Snow, snow glorious snow and those clever little sprinklers

Wow, sashi buri ne? (long time, no see!) I arrived back last Sunday and within a few days so did the snow.

Car near my house in Kanazawa, poor owner!

Having just come back from a snow laden UK which caused thousands of schools to shut, brought public transport to a standstill and a tirade of weather forecasters' "only travel in exceptional circumstances" warnings I was wondering how the Japanese handle snowy conditions?

My walk home in the snow, Kanazawa

Well they handle the snow doing only what the Japanese know best- calm, ease and technological sophistication! OK so we're at a slight disadvantage as we're just not used to it in the UK but they do truly put us to shame. The Sea of Japan side of Honshu where I live sees a LOT of snow. I can now totally understand why they spend weeks prepping up their precious trees and branches last month (see my yukitsuri post).

My little bus stop near Oyabe that I couldn't get to on Monday!

When I say it's been snowing I mean a proper DUMPING of snow to the point that I actually started to feel claustrophobic sitting in the school staff room because it had piled so high up against the windows and didn't seem intent on stopping. (at time of writing its stopped....but we're due another spurt tomorrow)

My huge Canadian 4 x 4's (snow boots) have even bent under the pressure and I've resorted to buying wellies, the only fail safe option when the snow is over the knees . No gritters in sight here.

Japanese "snow clearing" sprinkler systems

The Japanese have developed a very sophisticated snow clearing system for the roads here. As soon as it starts snowing these mini water sprinklers which are set in the middle of the road start spraying the road with warm ground water. Despite getting over a metre of snow these little things just about manage to clear the roads although leaving an unbelievable amount of slush. Wellies, you see now, are a must!

Railway tracks covered in snow but my train was STILL on time!

I've only been delayed twice since the snow arrived (once by 4 minutes) despite treacherous conditions, no-one has missed a minute of school and life continues as normal.

The downside is that the frequency of snow in Japan makes it less of a novelty and more of a nuisance so whilst the entire adult population back in the UK regressed to being kids again sledging, chucking snowballs and building snowmen the Japanese set out on little ant type missions equipped with snow shovels to clear the snow (sometimes as early as 2.45am, I can personally vouch for that....) and the kids get roped in to dig out the snow too, poor little devils!

NB Despite me thinking the Japanese handle the snow better than we English do, according to my friend from Canada (where it also snows heaps) they're half as efficient as the Canadians.
Well let me know what you think!

Weird and wonderful autumnal Japanese fruit

I'm not usually a fruit person as most of you will know BUT I recently came across some really unusual fruit that I've never seen in my life and I just had to try it.

I love experimenting with different foods (apart from cows tongue & cartilage) and Japan is such a fab place to do so so on my last supermarket trip I filled my basket with some weird and wonderful.

So here's what I bought:

Japanese persimmon fruit

i) Persimmon or kaki (柿) in Japanese. I have to admit I had never even heard of the English translation. Apparently they grow in the US too but not England! A persimmon looks like an orange tomato but harder to touch, shinier and a tougher skin. I ended up googling "how to eat a persimmon fruit" and the opinions seemed mixed as to whether you should have to peel the skin or not. Apparently if they're ripe yopu should be able to eat skin and all. Just use a towel as I made a right mess. Opinion: delicious or as they say in Japan "oishieeeeeeee"!

Fresh figs, I'm hooked!

ii) Fresh figs or ichijiku in Japanese. Call me ignorant but I've only ever had the dry variety and thought they only grew figs in the Middle East. So I googled "how to eat fresh figs" and again opinions were mixed some saying skin on, some skin off. So I ate a whole punnet one night, they were so nice BUT warning! I didn't realise they had that same cleansing effect that prunes have. WOOOO! One a day next time.

Purple potato? No! Japanese akebi fruit

iii) Akebi (あけび). This was the weirdest looking thing. A chubby shaped fruit the size of a small potato, rich purple in colour, soft to the touch. The akebi fruit is a product of the chocolate akebi vine (or apparently chocolate vine in English) and before you start thinking no it doesn't produce chocolate as well.

Inside of an akebi fruit

Open it up and the inside there is a mushy jelly containig hundreds of black pips. Now I just took a scoop full of the inside pips and all but the pips are really bitter so I spat them out. Maybe you're supposed to scoop out the pips as well and just eat the white bit leftover (which isn't much!) and tastes a bit like a banana, not sweet at all. If anyone could enlighten me!

Japanese Dragonfruit (the pink one at the bottom)

iv) Japanese Dragonfruit. Another weird looking one. Bright pink with soft spikey leaves on the outside. At ¥395 (about £2.70) each this has got to be a special one.

When you cut it open its a real WOW, bright bright purple/pink watery inside with black pips.

Inside of Japanese dragonfruit

Unlike the akebi you can eat the inside with no pip problems. It is sweet and has a similar consistency to watermelon but not quite as crunchy. Yum but still doesn't beat the figs and persimmon.

v) Chestnuts or kuri (栗) in Japanese. I've only had them roasted at Christmas time back home but here they boil them. Yes BOIL! Some teachers brought a huge bag of them into school pre-boiled. So all you do is cut them in half with a sharp knife and then scoop the inside out with a teaspoon. They actually taste great.

Mighty Japanese chestnuts

Kuri-gohan or Japanese chestnut rice is also abundant right now. Again one of my teachers bought in a huge container of kuri-gohan which we devoured in seconds at lunch. YUM!

Japanese pears are also a bit odd. They look like huge apples and are much crunchier than the European variety (which they call LaFrance pear- uhh? do you Japanese think they're only grown in France or something?!)

Autumn time in Japan

Rice harvesting in Senmaida

I don't think there any nation who celebrate their seasons more than the Japanese. It's almost inconceivable that the progress of the cherry blossom would be covered on national news as well as countrywide cherry blosson viewing events , but believe it because it does happen.

