The changing of the seasons in Cascadia are marked by important events. We know springtime is right around the corner when you spy someone in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops on a sunny day even though it’s only 42 degrees outside. The beginning of fall is accompanied by talk of Ducks and Beavers while waiting in line for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte.
In Japan, each new season is marked by the blooming of flowers. Cherry blossoms and wisteria in the spring, irises and hydrangea in the summer and now red spider lilies are popping up in gardens all over town.
Red spider lilies at Kinchakuda-Manjushage Park in Hidaka City
In nearby Hidaka City, an annual festival is held at Kinchakuda-Manjushage Park along the Koma River to celebrate the blooming of the lilies. The vibrant red flowers are in strong contrast to both their spring-green stems and the green canopy of the meadow in which they grow.
Click any photo below to view as a slideshow. Scroll down for festival details and video from the day.
Looking out over the meadow of lilies.
Several cartoon-style dolls were arranged beside the path near Koma River. Everyone with a camera stopped to snap some photos of the very strange, yet also very Japanese, scene.
This pair in full costume were being filmed both by a professional photographer and videographer. In 2014, a dozen films and television shows were filmed in Hidaka City.
First stop was lunch at Alishan Organic Cafe, one of our favorite cafes in Japan. Choosing from a smaller festival menu to handle all the visitors, we had donburi and seasonal veggie curry. It’s right next to the park, so if you visit the festival, check out Alishan!
The girl has a “you’re kidding me, right?” look about feeding her carrot to the donkey.
Every once in awhile, a white lily would poke its head out amongst its red brethren.
Local food, beer and crafts a plenty at the Kinchakuda Festival in Hidaka City, Saitama.
Captured with the GoPro, this horse would do a lap around its pen, returning back to the rail to see if anyone had brought a treat. Usually a child with a carrot or grass wasn’t far away.
A young girl feeding grass to one of the horses at the neighboring farm. The farm is right on the edge of the park and is open to the public during the festival for rides and pets.
Only in Japan: Komatsuna (Japanese mustard greens) and apple frozen yogurt. Odd, but tasty!
A large black swallowtail butterfly was a popular target for the point-and-shoot photographers.
Thanks to the passer-by who snapped a photo for us. It almost looks like there’s nobody else there…
Red spider lilies at Kinchakuda-Manjushage Park in Hidaka City
Many people took advantage of the beautiful weather and scenery to spread out a picnic.
A view of the Koma River with red spider lilies growing beside the bridge.
Locally-made miso paste and soy sauce mixed with rice. Unique and delicious!
Outside the Orugon Dou (オルゴン堂) natural yeast bakery, one of the many interesting buildings in old Hidaka.
The path winds through the middle of the flowers, letting visitors get right up close and personal.
Looking out over the meadow of lilies.
One of the many jangseung (Korean totem pole) found throughout Hidaka. The city has a long history with Korea, dating back to the settlement of refugees in the 8th century.
The Kinchakuda Festival (website in Japanese) runs every weekend from now through October 4, 2015. They have lots of great local food vendors, live music and the nearby farm offers horse rides and a petting zoo.
Finding really good beer in Japan can be a bit of a crapshoot. We’ve learned to enjoy tolerate the mass-produced lagers and rejoice in the discovery of good local craft beers. This makes it hard to pass up events like this week’s Keyaki Autumn Beer Festival in Omiya, Saitama.
Featuring nearly 100 stalls featuring mostly Japanese craft breweries, the two annual Keyaki Festivals (we attended the spring festival last year) are a beer lover’s dream. We missed the spring festival this year and nearly missed the fall festival when we were tipped off by the local Rogue Ales distributor of its goings-on.
If you’re in the Saitama area, the festival continues through September 23, 2015. Check out the excellent Beer Tengoku blog or the Keyaki Festival site (Japanese only) for more details.
Over the course of a couple hours, we worked our way through several quality Japanese and American beers. Enjoy the rundown!
Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale Elysian Brewing Company • Seattle, WA USA IBU: N/A ABV: 6.7% ★★★
Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
The Cascadian beer market is flooded with pumpkin-infused beers this time of year, but despite the popularity of kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) in cooking, it doesn’t seem to make its way into brewing recipes. Fortunately, one of the importers brought some Night Owl Pumpkin Ale from Elysian Brewing in Seattle. The Night Owl is how I want pumpkin beer to taste—like someone dumped a pumpkin pie into a good quality ale. Elysian uses 150 lbs. of pumpkin in each batch and flavor it with traditional pumpkin pie spices. The result is magic.
