30 July 2016
Eel day
It's a middle of summer and these days are really hot today was about 30 degrees in centigrade even in cool Sapporo. I smelled grilled eel (うなぎの蒲焼"Unagi no Kabayaki) when I went around my flat this evening. Then I remembered that today is midsummer day of the ox (土用の丑の日"Doyo-no-Ushi-no-hi"), which is as known as the day to eat grilled eel in Japan.
This tradition allegedly started in 1800s. There's many stories about the origin of this tradition, but the most popular one is restaurant owner who was in slump selling eel in midsummer asked Gennai Hiraga(平賀源内). Then he proposed to set midsummer day of the ox as the day to eat grilled eel.
Now we can buy grilled eel almost everywhere in Japan on midsummer day of the ox, we can even buy it at convenience stores. But the price of eels are getting expensive due to lack of elver (glass eel). Most of eels which we eat in Japan are artificially raised in ponds and lakes in Japan, China and Taiwan. These elver are came from many places including Europe. Because there's massive demand of eating eel in Japan, the amount of Japanese eel got shortage, then they started to import elver from Europe.
According to the statistics, about 70% of eels are consumed in Japan. So, now both Japanese eels and Europe eels have been added to "endangered" category of Japanese government's Red List of animals. I went to nearby supermarket and checked the price of grilled eel and that was about 2,000 JPY (about 20 USD). Maybe we cannot buy eel in near future... I hope that won't happen.
Anyway, I didn't eat eel today same as 54% of Japanese people. According to NHK 46% of Japanese people answered that they ate grilled eel today.
Thanks.
This tradition allegedly started in 1800s. There's many stories about the origin of this tradition, but the most popular one is restaurant owner who was in slump selling eel in midsummer asked Gennai Hiraga(平賀源内). Then he proposed to set midsummer day of the ox as the day to eat grilled eel.
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| Hitsumabushi (櫃まぶし) One of eel foods of Japan |
According to the statistics, about 70% of eels are consumed in Japan. So, now both Japanese eels and Europe eels have been added to "endangered" category of Japanese government's Red List of animals. I went to nearby supermarket and checked the price of grilled eel and that was about 2,000 JPY (about 20 USD). Maybe we cannot buy eel in near future... I hope that won't happen.
Anyway, I didn't eat eel today same as 54% of Japanese people. According to NHK 46% of Japanese people answered that they ate grilled eel today.
Thanks.
31 December 2015
A week in Hakodate
It’s new year’s eve. This year I’ve been lots of places this year I think, but most of them are business trip… Anyway, this month I went to Hakodate which located in southwest of mainland Hokkaido.
I’ve been here in Sapporo for about 5 years, but I’d never been there yet.
Hakodate is the third largest city in Hokkaido after Sapporo and Asahikawa, and one of the most important port town in northern Japan. Hakodate also will be the first station which stop Shinkansen (bullet train) in Hokkaido next March.
I’ve been here in Sapporo for about 5 years, but I’d never been there yet.
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| Map of Hakodate |
As usual, I’ve been there for business trip then I didn’t have much time to enjoy sightseeing there… But I could enjoy local gourmet during my stay.
Hakodate is more than 300 km away from Sapporo, and it take about 5 hours to get there by car.
Well, honestly it’s not good for me to drive 5 hours with not comfortable car…
I had another job which I need to do until go to Hakodate, so I arrived hotel at 11 PM.
And of course, I couldn’t enjoy scenery during my drive. Yes, I cannot see anything, everything were in darkness...
From the hotel, I could see Goryokaku tower which is in Goryokaku Park.
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| Night view from my hotel room |
And here's morning view from my hotel room.
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| Morning view from my hotel room |
I wanted to delete the building on left to see perfect view, but of course I cannot use magic.
Hakodate is famous for beautiful night view from Mt. Hakodate, but it was a little away from my hotel and I couldn't go there during my stay. I hope I can see that next time!
You can check the review on trip advisor from the link below.
Hakodate is famous for squid. Look at the video above, it's still moving!!
Unfortunately, it's not the best season to eat squid, but it was really nice. I hope I can come back at the best season of squid!
Thanks.
