain in Kobe. Rucksack is a European word for backpack.

This market is actually a flea market.

To get to the market, we needed to take the Maya Cable up.

When we got there closer to 11:30 (the market starts at 11:00), many vendors were scattered along the walkway to the Maya Ropeway.

There is also a tiny park where some vendors had set up, there were also many families picnic-ing.

There is no fee for sellers. If you want to sell food though, you need to apply in advance listing what you will sell and what ingredients you are using.

Apparently this market is held several times during the year.

Since we didn't know what types of vendors would be there, I packed a bento for our lunch.

Karaage (fried chicken), eggplant with shoyu & vinegar, red bell pepper with black sesame, green bell pepper with oyster sauce and carrots simmered in dashi (stock) and ume.

I also made some musubi (shiso and konbu).

For dessert, I also shared some energy bars with his friend...so good! lots of goodies in it, Thanks again Jalna!

One thing that I bought while at the market was this karinto (fried dough).

I've tried savory karinto before and this one was curry flavored. Shimacchi curry karinto, made by a group from Kochi prefecture in Shikoku.

They had 3 types, mild, medium and hot.

I bought medium...400 yen.

Gosh, this thing was hot, we were all coughing while eating it, and then we got kinda used to it and couldn't stop.

Fun times.