Korogaki - Japanese Traditional Dry Fruit!

Hello!

Back again with me- your enthusiastic Yamanashi blog writer! This time i would like to talk about "Korogaki"!

What is that?

It's a dry fruit from persimmon, or kaki in Japanese. Generally there are 2 types of kaki, the sweet one, and the non-sweet one. You can easily eat the sweet one, but not the non-sweet one.

So the Japanese back then thinks, "hmm, how do we eat the non-sweet one?"
Their answer? just make it dry!

This is korogaki's main characteristic, it's all sweet! there's no non-sweet korogaki!

And guess what?
Because its a dry fruit, you can enjoy this dry fruit 365 days! now thats what i call a bargain!

But, how do they make this?

It's a difficult and long process. After the harvest of the kaki fruit, the korogaki makers have to dry the kaki, by hanging it or by place at the tables or some sort. They have to dry the fruit according to the sunshine, so they cannot dry it everyday! now thats a lot of work!

But not just that! to make the fruit sweet, they have to kind of "press" the kaki fruit at the center, so the sweetness can appear from the fruit! and they do this one by one, everyday, every few hours. now this is a lot of work!

They do that everyday, almost for 2-3 months until its ready to sell!

Pretty complicated right?

Korogaki is naturally sweetened and didn't use any kind of preservative material, so its healthy, too!

This is a hidden gem from the Yamanashi Prefecture! i highly recommend this to you, readers!

See you another time!

-Irvan

Gyomu Supermarket - So Many Halal Certified Foods!

Hello! This time we went to Gyomu Supermarket (業務スーパー), which literally means "business supermarket". But don't worry, this supermarket is operate like other normal supermarkets in town!

The best thing about this supermarket is everything here is cheap! You won't believe the price! Because this is the "business supermarket", the price is meant to be cheap! Be sure to check this place!

Not only cheap, but at this supermarket they provide so many halal foods, which is handy for muslims! For example, they provide halal frozen chicken, beef, karaage, and ebi furai!

Not only halal foods, but for us (especially for the writer), they provide Indonesian foods too! Awesome! Here you can buy mie goreng and sambal!

This place is not too far away, it's 10 minutes away from Kofu Station!

Gyomu Super
1 Chome-9-26 Yumura, Kōfu-shi, Yamanashi-ken 400-0073, Japan
+81 55-225-6900

https://goo.gl/maps/Cd1aMhorPHz

Thats it for today, see you next time!

-Irvan

Takeda Jinja Trip

Hello everyone!! Replacing Pepi and Ocha for this year, we're Irvan and Aruni. Nice to meet you guys!

For this time, we went to Takeda Jinja, which is located at North of Kofu Station. This place is built as Jinja at 1919, and before that, this place is built and used as Takeda Clan's residence at 1519.

Not many of Takeda Clan's residence building is left, but the main part of residence still remain till now, used as a main part of the jinja.

You can pray here like usual jinja in Japan. In this place you can see Takeda Clan's playground for their children (back then), horse stables, lion statue, pond, and so on!

FUN FACT: The lion statue at the entrance of Takeda Jinja has 2 statues, the one on the left's mouth is shut, and the one on the right's mouth is open. In japanese hiragana, 'a' is the first alphabet and 'n' is the last. The opened mouth means 'a', which means 'the beginning' and the closed mouths means 'n', which is 'the end'. The reason they did that to thr statues is because the statues are used to keep evil spirits away.

Thats for today, see you at the next post!
-Irvan

First Time Harvesting and Tasting Ume

Last week we went once again to Furouen to participate in Ume-Harvesting. I had never seen ume in flesh before, other than in the state of umeboshi, so it was a whole new experience for me.

A first look on how ume looks

Because most of us did not know about ume at all, there was a teacher that taught us on how to harvest ume correctly, also there are some ume that should not be harvested.
Did you know that the red part of ume does not mean it is the sweet part, but only the tanning part because of the sun? I didn't. Hehe.

The teacher

Hearing the teacher's instructions

We were told to harvest at least 1Kg of ume. It was necessary for it to be that much, because later we were shown a demonstration on how to make jam out of ume. That's why on these photos, Pepi and I are seen to be crushing the ume.

Although it was hot, it was quite fun!

- Ocha

Ogino - Connecting Yamanashi Residents to Good Life

The other day, we went for a mini tour to one chain of one of the famous supermarkets in Yamanashi, which is Ogino. The one we visited was the newly opened one which located in Ise Town.

