roca's pumpkin hijiki peanut salad

Salad weather is coming quite quickly over here.

I recently made this one from "Roca no Bento"

200 grams pumpkin, cleaned but leave the rind on
25 grams red onion, thinly sliced
pinch of salt
20 grams peanuts, chopped
5 grams dried hijiki, rehydrate according to the directions on the package
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon shoyu (soy sauce)

Cook pumpkin until soft.
Sprinkle a pinch of salt onto the onion and let it draw out the liquid from the onion
When the pumpkin is done, sprinkle on the vinegar while it is hot
While the pumpkin is still warm, add the rehydrated hijiki and shoyu
Toss with the onion and peanuts.
Chill or serve as is

NOTES: The original recipe says to saute the hijiki in some heated oil and add the soy sauce, but since the hijiki was room temperature, I just tossed everything together when the pumpkin was still warm.

If you don't have red onion, you can use yellow onion.

I didn't have peanuts so I used roasted almonds. The nuts give this salad a nice crunch.

I'm definitely making this one again.

fouet°

Before Golden Week started, I went to check out the other spots that were supposed to have Noda Fuji...that was a bust.

Most of the places on the map didn't have anything blooming, some of the places were hard to find too..boo!

Luckily before I went on this wild goose chase, I had had lunch at Fouet°, a tiny cafe in Fukushima.

They have bagels and quiches. I think you can also get some soup and sweets too.

Since I went for lunch, I ordered their bagel & quiche set...800 yen.

This came with a salad, some pickles, a nice amount of cream cheese to spread on their plain bagel and a nice slice of their quiche.

I like how their quiche incorporated a lot of spring vegetables like fava beans and asparagus.

On the salad was an onion dressing...delicious!

Also with this set, came a drink, I chose an iced tea.

I'll be back.

Fouet°
7-10-9 Fukushima
Fukushima-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6455.0565
Closed Sundays & Holidays
Hours: 11:30-20:00

over the weekend

Saturday, the weather was really nice. In fact, it was hot!

We went to bring some flowers to Satoshi's grandma's grave.

And then we visited MIL.

Earlier in the week, up on the 2nd floor, a rack that she had FIL's clothing on, collapsed, and gave her a good scare, she thought it was an earthquake...

It gave an opportunity to clean some...

Have you ever seen rat poop? I never knew it was so huge...gah!

After vacuuming and putting some things into boxes, we also filled up 7 large (45 liter) garbage bags.

There is still so much more to take care of in her house...baby steps, baby steps...

If it is raining where you are (we're expected to have rain today), you now know why...

We still have a few more days of Golden Week, I hope you have a nice week!

tonami-takaoka-osaka

After a restless night (the blinds in our room were so thin, it made our room feel like it was morning!), we had a kaiseki breakfast in their dining area.

The breakfast showcased various local foods of Toyama, especially their rice.

There was also natto (fermented soy beans), I tried two beans from Satoshi and he ate his and my portions...

At check-out, we found out they don't take credit cards, so Satoshi had to run to the convenience store to take out some cash...

And then we caught the train to Takaoka.

Takaoka was a city built by the 2nd lord of the Kaga clan, Maeda Toshinaga.

While building the Takaoka castle, he summoned many confectioners as well as metalworkers.

The Great Buddha of Takaoka is made of copper and took 30 years to build.

It is one of three great Buddhas in Japan. The other two are in Kamakura and Nara.

We were lucky to have seen all three.

Down the road from the Buddha, is the Takaoka Kojo Park. This is where the Takaoka Castle used to stand. The property is 220,000 square meters (about 54 acres) and was turned into a park.

There are many sakura (cherry) trees here so it is apparently beautiful during that season. Unfortunately, we missed this.

There is an area for sumo (wrestling), and we were able to watch some amateurs competing in a tournament.

Nearby is the Yamachosuji, street lined with storehouses. Many storehouses built with excellent technique from the Meiji period, to withstand fire are open to the public for viewing (there is a small admission charge for most of these places). We were surprised that many have been passed down from generation to generation.

The area was preparing for their Takaoka Mikuramayama Festival, which would be held this year on May 1. Too bad we would miss it.

Beautiful floats (mikuramayama) are elaborately decorated with lacquer and gold leaf.

And then we walked around the Kanayamachi, copperware district.

We ran into some drizzles, so we popped into Ohno-ya to check out their sweets.

This shop has been in business since 1838!

