Yamaguchi trip day 2 final Akiyoshi dou

After lunch, we went to Akiyoshi dai's famous cave (a type of Sho nyu dou), called Akiyoshi dou.

It is hard to see, but the cave was huge!
There were many people visiting the cave but it was not crowded at all!

The white statue looking thing in the middle of the photo is buddha.
It looks like statue of a woman praying.
It is amazin that this human looking statue was also made by mother nature.

This rock is called "Jellyfish going up the water"
The rocks do look like jellyfish don't you think?

This is a huge long hall in the cave.
It is called "dragon's hole/exsit".
It did look like a huge dragon could go through the hole.

Walking down the stairs

Looking back the way we walked past.. lots of stairs.

The sharp things on the roof is called "umbrellas".
It looked like there were lots of umbrellas hanging from the roof.

This long rather thin rock pole is called "Daikoku bashira"
which means the most important, core part of something.
I don't think this pole is holding the rest of the cave,
but it does look like the main wood pole we use to build our house!
Daikoku bashira also means "breadwinner" in the family.

This part of the cave is called 100 plates.







After the cave, we walked back to the car park and my sister drove us back to her house.

After staying underground for a while,
outside light was too bright on my eyes!

We walked pass this old restaurant..
the sign board says Wakabaen branch...
Which means ... there is another of this kind somewhere in Yamaguchi?
It was closed today but not sure if it's just today..

On our way back, we stopped by at Hagi.

 

There were statues of famous people in the history.

 

 

 

Hagi souvenir shop!



I bought Yuzu Ponzu (the soya sauce looking yellow bottle on top)
and Natsu mikan wakame (the bottom left) from Hagi!

Yuzu ponzu is like vinegery soya sauce with Yuzu flavour.
Natsu mikan wakame is mixture of dried summer oranges and seaweed

I bought the rest (lotus roots ramen noodles & mentai mayonaise)
from the Yamaguchi airport on the last day.

This is a post box which Hagi people built long long time ago.
They have preserved it very well and they still use it today.

 After buying all the facinating souvenirs at Hagi, we head back to my sister's place.

My sis is renting a house in Yamaguchi
and the owner of the house invited us to their house for a delicious BBQ!

It was a long but full of fun, nice people, beautiful nature and delicious food day! :)


 

 



Yamaguchi Trip Day2 continues..

 

Finally, our final destination is,

 

Akiyoshidai!

 

This area is called Karst landscape.

You might have heard of it in Geography class?

It is a special landscape made by mother nature...

 

Ok I don't know how to explain so I quoted a line from wikipedia

 

"Karst topography is a geological formation shaped by the dissolution of layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite. "

 

Do you get it now?

No?

 

Well you can also check out Akiyoshi dai tourist website here ☆

You can choose Japanese/English/Chinese.

 

 

 

 



It might be very hard to see from those pictures, but can you see grey dots on the mountains?

Those are the karst rocks.

 





There are small, but many.

 

 

 

 

 

After stopping the car right outside of the Karst landscape and enjoying the fresh air,

we became really hungry.

So we drove further down and stopped over at this small shop where we could have lunch while over seeing the Karst landscape even closer.

 

 

 

First thing we saw at the shop was ICE CREAM!!

We had to buy one- even though it was right before lunch.

 





 

 

Here, they didn't sell Tomato soft cream,

but summer orange soft cream and pear soft cream!

We bought one of each and shared.



This one is the summer orange soft cream!

This was really amazing!

You must try this.

You won't regret it!





"Welcome to the observatory house"



Can you see a green lable on the guy in the middle?

There are 3 guys made of alminium cans and the one in the middle.

Yes?

 

Welcome is called "kan gei" in Japanese.

 

The word Kan gei is usually written like this 歓迎

But here, they wrote 缶迎 instead.

Both sounds the same but 缶 has a different meaning from 歓

缶 actually means alminium can.

The object was made of cans, so they put 缶 instead of 歓

.. YES, funny?

 

I loved the way they played jokes around this. 

 

I felt very welcomed.

 

 



Next to the can guys, there was this green headed guy.

This is a charactor to represent and promoteYamaguchi.

His name is Choruru.

His name comes from Yamaguchi direct.

In Yamaguchi direct, people end each sentense with "Choru"

and that is how he has got this name "Choruru".

 

The owner of the observatory house explained this to us :)

 

 

 

His head looks like mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, time for lunch!

(In case you have forgotten, this is a food blog by the way)

 

 

 

 

 

My brother ordered Niku Udon (Udon with meat)

Katsu curry for my sis

 

 

 

 

Kitsune Udon for my mum

(Udon with very smooth fried bean curd cooked in sweet Japanese sauce)

 

 

 

 

 

Finally...