NoLi Jet Star Imperial IPA NoLi Brewhouse • Spokane, WA USA IBU: 115 ABV: 8.1% ★★★
In the category of “go big or go home,” our next beer was an 8.1% ABV 115 IBU Imperial IPA from Spokane, Washington’s NoLi Brewhouse. The Jet Star IIPA dry-hops Chinook and Cascade hops to give that extra piney flavor and just enough citrus to balance the bitterness. We tend to give IPAs preferential treatment since they’re so hard to come by over here, but this one really hit the spot. The high IBU makes it a slow-drinker, which gave us plenty opportunity to be discerning about our next choice.
We didn’t try Baird’s beers this time around since they have easily-accessible tap houses throughout the Tokyo metro area, but we did sample some of the hot peppers they scored at the festival. We did NOT try the Carolina Reapers; the reigning champion for hottest pepper on the planet coming in at 2.2 million scovilles, six times hotter than a habanero pepper.
The guys at the booth for Japan’s oldest microbrewery seemed a little bored when they waved us over and asked us to try their Koshihikari beer, made from Koshihikari rice, the most expensive grain in Japan. They even poured a very generous sample while waiving the 500 yen (about $5 USD) price tag. This was one of the more unique beers of the day and really held its flavors coming right from the tap. The lager itself was very light and refreshing, but the rice gave it an earthiness that was surprisingly pleasant. I’ve read mixed reviews about the canned version, but I enjoyed the draught version quite a bit.
I was empty-handed and the word “smoked” jumped off the sign at Outsider Brewing’s booth. Served by owner Mark Major himself, the smoke flavor of the small-batch special came through right away, making me want to chase it with some gouda and bread! The more I drank, the less pronounced the smokiness; I’m not sure if I just got used to it or it dissipated. But, I’m still saying “love it” for the first several smoky, malty goodness sips.
By the time we made it to Chateau Kamiya’s booth, we were teetering on done; both full of beer and a little fuzzy. The Ibaraki-based brewery/winery/gardens offered a little palette cleanser in the form a seasonal 3% ABV Cranberry Lager. Light, tasty and a perfect break for what was still to come.
I have a soft spot for Kanagawa’s Shonan Beer thanks to the Orange IPA we enjoyed last fall in Osaka. The Lemongrass Hopper looked intriguing, infusing local ingredients into what I knew would be a good beer base. The lemongrass and wheat flavors really came through without being overpowering. A good penultimate beer for the day.
Breakside India Golden Ale Breakside Brewery • Milwaukie, OR USA IBU: 60 ABV: 8.1% ★★★
Our last stop was a personal one—the booth of the aforementioned importer who turned us on to Yellow Ape in Osaka and let us know about this festival. Unfortunately, he was out and about when we stopped, but fortunately they still had beer! It seemed fitting to wrap up our day with some home cooking and Oregon’s Breakside Brewery’s IGA seemed the perfect end to a perfect day. Originally brewed as a partnership with Eugene, OR’s Ninkasi Brewing and typically a spring seasonal, this double IPA gets tropical notes from Mosaic, Eldorado and Chinook hops while balancing the piney notes without overpowering. The 8.1% ABV was officially the death knell for our day at the festival, but what a way to go!
It’s always interesting returning home after a long trip. Everything is familiar, but everything seems different at the same time. While we were away from Japan, summer turned to fall. The kinmokusei has begun to bloom, filling the air with a light citrus scent. But Japan’s ability to surprise us never seems to change.
A few nights ago, we heard some activity in front of our apartment. It was already dark and the noise of kids playing was unusual. Viktoria poked her head out the window to see what was happening and spotted our neighbors from the next building.
The boy is one of our favorite kids in the neighborhood. He’s really respectful and always says hello when we see him. One day Viktoria gave him some candy she brought back from the U.S. A couple minutes later, he rang the doorbell, holding a bag of Japanese cookies—the obligatory reciprocal gift.
His mom is great too. The first time we really talked to her was when she rang our doorbell as a member of the neighborhood association. She had come to collect the annual dues (about $5 USD) and had taken the time to prepare a receipt in English along with a few phrases to help us understand what services are supported with the funds. A couple months later, she eased my fears about the announcement being belted out of a helicopter flying overhead (not an impending zombie apocalypse, just an advertisement).
Me and the neighbor kid… his mom probably has the picture where we’re looking straight ahead!
Anyway, when they saw Viktoria, they waved us downstairs. They had enough fireworks to outdo Washington D.C.’s Fourth of July show! We asked what the occasion was and they said it was a holiday, but despite all my research and even some crowdsourcing, I have no idea what they were celebrating.
Viktoria, one of the friends and our neighbor light yet another sparkler…
A couple of his classmates and someone’s little brother were also there with their mothers. Our neighbor kid was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening, making sure everyone had a sparkler in hand at all times. I bet we each burned a dozen sparklers apiece.