We tried their tokonatsu, a tiny mochi (rice cake) filled with white bean paste...74 yen each.

When we bought our mochi, we told them that we would be eating them right away, so no need to wrap them nicely....the girl working there brewed us up some tea and let us eat them in their shop! Such a nice surprise. (Thank you!)

While walking back to the train station, we noticed that there weren't many places to eat at.

We ended up at Curun, a new building next to the train station.

Lunch was at Sankai-tei. They only serve udon, so we ordered their shiroebi kakiage (fried white shrimp with veggies)...580 yen each.

This hit the spot.

Apparently this complex just opened at the end of March so the whole place wasn't too organized...

After lunch, we still had time before our train, so we walked to Zuiryuji.

This temple of the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism was built by the 3rd lord of the Kaga clan, Maeda Yoshitsune, in memory of Maeda Toshinaga.

I was impressed with how large this property was and how beautiful it was too. I was also impressed with all the English speaking volunteers they had (some even continued to speak English when I spoke to them in Japanese!)

From Zuiryuji, it is about 870 meters to the Tomb of Maeda Toshinaga.

Connecting Zuiryuji to the Tomb is a beautiful stone path lined with stone lanterns and pine trees called Hatcho-michi (which when measured equaled 8-cho (hatcho)about 870 meters)

The tomb of Maeda Toshinaga is the country's largest with the stone tower looming at 11.75 meters high.

We then walked back to the station and checked to see if we could change our train reservations.

Luckily, we were able to bump up to an earlier departure. We still had about an hour, so while we were waiting, we bought some snacks.

Kawase cafe's Toshinaga-kun yaki for Satoshi...bamboo charcoal makes this black and is filled with sweet bean paste...130 yen

I tasted part of this and it wasn't sweet at all.

And Nomuraya's Toyama black dorayaki for me...The pancakes were coated with shoyu and the filling had butter and the sweet bean paste...sweet & salty were a great combo! Surprisingly, you can't tell that they use shoyu...170 yen

While we got our bags out of the lockers, we noticed the Doraemon tram. One of the authors of Doraemon is from Takaoka.

There were also these huge glass sushi in the waiting area to promote Toyama Sushi...cool yeah?!

It was a great adventure, we were greeted with a downpour when we reached Osaka, but at least for the most of our trip the weather was cooperative and we were able to do and see what we had set out to do.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did.

Ohno-ya
12 Kifune-machi
Takaoka, Toyama
Phone: 0766.25.0215
Open 8:15-20:00, Closed Wednesdays

Sankai-tei
Curun Takaoka 2F
Phone: 0766.22.2370

Kawase Cafe
Curun Takaoka 2F
Phone: 0766.54.0332

Meiten Kurun (kiosk selling sweets and food items from around Toyama)
Curun Takaoka 2F

gokayama-fukumitsu-tonami

Monday we again woke up early, not really by choice...The whole village actually has an "alarm" (loud speaker) that goes off at about 6:30...

Since we had some time before breakfast at 8, we took advantage of having a village pretty much all to ourselves without many tourists roaming around.

Breakfast was a lot of different things, even a raw egg, which we both left alone...

The weather was forecast to be overcast with chance of rain.

There weren't many buses running so we were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves until 11-ish.

It was then that the lady of the pension mentioned she was going into "town" at about 9-ish and if we wanted to catch a ride, she would be more than happy to take us.

So, we caught a ride with her, her daughter & grandson, to Fukumitsu.

Fukumitsu is a teeny town along the train line that we needed to catch to get back to Tonami.

After saying our goodbyes, we checked out the supermarket in front of the train station.

We then wandered a little into the town area and picked up some sweets from Sakagami Shokado & headed back to Tonami.

Back in Tonami, we headed to the hotel we would be staying at, Suigetsuro, to leave our things.

It was kind of a weird place, and very teeny.

The elderly guy at the front desk told us to bring our bags up to our room ourselves and that "oh maybe housekeeping hasn't cleaned it yet"...WT?

So, we left our things (half-heartedly) in our-soon-to-be-cleaned-doors-wide-open room and went to check out the Tulip Fair.

There was a free shuttle from the JR Tonami station that took you to the fair grounds.

The admission is 1000 yen but if you rode JR to get to Tonami, you could receive a 300 yen discount ticket, since we had these tickets, we only paid 700 yen each.