02 October 2015
A week in Busan
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| View from Yongdusan Park |
In the late August, I was in Busan due to my job. It was my first time to visit South Korea. I though that I need to pay attention during my stay in South Korea, because I heard many bad things such as Korean people dislike Japanese. But there's no problem, they were very kind and nice.
I was working there same as in Japan, I worked overtime same as in Japan. I though working life both in Japan and Korea are almost same. Also, I've arrived there at evening of Sunday, and started to work from Monday morning. Then I left there early Saturday morning. Which means I couldn't have much time to go around Busan.
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| Townscape of Busan |
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| Foods there |
I also felt that foods there are similar to Japanese one, but some of them are hot because most of them include red peppers. But it was good.
If I can, I would like to visit there again and take more time to go around there.
Thanks.
14 June 2015
Bicycle ride
It's already June, and it have been more than 6 months passed since I posted last article.
It seems I need some kind of reminder to write new article. In most of cases, I use evernote to write my draft article. So I can edit my article anywhere and anytime. In fact, I wrote some draft on my evernote, but I couldn't upload them to my blog due to some reasons.
Today, I'm going to write about the event that I joined a month ago. But before that I should write about my bicycle and previous event.
Last year, I bought another bicycle to make my holiday much fun. I have the cyclo-cycle that I bought 7 years ago, and last year I bought road bike.
Here is my new bicycle. Focus's CAYO EVO TEAM Replica. It's my first carbon made bicycle, and my first road bike. It's far light than my previous bicycle and have a better gears. Which means, I can ride faster and longer with this bicycle. Then I joined bicycle ride event in Sapporo last year.
Last August I joined Tour of Kamui Ishikari-Shinshinotsu stage, and rode about 140 km in a day. It's not race and there were 3 different groups which divided by average speed (25 km/h, 20 km/h and 15 km/h). I chose middle, but my group was faster than other groups then we needed to upgraded to the fastest group. That was really tough for me to ride about 100 km including mountains with average speed 25 km/h, but I arrived to goal with them.
I rode my bicycle several times last year, but I couldn't join any bicycle event except this one. There's cold winter here in Sapporo and we cannot ride bicycle during winter because snow covers road. Then I started to ride bicycle again in April, and last month I joined Tour of Kamui Sapporo stage. Which is same bicycle event I joined last year, but it's ride in different place. They have several stages and this time I joined Sapporo stage. There's no mountain and not so long stage.
Red line in the map shows my path of my riding. This stage was about 80 km long, and almost flats. But there's strong winds. The strong winds made us slow down to about 10 to 15 km/h even in the fastest group. That was really tough, but final few kilometres the wind stopped and good weather for bicycle riding. I will join these bicycle event this year too, and maybe I will write about the event that I might join.
Thanks.
20 October 2014
For so long
After half a year of absence, I finally back to posting my blog.
During half a year, many things changed. First of all, the season change to Autumn!
Last week, I went to Niseko. It was beautiful sunny day, so I took video during my way to Niseko. That was wonderful drive except why I went there. But I could enjoy beautiful scenery there. Check the video below.
It's my first try to shoot time-lapse video. I couldn't set my iPhone on to my dashboard, so I put my lens-camera put onto dashboard and edited it later.
Not only in Niseko, the leaves in many places turn into red or yellow and looks beautiful. I went to Heiwa-no-taki falls in Sapporo, which is near from my apartment and it's good place to cycle to there.
Then I found this beautiful scene.
Now I can enjoy beautiful and colourful scene here in Hokkaido, but after few weeks these scene will be changed to white. Winter is almost there and I'm going to enjoy snow boarding!
Thanks
During half a year, many things changed. First of all, the season change to Autumn!
Last week, I went to Niseko. It was beautiful sunny day, so I took video during my way to Niseko. That was wonderful drive except why I went there. But I could enjoy beautiful scenery there. Check the video below.
Not only in Niseko, the leaves in many places turn into red or yellow and looks beautiful. I went to Heiwa-no-taki falls in Sapporo, which is near from my apartment and it's good place to cycle to there.
Now I can enjoy beautiful and colourful scene here in Hokkaido, but after few weeks these scene will be changed to white. Winter is almost there and I'm going to enjoy snow boarding!
Thanks
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