suigo sawara & suigo itako ayame festivals

Saturday we planned to check out the Sawara & Itako Ayame (iris) festivals

It is at the far east end of Chiba prefecture, so it took us over 2 hours just to get to JR Sawara station.

Stumbled upon a Pokemon manhole in front of the station

From the JR Sawara station...there is a shuttle bus, 600 yen, to take you to the Ayame park...about 20 or 30 minutes from JR Sawara station by bus

Along the way you will see these "rivers" called suigo

Admission at the Sawara Ayame Park is 800 yen per person

And there are tiny suigo that you can pay to ride through to see the flowers

You can also see people taking care of the ayame

So pretty!

In front of the park is another Pokemon manhole that I stumbled upon.

To the right of the park is a tiny area where you can catch the water shuttle to Itako or take a tour of 3 of the 12 bridges in the area

We took the water shuttle to Itako...1000 yen per person

This is the water shuttle

Put your life vests on..

I don't ever recall having to wear a life vest and think this might be my first time.

Where the suigo meets the Tone (toe-nay) River, you'll need to go through a water lock since the water level of the suigo is lower than the water level of the Tone River.

It was cool to experience this.

And then the water shuttle speeds up and you travel up the Tone River to Itako

We were surprised at how big the Itako Ayame Festival area was...and it is FREE!

From up on top of one of the pedestrian bridges

You can also take suigo rides and they also have weddings (yomeiribune) at certain times of the day which you can watch if you happen to be there.

I hadn't realized this until afterwards, but Itako is located in Ibaraki prefecture...

There weren't too many choices for lunch, most restaurants were overloaded with people waiting...so we just grabbed some dango from Sawata

I wished we could've chosen what combination of dango we wanted, but they only had pre-packed types...yomogi dango with sweet bean paste 260 yen (tax included)

At this event, they were asking for donations to maintain their park.

I gave them a small donation and received this fan...one side

the other side.

We're glad the weather was pretty cooperative. 

It was originally forecast to rain but we were lucky it only drizzled

Dunno if we'd go to see this again because it was really far! but we were glad we got to experience this.

Suigo Sawara Ayame Festival

1837-2 Ogishima

Katori, Chiba

Hours: 8:00-18:00

*800 yen per adult under 65

**discounts for 65 and older

Suigo Itako Ayame Festival

1-5 Ayame

Itako, Ibaraki

Hours: 8:00-17:00

*FREE

3 minutes walk from JR Itako station

daimaruya

Last week, I ordered a 10 package tasting set from Daimaruya, a store that sells hoshiimo (dried sweet potato) which we visited back in 2019.

If I am not mistaken, all the varieties are grown in Ibaraki.

The fun part of this set is that you do not know what varieties you will receive.

I like how fast it was delivered.

We ordered it on Monday, paid the for it at the post office on Wednesday and received our order on Thursday.

Daimaruya does not take credit card payments for their online store, so the only junk part was to have to pay for it at the post office.

Unlike post offices in the US, Japan's post offices have their own bank services.

If we had a bank account at the post office, we could have gotten a discount on the handling fee for these dried sweet potatoes.

I'm looking forward to trying all the different varieties.

I've put most of these packages into the freezer and will take them out for us to snack on.

After we eat through all of these, I might make an account at the post office so we can order more dried sweet potatoes.

What are you enjoying these days?
 

ibaraki

(Photo: field of cosmos) Back in May, we went to Hitachi Seaside Park to see their nemophila hillside.

Well, after the nemophila plants bloom and die, they uproot everything and plant kochia (bassia scoparia).

The kochia kind of look like green tunbleweed bushes and I've heard some also call them "broom plants" because when dried they look like brooms.

With the drop in temperatures, the green bushes turn reddish.

After seeing this on a news program many years ago, it was on our list "to see".

From Tennodai, it was a little over 2 hours to get to Hitachi Seaside Park.

Once there the weather was a little overcast with the sun peeking out here and there.

It was still impressive to see.

One area that we passed through on our way to Hitachi Seaside Park was Isozaki. Ibaraki is the second largest producer of sweet potato in Japan (I think the top producer is Kagoshima in Kyushu).

Fields and fields of sweet potatoes!

If you'd like to see a video I took from the train, please look here-- at about the 3 minute area I hope you'll be able to see all the harvested sweet potatoes!

It was exciting to see all those sweet potatoes from the train.

Like we did in May, we stopped at the Nakaminato area and walked to the fish market.

We had intended to eat at the conveyor belt sushi restaurant there, but the lines were krazy!

So we went back to the shop we ate at...Morita Suisan.

I ordered the same thing I did back in May and this time around Satoshi ordered the kaisen donburi too.

We were happy to get a table quickly and as always the food was delicious.

After lunch we walked around the town and stumbled upon this shop selling dried sweet potato called Daimaruya.

Inside, there were all sorts of dried sweet potato.

There was also a gelato shop that sold gelato made from different varieties of sweet potato.

Satoshi and I shared this double...left side is akaioimo (literally red large potato), which tasted more like pumpkin and right side was tamaotome (literally round maiden).

Both were delicious.

Kinmokusei (osmanthus) is blooming...love this fragrance!

Autumn is starting here, hopefully we'll be able to see some fall colors which is forecast for the end of November.

We have a special holiday tomorrow as the new Emperor will be crowned.

Hope you have a nice week.

Daimaruya
18-38 Shakamachi
Hitachinaka, Ibaraki
Phone: 029.263.7777
Hours: Mondays-Saturdays 10:00-17:00, Sundays-Holidays 9:00-17:00

mottainai honpo

Whenever I go to the DIY store, they have an area where they sell snacks.