 

 

Katsu don for myself!

 

Katsu don has been my favourite food since I was small..

So I was fat in kindergarten.

 

 



ANYWAY

 

 

 When I found Katsu don in the menu, I couldn't resisit ordering it.

My sis couldn't resisit ordering katsu curry either.

But can you see that my mum and bro, the smart ones ordered Udon?

 

We knew that we were having a BBQ  for dinner so they regulated the food intake for lunch.

 

Well, later at dinner, I coudn't eat as much as they did

and I regreted my decision at lunch for a second,,,, 

but NO. Katsu don was great

and I am happy and proud that I ordered it without hesitation! haha

 

 

 

Hmm my dad couldn't join us for Yamaguchi trip this time

 cos he couldn't take leave from work :(

I wish he was there too.

I wonder what my dad would have ordered at lunch.

 

 

Well, we brought him back a lot of funny stories and photos and souveniers to share :)

 

 

 



Yamaguchi Trip Day2

 

 

Next morning

 

 

I woke up with beautiful yet very loud orchestra music from my sis's music player

 

and  fresh air with beautiful scenery,

 

 

And very special  breakfast my sister made for us!!!

 

 

 



 

While we were still asleep, my sister woke up early and made such beautiful breakfast for us!

I was so touched!!!

 

 

*Potato salad with smoked salmon

*English muffin with egg, pork, nicely grilled, very fresh and sweet local veggies and

special tomato sauce again made out of delicious local tomatoes!



 

 

The sauce was very delicious, simply beautiful.

The sweetness and sourness of the tomatoes.. ah it was perfect!

 



Thank you very much sis!!!

I LOVE YOU and LOVE your food!!!!!

 

 

 

After the beautiful breakfast, we went out.

I am sure my sis was tired, but she drove us to a famous cave in Yamaguchi.

I think it was another 2+ hour drive.

 

...Only if I could convert my Australian license to Japanese one...

 

 

 

 

 

Our first stop on our way was...

 

Happiness Fukue restaurant

 

 

 

Well, we didn't eat here.

 

We just stopped over to see souveniers and to use a bathroom.

 



 

There was a huge stage next to the Happniess Fukue

and so my sister and I danced on the stage for a while.

It was a bit of fun. 

But then, there were only 2 cars parked just across the stage

and no one but only my family was watching us dance.

Such ashame.

I needed a bigger audience.

 

 

 

After that, we drove further up or down I don't know, but  towards Hagi.



 

Hey a house!

 

house, house, more houses!

 

 

 It is not really a "city" if you compare this with Tokyo,

but this is very much like a city if you compare it with the town where my sis lives now!

We got excited to see so many houses in one place!

 

 

 

 

Then we accidentally drove into a free way.

Our car navigator was confusing us!

We were going crazy when we realised that it was a wrong way

and what is more, it was a free way! 

We also missed the first exit and had to continue a while more

untill we managed to find a way out.

It was so funny!

 

But then, we got to see such a breautiful sea in Yamaguchi, all because we took a wrong way.

It was not part of our plan, but such accident just makes our trip more special and memorable.

So it was all good at the end.

 

The trip continues...



Yamaguchi trip day1 continues...

 

After stuffing ourselves with delicious organic veggie buffet,

we drove further more and finally reached the town my sister lives.

 

 

The picture below is the scenery just behind "Michi No Eki" = Road station.

Road station is a station for a small train which runs along the road once a day.

If I remember correctly, it runs only on weekends.

I visited Yamaguchi on weekdays so I didn't get to see the train,

but I could see a cute train rail along the road.

 

 

I love the conbination of mountains and rivers!!

This scenery reminds me of my childhood memories.

My grandparents used to live in an area with a beautiful scenery like this.

 

It is simply relaxing to just sit there and observe water drifting slowly down the river.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside of the road station, there was a small exhibition of a famous chainsaw artist.

 

 

He is a well-known artist who craves trees with a chainsaw

to makes those very detailed animal shaved statues.

He participated in some contests in the US and won the first prize!

 

An well known animal carved by a well known artist

... Chopper from One Piece!

 

 

 

 

 

After spending some time in the road station, my sister took us to the nearest supermarket, which is actually another drive down to another town.

We bought some ingredients for dinner and breakfast for the next day.

 

 

Then we saw a shop selling tomato soft cream.

We were still very full from the buffet lunch earlier, but thought that we must try this!

 

Why?

Well, you know, it is the Tomato soft cream!

Have you seen or tasted such thing before?!

 

 

 

So, it looks like this.

 



Quite cute, don't you think?