They sang a little song all night that went “ha-na-bi no chi-ka-ra,” meaning something along the lines of “the power of fireworks,” but they sang it in a sweet voice that made it seem like a bit of an inside joke.
At the end of the night, they handed out some candy. Viktoria ran upstairs and grabbed some Halloween candy we’d just bought—you know, reciprocal! We went back upstairs with a “what just happened” feeling, but also happy to be included in what seemed to be an end-of-summer tradition.
Here’s a few more photos from the evening. Enjoy!
Two of the kids light up another round of sparklersThe little boy was probably four or five years old, but was lighting sparklers like a seasoned veteran.This kid wasn’t sure what to think of us at first, but he warmed up after a bit.
The final day of our trip began at dawn, before the rest of Saigon started its day. From our hotel room balcony, we watched as buses and motorbikes began to filter through the typically-frantic roundabout connecting the city’s lively districts.
The first stop on the long road home was a three-hour layover in Kuala Lumpur. We found an Indian restaurant in the food court. The nearby juice bar had a 3-in-1 option that called our name after 40 days of travel eats.We arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on a mission to catch the last train home. In a karmic kick in the pants, our luggage came out five minutes before the train departed. We spent one last night in a hotel, staying at the airport itself.By the afternoon of Day 42, we were finally on our way home. The “stop” button on the bus called out to me… we were finally stopping.The end of another adventure… and where we’ve already started planning the next one!
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We spent our last day in Ho Chi Minh City doing a makeshift walking tour, including the Ho Chi Minh statue in front of the People’s Committee building. Built in 1909, it was modeled after the City Hall building in Paris. It’s still a working government building today.
One of many couples taking wedding photos in front of the iconic Saigon Central Post Office. It was built by the French in the late 1800s and is still an active post office in addition to being a popular tourist site. Architect Gustave Eiffel, famous for Paris tower that bears his name, was among those who designed the building.The epic Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica is directly across the street from the post office, offering a two-for-one sightseeing experience. The church itself was completed in 1880, but the current Our Lady of Peace statue was installed in 1959. In 2005, the statue was in the news when it was reported to have shed tears, although the local clergy weren’t able to verify the event.Finding breakfast on the streets of Vietnam is simple. Step 1: Find a banh mi stand. The bread is always fresh in the morning and there’s nothing like a deep-fried egg to get your day started.Step 2: Find yourself a ca phe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee) vendor. This lady might have made the best one we had on the entire trip despite a very makeshift operation on the sidewalk.Students in HCMC outside their school on a Saturday. The school week is six days long, but there was extra activity as they celebrated the beginning of a new school year with loud music, loud speeches and general loudness.
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We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) around 3:30 a.m. on the overnight train from Nha Trang. To avoid the temptation of napping in our hotel room all day—oh, and to see one of the world’s most diverse biological sites—we booked a day tour to the Mekong Delta along with two other people from our main tour group.
Rich with life of all kinds, more than 10,000 species have been discovered in the Delta including the Laotian rock rat, once thought to be extinct. It’s also under great risk due to climate change. Some estimates suggest two of its provinces could be completely flooded in the next 15 years due to rising sea levels.
On Turtle Island, we rode from a coconut candy-making kitchen to lunch on a motorcycle with a seating box in the back. The four of us decided to put on the provided helmets more for fun than safety (mine had a drawing of a teddy bear with the words “bears” and “hapry dreams” on it. Yes. “Hapry.”). However, the helmets proved handy as we dodged low-hanging palm leaves. I even had a bundle of bananas bounce off my helmet!
The Mekong River passes through five other countries (China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia) before reaching Vietnam. At the Delta, all of the silt and sediment collects, making the river appear the color of chocolate milk.A boat full of bamboo fish traps parked along the shore of a creek. Nearly 60 percent of Vietnam’s fishing output and a quarter of its agricultural land is located in the Mekong Delta.Part of our tour included a boat trip on a stream leading back to the river. The woman paddling the boat was clearly working hard, each stroke accompanied with grunts that grew louder as the trip went on. She earned an extra tip when the four of us leaned left to take a photo, swinging the boat hard to the right toward the muddy bank. Oops!Traditional river boats parked at shore have eyes painted on the hulls. The stories say the eyes are meant to scare off river monsters while also helping guide sailors back to land on their many journeys.The traditional conical hats are available for sale all over Vietnam. On a particular sunny day, it seemed like a good investment. It would also be donned by our guide in a demonstration of the carrying pole during the tour.