The fair grounds were quite spreadout. There was also a huge tower you could go up and see the whole grounds from.

It was nice to check out the different exhibits and we were also glad the weather decided to be nice and blazing though at times it was overcast.

Lunch was from one of the many booths they had in their eating area. I had the shiroebi yakisoba (white shrimp fried noodle)...500 yen.

A bit too salty for me.

While Satoshi chose to have a bowl of black ramen...800 yen. The shoyu is apparently what makes this bowl "black".

I had to stop him from drinking all the soup...

I also had a yogocchi burger...400 yen.

Yogoshi is a local food. Veggies are chopped up and mixed with miso. I think in Japanese cooking it is what we call "miso-ae".

This "burger" was a tasty version of it.

While walking around the fair, we found out that with our admission tickets we could also get into different sights around Tonami for free.

So, we left the fair and hopped on the free shuttle that took us to the Tonami Sankyoson Museum. A community center of sorts. It was a beautiful property.

And then the shuttle took us to Kainyo-en, another community center. This was actually someone's home until recently. While waiting for the shuttle we had a nice chat with one of the volunteers.

Next, the shuttle took us to the Demachi Children's Kabuki Hikiyama Hall. This is where we saw beautiful floats (hikiyama) and the theatre where children perform kabuki.

We realized that we were close to the center of town, so we walked back to our hotel from here.

We checked-in (our stuff was still in our room, whew!) and took a bath in their reserved bathing area.

Dinner was kaiseki-style. All sorts of seafood.

Another long day, but we were happy the weather was cooperative and that we got to see lots of tulips.

Sakagami Shokado
5546 Araki
Nanto, Toyama

Suigetsuro
15-16 Omotemachi
Tonami, Toyama
Phone: 0763.32.2054

Tonami Tulip Fair
Held near the end of April, check their website for more info (Japanese only)

tonami-johana-gokayama

Sunday, we woke up quite early, grabbed a few things for breakfast from the nearest convenience store and headed to Johana (Joe-Ha-Na).

From Johana it was a bus ride through the mountains until we reached the Sasarakan parking area in the Gokayama area.

Gokayama was deemed a UNESCO site in 1995. There are 2 villages in this area, Suganuma & Ainokura. Most of the houses in this area are 100 to 200 years old (or older).

Nothing was really open at this parking area, probably because it was Sunday, but we were able to pick up tochimochi (rice cake made with tochi (horse chestnut)) made by Haba Seika.

Unusually, this was on the bitter side, but this held us over until lunch.

Across the street from the parking area was the Iwase House.

This house is the largest Gassho-zukuri house in the area. Gassho means to press your hands together in prayer. Zukuri means to make.

Since snow is heavier in this part of Toyama, the roof has a slope of about 60-degrees and forms an equilateral triangle shape.

The steep pitch of the roof allows the snow to slide off.

There are no main poles vertically in the house, just large beams going across called "chonabari".

These beams are naturally curved and no nails are used. The roof frame is held together with rope and hazel boughs called "neso".

Every 15 to 20 years the roof is re-thatched.

The irori (hearth/fireplace) in the middle of the home is not only used to cook fish with, it heats the room and is used to treat the inside of the roof. Most bugs can't withstand the smoke and heat from hearth.

Mr Iwase, who gave a little background about the house, is the 18th generation. This house was apparently 300 years old.

Climbing up to the 2nd floor was hair-raising as the ladder is very steep.

NOTE: if you aren't confident that your legs will hold you up on the steep ladder, stay downstairs...

Since the winters are long and hard, they did a lot of work indoors, like making silk with silk worms, gun powder and washi (Japanese paper).

The upper floors were usually used to keep the silk worms. This particular house housed up to 36 people until 1910!

Now, only 6 people (4 adults and 2 children) reside here.

We then walked about 3.5 kilometers to the next village, Suganuma.

On the way, we passed through a tiny area called Gassho-no-sato.

Another 5 minutes and we arrived at Suganuma.

This area has many houses and shops. Here is a panorama shot I took.

Lunch was at Gorobei.

I ordered the Gokayama tofu set...1500 yen. Gokayama tofu is a really dense tofu (soy bean curd). There were different dishes using the tofu. I enjoyed this.

Satoshi chose the Iwana (char) sashimi set...1500 yen... um, his fish was taking its last breaths...eep!

After lunch we caught the bus to Kaminashi.

This is where we saw the Kokiriko dance. You can see a video of it here.