This town is famous for tomato farms and that is why they were selling tomato soft cream.



The red part is made of tomatoes and the white part is vanilla ice cream!

 

You wonder how it tastes like?

Well, you must try it yourself!

 

 

 

 

At night,  we saw a praying mantis in my sister's place!

Coooool!

 

I love praying mantis because they look cool.

But one thing I learnt from experience is that you should never put him/her on your hand.

 It will climb up till your shoulder and you will get rushes on the next day.

 

 



Yamaguchi trip day 1

 

I remember I wrote 2 posts about my family's visit in Singapore few months back...

The first article was called, my family's visit in Singapore

and I worte how happy I was to have my family with me in Singapore ☆

Then another one was called Family trip in Singapore day1 ★

 

 

hmm? What had happened to Day2 and 3 and 4 and 5??

 

Well,  I ended up only writing about day 1. So there is no Day2, 3,4 or 5 in my blog... yet.

 

So this time I'm really hoping, and am going to make it till day3, the last day of my Yamaguchi trip!!

 

So let me start from Day1 first.

 

I woke up very early in the morning.

Well, more precisely, my mum helped me wake up very early in the morning.

We needed to catch the earliest train.

We had to get to the Haneda ariport to catch the 7am flight to Yamaguchi.

 

A night before the trip, my brother and I discussed how we were going to spend the next few hours most effectively.

It was already after mid-night and we needed to wake up at 3:30am.

Shall we stay awake for the next few hours reading comic books or watching the lord of the rings?

 

Well, I dont have a good experience staying up the whole night.

Last time when I was in Australia and trying to catch 6am flight back to Tokyo, I tried to stay awake till the morning and I almost made it. But I ended up falling asleep like 30 mins before the time I was supposed to leave the house. And yes, I had almost missed my flight.

 

 

 

So based on my own experience, my brother and I decided to sleep, for about 3 hours.

 

 

 

Just like s usual plane ride, it took a long time to get to the airplane.

Check in your bags, go through security, walk to the gate, wait for the gate to open, go in to the plane, find your seat, sit down, wear your seat belt, wait for the airplane takes off....

 

 

I hadn't taken domestic flight since high school, but hey, the ride itself was super short!

 

 

By the time the seat belt sign was off, we were already flying above Shizuoka or Kyoto even!

(well, that was what my brother said)

 

 

 

Ok, the introduction became way too long.

 

 

So finally we landed at the Yamaguchi airport.

 

 

 

Rafutei (Okinawan pork dish) looking statue just outside of the airport.

 

Yum

 

 

Nice weather!

I missed you mountains!

 

Singapore has beaches but doesn't have mountains :( 

 

 

 

The reason why we visited Yamaguchi this time was to see my cute young sisiter.



My  sister has been working in one of the small towns in Yamaguchi 

This area is famous for farming but recently it has been seriously afffected by the aging population. The town is still very alive but farming is really a hard work for old people, really.

 

So she decided to help out the local community.

She works with them to grow beautiful natural products such as very sweet organic tomatoes, water melons, eggplants as well as other delicious veggies which I had never seen before in Tokyo.

 (Everything was so fresh, so very delicious, I had never ever tasted such beautiful and sweet veggies and fruits before in my life)

 

 

 She also helps them organise and run lots of traditional and cutulrally unique events!

These events are not only run for the local community but also to attract people from other cities to come and visit the village.

 

 

 



 

 

So we rented a car and my sister drove us down to the town she lives!

 

The town is located somewhat few hours drive from the airport, so we stopped over at some interesting places on our way and she showed us a lot of cool stuff about Yamaguchi.

 

 

 

 

Our first destination.

We stopped by at somewhat more city like place for lunch.

 



Organic veggie buffet!!

 

I am gaining weight, but I couldn't bother.

Delicious, and what is more, very healthy!

 



Today's dinner- back in Singapore

 

 

Today's dinner

 

 

*Tomato stew with broccolies, carrots, pumpkins and pork

*Radish and Tuna salad with Pickled plum dressing

*Okura (lady's finger) and tuna salad with Mentaiko mayonaise (from Yamaguchi!)

 

 

 I was back in Japan for holiday for 2 weeks!

I caught up with my friends, attended my friend's wedding, and also visited Yamaguchi prefecture for the first time.

 

I am going to talk about my trip in Japan later, but this is what I ate after I came back to Singapore.

I felt like eating lots of veggies because I ate lots of delicious veggies back in Japan.

I am in love with veggies now.

 

I can't forget the delicate taste of very fresh organic veggies in Yamaguchi.. that is something I can't eat here in Singapore... But still today's dinner was yummy! and I am happy about it.