You can only see the "INO", but it's actually "OGINO"

When you go into the supermarket, the first thing that you could see is lots of vegetables, breads, and shelves; all of them are lined down beautifully and was really easy to see.

First look when you enter Ogino in Ise Town

What I immediately thought when I was touring around the supermarket itself was that this supermarket really gives a deep thought about how to make customers feel happy. For example, all of the shelves that I saw was really short, compared to other supermarkets that I've visited, so it became easier for people to reach stuff.

The shelves

Also, Things like sushi, sashimi (fresh raw fish), or also warm foods, all are freshly made here. So, they purposely made windows that make the customers could see what's happening background, so they know the foods are really fresh!

Fish section - They make also sashimi here!

Not only that, Ogino also occasionally holds cooking class for the customers!

Ogino's Cooking Class Flyer

What I can conclude from Ogino is, they really think about how customers feel. They are a good example of Japan's tourism motto, which is "Omotenashi", or Hospitality!

- Ocha

Ume harvesting time! In Furouen.

Ume, also known as Plum fruit.

Last week we went to Furouen (We had came here before! Check our latest post!) to harvest ume. The Furouen was very different with the one which we had come to last February. This time wasn't flower, but the fruit anywhere. So, we started our hunting for ume.

Ume hunters.

We had fun when we harvested the ume. Because harvesting ume, skill and knowledge about ume is required. If you pick the wrong ume (unripe), you'll taste the super sour taste. Even you picked unripe ume, you can collect it and make your own Ume juice or if you like alcohol, you can make Umeshuu.

Tutorial how to make Ume juice.

Ocha trying to pinch ume.

After we collected our ume, we got lecture about how to make ume juice. It was so fun. By the way, not just ume, we got udon too! And we got Furouen home-made umeboshi! Very delicious!

The delicious, Umeboshi

Thanks for reading.

Pepi.

Outing to Ogino Supermarket, saw what i never seen before!

Inside of Ogino Supermarket.

Not today, but 2 weeks ago, i went to study by observation to Ogino Supermarket. When i entered the shop, it looks different with the other supermarket in Yamanashi. And we went to the place where i could see the behind of the scene of the supermarket, and of course you may never seen before. (Except you had an experience on working in supermarket)

Changing to Sushi Chef Appearance.

Before we go to looking the supermarket generally, we got some knowledge about Ogino Supermarket's 5W1H. What is Ogino, when Ogino was established, how they operated their food system, and so on. After we watch the VTR about Ogino supermarket, we should use mask and sushi chef-ish cap to prevent all the bacteria to contaminate the food product. Yes, we were not try to make sushi or something. Haha.

Demonstration how the food product got packed.

We started our journey in Ogino. We've seen how the production of their food production, how was the kitchen, and knew how cold are Ogino's freezers. The picture wasn't real food product, only try to pack something other than food so we could see how it works. I think it was cool, all tech-manufactured, so we just let the machine work, done without mistake. Life in this era is so convenient!

You can open the window to ask the workers about the fish.

Yap, if you come to Ogino supermarket and see the "Fresh Fish" sector, you will see the window. You can ask all the things about Fish. You can slide to open the window, and ask them. Feels like you have your own fresh fish advisors.

One thing that amazed me, Set of cooking recommendation.

When you going to supermarket, of course you have been in time where you can't decide what you want to cook. Because you have no good planning, the result you have to think by yourself about the cooking things. But, No problem! Ogino supermarket have set of cooking recommendation section in their shop. When you confused about the food, this section will give you the ingredients that you can buy, and a paper which will lead you how to cook it. Personally, because i have been in time like this very often, i'm just very amazed and felt very helped.

Thanks for reading.

Pepi.

Hijiriushi, Japanese Dam Technology from the past.

Hello.
Today we went to learn for Hijiriushi or Seigyuu, a tool which used to hold the drain of the river so the stream wont flood to the residence area in the past. The tool just like the Tetrapod that used in common seashore.

Hijiriushi

Hijiriushi without weighting stones. Looks like a cannon.

In the past, some of Yamanashi area frequently flooded. Then, there is nobody who lived nearby the river due to the danger of the flood. So, the Takeda Clan's warlord, Takeda Shingen did some policy to prevent the stream of Kamanashi river to flood. But nowadays, the river stream is not that much as the past. Maybe it was because of the Hijiriushi. That's all i know.

Thanks for reading.
Pepi.