Kokiriko is a traditional dance performed in the Kaminashi area with sasara. The sasara has 108 slats to represent the 108 sins of humans. Men perform this dance every 9/25 & 9/26 in this area with this instrument. With a quick whip of the wrist, the sound that the slats make is supposed to resemble the rubbing ears of rice together.

And we also saw the Murakami house, which was about 400 years old.

Here we were also able to see Mr Murakami perform a song using another traditional instrument, I didn't get the name of this one but it was 2 bamboo sticks.

They were also having a festival of sorts with shishimae (she-she-my, lions). The lions would go to each house in the village and perform for the families. The dancers would then be fed by the families. This sort of reminded me of the Chinese lion dance during Chinese New Years.

Across the street from the Murakami house is the exile hut.

During the Edo period, huts like this were used to confine elite criminals (they weren't chained but were free to walk around). Food would be sent across the river with a basket and rope. Satoshi said that most people didn't know how to swim back then...

From Kaminashi we caught the bus to Ainokura, where we would spend the night at Goyomon.

Tucked in a valley, this was something to behold. There are about 20 houses in this village. Most are places for people to stay at.

The lady of the pension was really nice.

Since the other family that was supposed to stay over cancelled, we were the only guests.

So, she asked her husband to let us tag along with him to the nearby onsen, Kuroba Onsen. (Satoshi was stoked because he had wanted to check this place out, but since we weren't renting a car, it was quite inconvenient for us to do so on our own.)

For 600 yen, you can take a bath and look out onto the Shogawa (Sho-river).

For everyone who thinks Japanese women are prim and proper, it is here where I saw two older women cat brawling in the bath, and yeah, they weren't wearing clothes! yikes!

Anyway, after all the commotion, we made it back just in time for dinner.

Salted iwana (char) cooked over the coals, carp sashimi, and many other goodies.

I was so full after dinner and tired too.

It was a very long day.

Haba Seika
2096 Shimonashi
Nanto, Toyama
Phone: 0763.66.2536

Gorobei
906 Suganuma
Nanto, Toyama
Phone: 0763.67.3502

Kuroba Onsen
1098 Kamitaira-hosojima
Nanto, Toyama
Phone: 0763.67.3741 (Closed Tuesdays)

Goyomon
438 Ainokura
Nanto, Toyama
Phone: 0763.66.2154

osaka-takaoka-tonami

Saturday after Satoshi's German class, we grabbed a few things for lunch and headed to Toyama prefecture.

The last time we were in this area was 3 years ago, when we visited the TK route.

I had wanted to go back especially to Tonami because I found out they had a Tulip Fair.

It takes about three and a half hours to get from Osaka to Takaoka.

From Takaoka, it takes about another 30 minutes to Tonami.

By the time we reached Tonami it was close to 7.

The place we stayed at was the APA Hotel. It is right outside the JR Tonami station exit and has WIFI in all the rooms.

After we checked in, we checked out the area for someplace to eat.

The first place we ate at, Miyako, started off okay until we had to wait almost 30 minutes for a teeny plate of sashimi to come out, which they charged us 1350 yen for...

Aside from the sashimi, the highlight at this restaurant was their shiroebi karaage (fried white shrimp). Shiroebi is a delicacy of the Toyama area.

So, after a salad, the shiroebi karaage and that teeny plate of sashimi, we headed to the Yataimura.

The yataimura is a food court, of sorts, you can sit where you want and order from all the different shops there.

We sat at the counter of Enraku. Satoshi had their homemade gyoza.

And their tan tan men. This was different from most tan tan men we've had. Those pats you see in the soup aren't butter but slices of tofu.

And the meat that was in the soup was bite sized pieces of pork that were seasoned and cooked in a shoyu-based sauce.

Satoshi enjoyed this bowl. The soup was quite light, we thought it might have been chicken based.

I had their black cha-han (fried rice). What made this black was takesumi (bamboo charcoal). I have had takesumi in the past and I am glad this wasn't gritty.

The owner had created this dish a couple of years back for the Tulip Fair. The weiners are supposed to look like tulips.

If ever you visit Tonami, eat at this Yataimura.

It was quite a long day.

Our next day was going to be a full one, stay tuned!

Enraku
inside the Tonami Yataimura
7-2 Omotemachi
Tonami, Toyama

APA Hotel
1-3 Omotemachi
Tonami, Toyama
Phone: 0763.33.3111