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With our long journey winding down, we used our last day in Nha Trang to catch some rays on the beach of Nha Trang Bay. In the distance, we watched the cable cars carry guests to the resort island known as Vinpearl Land.
Authentic civet coffee— better known as Weasel Coffee—is made using partially-digested coffee beans passed through the digestive tract of the Asian palm civet, a weasel-type animal. The real deal is about $30 USD a cup, but most of what you’ll find in Vietnamese shops is made artificially and can be had for less than $10 per bag.XQ Hand Embroidery, an open-air art village near the beach in Nha Trang, is a great opportunity to see Vietnamese embroidery art for free in a very cool setting. Multi-colored thread is arranged throughout the village, catching the light like rainbows. Exhibits show different parts of the process used to create photo-realistic works using only thread.Looking out the doors from XQ Hand Embroidery Village at Nha Trang Beach.Nearly all of our previous banh mi (Vietnamese baguette sandwiches) experiences, while delicious, were basically a fried egg sandwich. In Nha Trang, we found this woman’s cart where she made the sandwiches using vegetarian mock meats she made herself. Better yet, the sandwiches were 10,000 VND each (about 45 cents USD). We ate here a lot.
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The coastal city of Nha Trang, Vietnam is well-known for its world-class beaches, but just a few minutes away from the coast lies a rich religious and cultural history that won’t make you regret giving up the beach chair for a few hours.
Among the city’s main draws is Long Sơn Pagoda, home to the nearly-80-foot-tall statue of Gautama Buddha (Giant Buddha sighting #4). Cast in stark white concrete, it seemed to float among the blue skies and pillowy white clouds on the day we visited.
The Hindu temple of Po Nagar has enjoyed a long history in Nha Trang with a documented history beginning before 781 A.D. Constructed atop Cù Lao Mountain, the views of the city and the sea are spectacular. The steep steps to the top seemed to keep the tourists to a minimum, except for this group whose leader, dressed in the traditional áo dài dress and nón lá hat.On the steps up to the Giant Buddha at Long Son Pagoda, we passed an equally-impressive 55-feet-long statue of the Reclining Buddha (Giant Buddha sighting #5). A more recent addition—it was built by the local Buddhist community in 2003—the statue is surrounded by carvings of 49 praying monks, representing the Mahayana Buddhism tradition of praying for the dead for 49 days after they pass.The gorgeous Nha Trang Cathedral was built by the French in the 1930s and still has active services today. Statues of various saints circled the church, appearing saintly in the light of the setting sun.
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Even in historic locales, it’s sometimes hard to get a feel for life in days gone by. The endless barking of souvenir vendors selling smartphone accessories and the dodging of motorbikes are a reminder that you’re in a modern-day tourist area. But when the sun goes down in Hoi An, a sense of what was begins to emerge. The vendors head home to their families, the commute slows and the lanterns that lit the streets 500 years ago illuminate a revived town.
That moment you realize you’ve taken the same picture roughly 20 times is when you know you’re seeing something special. Our memory card is full of variations of Hoi An street scenes. The bright colors, interesting angles and haunting lighting is a photographer’s dreamーeven for point-and-shooters like us.Just after breakfast time, the small cafes began to empty out and the streets quieted before the daily rush of tourists arrived. This knick-knack vendorーstill in his pajamasーcaught a few winks during the downtime.Ornate decorations floated all along the Thu Bon River, including this one depicting Maudgalyāyana, a disciple of Buddha, emerging from a lotus flower.The Japanese Covered Bridge was built sometime in the 1700s, linking the Japanese and Chinese merchant settlements in Hoi An. A small Buddhist temple is attached to the bridge, the only one of its kind in the world.A moment of serenity in the streets of Hoi An.
On the ides of the lunar month, the electric lights in the ancient town are turned off and all motorized traffic is blocked, leaving only the lights of the lanterns. We visited in between these holidays, but just a regular night in Hoi An is a close replica.
Nice by day……and nicer by night!The lanterns at this shop were a big tourist draw for shoppers during day and photographers at night.A boy on a bike coasts through the lantern-lit streets.
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After 35 days of going, it was nice to finally have a day with nothing on the agenda. We took a taxi out to An Bang (pronounced On Bong) Beach early in the day and found a couple of lounge chairs under a bamboo umbrella. The little dot in the water to the right of my feet is Viktoria. Can you spot her
Several bamboo bowl boats were lined up on the beach. Local craftsmen have been making the boats for centuries, using a mixture of tree resin and rice bran to waterproof the vessels. They seem impossible to manuever, but the bowl captains have mastered it!On the left is the face of a man who’s been traveling for 35 days, yet somehow his wife is looking radiant and energized. What gives?!
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