The savior of the land of Yamanashi

Today, we visited a river. No, two rivers. Or was it three??
Well, basically we visited the place to learn about "信玄堤 Shingen-Dzutsumi" or "Shingen Riverbank". Why is it so important?

This is the river that we saw, by the way

Long ago, the river around the Shingen-Dzutsumi wasn't this shallow. It might be not shown, but this river is actually a combination of two rivers, combining into Kamanashi River. When the two rivers met, it caused a big bang and made the water flows to the land.

And thus the big flood would always happened in the area of Yamanashi, though not all.

That's why, the people of Yamanashi at the time made this device;

What is this...?

This device is called Hijiriushi. The main function of the so said device is to weaken the stream of the river, so it doesn't cause a bang. Because of the device, the land that wasn't possible to be resided in, became usable.

Ocha

I saw a linear train today!

Hello!
We went to the place named "The hill where you can see the Linear", or in Japanese リニアの見える丘 'Rinia no mieru Oka'. We saw a train, dashes as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog, or maybe faster. The train seems like as cool as Shinkansen, had long nose to get through the wind.

The screen where you can see the data about the Linear.

The velocity of the Linear is around 500km/hour. But, from what we have seen, it could make until 504km/hour. I can't imagine if i was in the train and see to the window. If i see the window, what kind of scenery i could have seen? Maybe some Line-ars.

The Linear dashes.

Thanks for reading. Please laugh for me.
Pepi.

Linear-- might be the fastest train in Japan!

Today, we went to a hill to go for another Hanami (flower-viewing), but...!

Not as we have initially thought, the flowers have become leaves :(

If you ever plan to do Hanami, make sure to check the conditions, because the flowers could bloom faster or slower every year!

But we did not come back empty-handed, I tell ya! From the hill that we visited, fortunately we could see the Linear train track. What's so special about the Linear is, it might become the fastest train in Japan, faster than the Shinkansen (Bullet train)!

A first-look at Linear

The monitor

At the hill, there is a resting area where you could find a monitor just like the image on the left. The monitor shows a lot of information about the currently running Linear. For example, where the Linear is currently at, at what elevation the Linear is currently running, the Linear's current speed, etc.

Ocha

Seeing Hinamatsuri Dolls for the first time

Have you ever heard of Hinamatsuri?
If I had to describe it in English, it would be Japanese "Girls' Day". There is this tradition that on Hinamatsuri day, the rich would decorate their home with Hinamatsuri Dolls. This act is called Hina-Kazari (Kazari means to decorate).

Today we went to a Kanzou Yashiki, a place specialized for the herb plant "Kanzou" (I have tried to look for the English word, but still not sure if it's right or not, so... sorry).
To commemorate the Hinamatsuri, Kanzou Yashiki opened an exhibit where the said Hinamatsuri Dolls are decorated. You can't only see many dolls, but like, a WHOLE LOT!

These dolls apparently have survived since Edo Period

While these ones are newer

They only hold the exhibit for early springs apparently, so if you ever visit Japan in spring, try to check out Kanzou Yashiki, which is in Koushuu City! 

It's right in front of Enzan Station, I promise you, you won't be tire of walking hehe

Kanzou Yashiki (Enzan, Koshu City)

Hello.
Today we went to Kanzou Yashiki, located in the Enzan, Koshu City. The place is easy to reach. You just have to go by train in Chuo Main Line, and disembark in Enzan Station. The Kanzou Yashiki is right in front of the station!

Kanzou Yashiki in the past was the Takano Family's House, the farmer of Kanzou （甘草）, i don't know what the meaning of Kanzou in english. But the only thing i know, Kanzou is looks like any common grass, but it has sweet flavor (maybe) and good for health.

In the house building, there are so many Hina ningyo doll which being exhibited from February 11th~April 18th every year. The dolls' numbers are around 600 dolls. And each different hina ningyo dolls, have different wish too. Some decorations are wishing that the girl that lived in that house are always have a good health, or some decoration are wishing for never troubled in food, etc.

So, try to come here when you are spending your spring day in Japan!

Thanks for reading!

Pepi.

Furouen-- The garden that stays eternally!

Last week, after going to Hotel Kasugai, we went to a garden called Furouen 不老園. 
This garden boasts for having about 20 varieties of plum trees! As right now is just right in the season, we got to see those plum flowers in blossom!

From the famous pink...

...to the elegant white...

...and last but not least, the rare yellow!

You could see all of them in Furouen in Kofu City!

For more information, visit >>> Furouen Website