But, this area is usually AFTER the cash registers, so almost always, I forget about looking until after I've paid and am on my way out of the store.

Today, I made sure to look, but the items I wanted to check out were not there.

Then I found them in another part of the store.

If you've been to Japan and shopped, you know almost everything sold anywhere is "perfect".

"Perfect" sized, shaped and packaged.

Mottainai Honpo is a group in Ibaraki prefecture that sells the "ugly" items, some broken pieces, maybe a little on the burnt side.

I bought these arare (rice crackers) and kenpi (glazed fried sweet potato) to try.

I hope they taste good and will be on the look out for more items from this group.

golden week (second half)

Thursday, May 2, we went to Kawasaki and Satoshi got to try CPK in Japan.

The menu is different from what he remembered, the portions seemed a bit smaller to him too.

The BBQ chicken pizza was delicious! (though the crust was a bit burnt)

The weather was funky, and at one point it rained super hard!

Friday, May 3, we woke up super early and caught the train from Kamata to Fuji (Shizuoka).

It was exciting to see Mount Fuji from the Mishima area all the way to Fuji city.

We then caught a local bus up to Sobinashita and walked about 15 minutes to Obuchi Sasaba.

This is where you can catch Mount Fuji with the tea fields.

They were having a festival and there were many people who rented tea picker outfits and stood in the fields to pose for everyone's photos.

I'm glad we got to check this place out and that Mount Fuji was not clouded over.

From Fuji we then caught the train all the way to Mito (Ibaraki)...boy, was that a trek! (because we weren't riding the Shinkansen (bullet train))

Dinner was at Hitachino Brewing...

I was super disappointed with this place.

Seasonal potato salad was nothing special.

Fried saba (mackerel) was thoroughly fried and hard.as.rock...the renkon chips were kind of fried to death too.

The only thing that was decent was the gyusuji (beef tendon) gratin, though they could've given us more bread...

The tasting menu was pre-set, so you couldn't try anything off their taplist...boo!

Glad we tried this place, but I won't be back.

Mimatsu Hotel was scary...dark halls...smoking almost everywhere...our room had a semi-double big enough for one...at least there was free wi-fi...sigh.

Saturday, May 4, started out early, rushing down to the breakfast buffet (which started at 6:45), eating and trying to get out to catch a train before 7:20.

Luckily we made all the connections and were at the Hitachi Seaside Park by 8:00-ish.

During this time of year, they open the park early (7:30) and even arriving at 8:00-ish, it was already packed with people!

You should've seen the line of cars waiting to get into the parking!

If you do visit this park, buy the one-day pass, it allows you to get on and off the Hitachinaka Kaihin train route (from Katsuta to Ajigaura) and take the free shuttle to the Hitachi Seaside Park.

The pass also gets you into the park too, so no need to stand in line to by your entrance ticket.

Our main purpose for visiting this park was this...nemophila!

A huge hillside with nemophila.

Tons of people, but we were glad to be here!

In another area of the park were tulips...lots of them!

Lunch was at the Nakaminato Fish Market...at a place called Morita Suisan.

I had the Kaisen donburi, which came with soft shell crab miso soup and other items...great deal at 1500 yen (tax included).

Satoshi had the sashimi set which was also a great deat at 1500 yen (tax included)...unlimited rice too.

After lunch he also had a farmed oyster for snack...300 yen (tax included)...huge yeah?!

I loved the signage in this area, so cute!

And then we headed back to Mito and checked out the azaleas at Kairakuen.

Huge azalea bushes.

The main attraction at this park is the ume trees, but since that season was over, we were glad to be able to see the azaleas.

And then it was a long trek back to Tokyo.

These days, whenever we travel, we try to get back a day or so ahead, so that we can recoup and get back into regular sleep patterns.

Sunday, May 5, we took it easy, though I went to the market to restock on some groceries.

"Someone" also caught a bug and has been a bit whiney...sigh.

Lunch was at Kaei.

A cute shop nearby.

Satoshi had their gomoku (5 item) noodles...he said it was delicious.

Their gyoza on the other hand wasn't up to the picky gyoza eater's standards...wrappers too thick (I have a feeling this is the type of gyoza in Kanto (East Japan).

I had their hiyashi tan tan men (cold spicy noodles).

This was spicy...it kind of crept up and lingered on your lips.

I loved this...we'll be back.

On the last day of Golden Week, Monday, May 6, we again stayed close to home.

Lunch was at Capricciosa with pizza, pasta and salad.

Dinner was shogayaki (pork ginger)...I'll post the recipe for this tomorrow!

Many Japanese felt these 10 days were too long a break, others loved it.

Most doctor offices shut down.

And there were areas without trash pick up.

Golden Week is a nightmare for people driving cars or riding tour buses, though the trains are also packed...

I'm glad we got to do all that we did, though we need to go on a diet.

Hope you enjoyed our Golden Week as much as we did.

Hitachino Brewing Mito
Excel Minami 4F
Mito, Ibaraki
Phone: 029.306.7575
Open when Excel is
Hours: 11:00-22:00

Mimatsu Hotel
2-4-26 Miyamachi
Mito, Ibaraki
Phone: 029.224.3005

Morita Suisan
21-7 Minato Honmachi
Hitachinaka-shi, Ibaraki
Open when the fish market opens
Hours: 8:00-16:00

Kaei
2-6-13 Higashiyaguchi
Ota, Tokyo
Phone: 03.3758.1150
Closed Mondays
Hours: 11:30-14:00 (lunch), 17:00-21:00 (dinner)