Autumn is here and boy don't you know it. In England, you'd hardly notice when summer ends and autumn begins, I'd blame it on the amount of rain.. The first sign of autumn in Japan, along with the massive drop in temperature, was a teacher coming into school with a bag of boiled chestnuts. You then cut them, scoop out the inside and eat. Delicious! Then another teacher brought in a sackful of homegrown grapes....you get the picture, lots of seasonal homegrown food and the supermarkets really go to town with autumn produce signs everywhere.

Anyone who has experienced Autumn in Japan will have noticed one or several of the following:

i) The profuse summer sweating turns into a mild sweating and then finally it's over!

ii) All of the oranges disappear and are replaced with abundant amounts of autumnal fruit including fresh figs, persimmons, dragonfruit and akebi. See my Japanese fruit post.

iii) Teachers bring in their autumn produce for you to try out

iv) Suddenly the plain bowls of rice become chesnut rice

v) Rice harvesting everywhere and anywhere where theres space to grow it

vi) Rice harvest dust gets to all hayfever sufferers.

vii) You start wondering where your hottie is (hot water bottle)

viii) You get invited to an apple/pear picking trip

I have personally loved the drop in temperature. It's been like an English summer here for the past few weeks, and I can actually breathe again, perfect!

Autumn leaf viewing is also a favourite Japanese past time along with autumn apple, pear and grape picking (well....technically it's tasting) Last week I went along to an apple picking trip in which we crammed so much in it as worth writing another post. I have yet to go on a leaf viewing excursion, I'll keep my eye out though!

Apple picking trip in Nagano, Japanese Alps

A few months ago I agreed to join Yoko (my Japanese teacher), Candy, Candy's mum and a few of Yoko's colleagues on an apple picking trip to Nagano (Japanese Alps).

Thinking I may have committed myself to a day up a ladder doing a days hard labour, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a mystery apple and pear "tasting" tour, phew, big relief!
Met Yoko et al at 6.45am at Kanazawa station which nearly killed me especially the FIRST day of silver week (a 4 day holiday in Japan) I've discovered that the Japanese really don't do relaxing that well. If this was England on the first day of a public holiday at this time in the morning it'd be a ghost town. Nope the station was packed, coaches lined up ready to take eager Japanese tourists on their day trips. One of the coaches was ours. I hadn't realised our group was part of a larger coach tour with our own compère and everything, but I was up for it. Me and mum had seen so many coach tours on our travels around Japan I was intrigued to see what all the fuss was about. Little did I know that we were about to cover half of Chubu in a day!

First stop was Komagane to see a beautiful old temple called Konzenji, set in a green forest with ridiculously tall trees. There was some commotion along the path leading up to the temple and I wanted to know why a whole crowd of people were pointing at this old wall and looking inside. I thought it might be some type of rare insect but nope it was moss. Yep apparently moss only grows inside walls here. Soooo random, but this is Japan...

Me and the girls in the buckwheat fields

Next stop was Inatajima to see the beautiful and brightly coloured red buckwheat fields, the crop they use to make buckwheat flour for soba noodles. We then visited a local produce market where they were selling locally made tomato juice, these huge grapes (called Kyohō budō, 巨峰葡萄 or "giant mountain grapes") apples, pears and figs.

Huge Japanese grapes, Kyohō budō (wow, is my thumb really that wrinkly?)

After a delicious nabe lunch we eventually reached the apple and pear picking farm in Matsukawa, a beautiful place surrounded by mountains. The picking (really tasting) went like this: we entered the apple orchard to an area where there were apples & pears wrapped up in paper but still hanging off the trees, weird!



We were allowed to pick 1 apple and 1 pear. Once picked, you then go to one of the little tables to wash, peel, cut and taste the apple not forgetting to remark "oishieeeeeeeee" (delicious) in a high pitched voice with plenty of enthusiasm! That's the Japanese way of apple picking!

Ready? 1,2,3 oishieeeeeeeeee!

We boarded the bus and were given omiyage (souvenir or gift) of a Nagano pear and apple each.

When we got off the bus again near Ida City it was to visit a mizuhiki gallery. Mizuhiki is an ancient art craft which uses a brightly coloured cord to knot and create decorative shapes and animals. Apparently the artform was used to tie up the hair of the samurai. In Japan you see mizuhiki on wedding money envelopes everywhere. This gallery had some pretty stunning and huge animals crafted solely from this cord. Amazing.


Before climbing onboard the coach it was time for the "who can grab the most chestnuts with one hand" competition. Yep, we all queued up to see how many chestnuts we could grab from a box full of chestnuts. I got 11. Very bizzare but then this is Japan and the Japanese seem to make the simplest of ideas so much fun.

Chesnut grabbing contest...so random!

Back on the bus heading home our compère announced it was Bingo time, woop woop. Haven't played for years and the prize was a free coach trip to Kobe. Ace! Once we all had a bingo card they pulled down the TV and this squeaky little Japanese voice read out the numbers, hilarious.

I didn't win but one of Yoko's colleagues did.

Brilliant day.

Rice harvest outside my apartment in Nishi-Kanazawa

Autumn has officially arrived in Kanazawa. Literally on the 1st September a little old farmer and his wife (I presume) dragged their reluctant looking son (presuming again) to help them in harvesting the tiny rice fields right outside my apartment.

Having watched them preparing, seeding, watering and tendering the fields I felt a pinch of sadness seeing the golden crops get the chop and the little fields look so bare! Maybe they’ll plant something else on them. I hope so, I’ll miss my daily walk mentally checking their progress.

After the rice crop has been cut the little farmer brings his little tractor with his little trailer and takes the corn to the little barn where it is dried out