Yup, if you’ve been paying attention, that’s the manhole cover from Yame, the city in southern Fukuoka Prefecture that produces a rather large amount of tea. Yame is also known for its handmade paper and some stunning seasonal displays of wisteria and plum blossoms, among other blooms. So why the rather cryptic manhole cover? I can’t decide if it’s a rising/setting sun or the paw of a very large, genetically modified dog. Thoughts?

I’ll be traveling again quite a bit this summer but until then, the Manhole Monday posts might have to take a bit of a hiatus. Thanks, as always, for reading!

The plains of Makinohara are some of the most prolific tea growing fields in all of Shizuoka. At Greenpia, you too can join in the fun of the tea harvest. Participants don the traditional looking hapi coats of the region’s tea pickers and are given baskets (with straps, so your hands remain free) to carry out with them to the tea fields. Pickers are given a brief introduction before heading out to the bushes; for English speakers, a written translation was provided.

Properly attired to pick tea

Out in the fields, the work is more of the fun rather than back-breaking variety. Close up, tea bushes remind me of hedgerows and you have to search carefully for the young leaves. If you choose the wrong ones, you’re the only one who will pay the price. All of your tea is bundled up at the end and given to you as a take-home gift. The average picking time is about 20 minutes so there’s not too much time for younger pickers to get bored.

This was my “haul” of tea

Greenpia also boasts a small museum on their property, dedicated to the production of this perennially popular beverage. When I was there, English signage was pretty sparse but the machines might interest younger visitors. I, on the other hand, was more intrigued by Greenpia’s onsite restaurant, where the entire meal was tinged with tea. For less than $18, we feasted on nearly ten separate tea-flavored courses. From battered tea leaf tempura with green tea salt to tea-flavored soba noodles, it was definitely a memorable meal.

A little blurry, but here’s what I ate

There’s a bit more English information here, with a link to Greenpia’s Japanese homepage.

Admittedly, the name is a bit of a misnomer – this is neither a garden, in the true sense of the word, or very central or accessible, unless you have a car. (Without one, a taxi from central Yame city is your best option.) What you’ll find here, instead, are rows upon rows upon even more rows of green tea bushes, covering the rolling slopes outside of town. When I was there in the winter, there was nothing to do but walk the fields or take in the scope of it all from the viewpoint on one of the higher hills. In tea picking season, however, the garden offers official tours in Japanese and also the chance to sample and buy some of their products from their nearby shop.

You can find more information on Fukuoka prefecture’s excellent English-language tourism site.

Kanaya is a small town on the Tokaido Main Line between Shizuoka and Hamamatsu cities. While there’s not much to the train station area today, in the Edo Period (1603-1858), the village’s position on the west side of the Oi River made it one of the only places to stop and wait for the river to become low enough to ford. (The shogunal government forbade the building of a bridge or ferry system, as a means of slowing any possible approaching army from the provinces.)  Travelers were forced to stop and wait in Kanaya and the town prospered. When progress (in the form of a bridge) arrived and there was no need to stop in Kanaya, the town turned to tea for money.

The Oi River just outside Kanaya

Those tea bushes are still around and make for some lovely scenery. One of the best ways to view them is from a seat on the Oigawa Railway. For 40 kilometers between Kanaya and the mountain hamlet of Senzu, an old-fashioned steam train carries passengers through those tea fields nearly every day of the year. It’s a relaxed, yet fascinating, journey into the mountains of Shizuoka. Conductors wander through the wooden cars, singing and telling jokes to passengers. Train bentos are available from the station, meaning you can snack on Shizuoka specialties (and top those sushi rolls with a train-shaped tube of soy sauce!). You can (carefully) hang out the windows and shoot pictures to your heart’s content or just sit back and (try to) get comfortable on the wooden benches.

All aboard! The Oigawa steam train prepares to leave Kanaya

If you’re on a day trip, don’t linger when you arrive in Senzu. Hop a bus and head out to the Sumatakyo Suspension Bridges, a series of rickety looking bridges that cross the turquoise waters of the Oi River. They sway scarily back and forth in the breeze but most of these bridges are thoroughly safe to cross (only one or two are clearly falling down and are, just as clearly, marked as such). Unless vertigo gets the better of you, this is a great way to get out and stretch your legs before taking a steam train back to civilization.

One of the Sumata-kyo Suspension Bridges

You can get more info on the Oigawa Steam Railway here. Reservations in English can now be made online.

Certain prefectures in Japan are known for their tea production, among them Shizuoka, the Uji region in Kyoto prefecture and Kagoshima. Shizuoka accounts for over 40% of the tea produced on the archipelago but in truth, you can find tea bushes as far north as Niigata.

Tea bushes in Fukuoka

Only green tea is grown in Japan, but there are various types. The most popular is sencha, a “high-grade” tea where the leaves are first steamed to reduce the bitterness and then crushed and dried. Gyokura is nearly the same as sencha, but is comprised of the tips of tea leaves from bushes that were sheltered by bamboo screens. These teas are usually harvested in the spring, around Golden Week time (April 29-May 5). A lower-grade of tea, called bancha, is harvested later in the summer when the leaves are considered to be a bit tougher. Shincha is the year’s first harvest of green tea (the youngest leaves) and usually comes on the market around Golden Week. (See, Golden Week is HUGE in Japan! )

Freshly harvested tea leaves

If you’ve been to Japan, you’ve probably also come across matcha, a powdered form of high-grade green tea. This is the tea that is whisked together for participants in a tea ceremony or added to certain wagashi sweets or traditional desserts. You might have also stumbled across oolong tea, a semi-fermented tea often grown in Taiwan and mugicha, a tea made from barley kernels that is one of the first drinks given to Japanese babies.

Cups of green tea

Probably one of the most iconic images of Japan is a field of tea bushes in Shizuoka with a snow-capped Mt Fuji in the background. In the next few entries, I’ll tell you how you can get a great close up view of these, or other tea plantations, and even how to harvest tea yourself. Stay tuned!

One of my favorite areas (and a popular one at that) in Kyoto is the southern Higashiyama area. Higashiyama literally means “eastern mountains” and that’s exactly where this neighborhood sits, snuggled up against the hills. Since the 14th century, it’s been a favorite locale for temples, shrines and private villas. Numerous traditional gardens hide behind these sumptuous structures, making this a delightful neighborhood to linger in. You could quite easily walk through the area in under an hour, but why would you want to? Spend at least a half day discovering the quaint shops, cafes, and sights below:

I’d start any visit to Southern Higashiyama at the Kiyomizu Temple. This is the UNESCO-honored granddaddy of them all, with an enviable mountain perch and a massive porch that provides striking views over both the city and the ever-changing forest palette (cherry blossoms and maples are particularly spectacular here). A well-marked path leads up the hill behind the shrine, allowing for the perfect photo op of this nearly half-century old structure which was built without the use of a single nail. Within the temple grounds, don’t miss the “love stones”, a pair of rocks placed 18 meters apart. Legend holds that if you can successfully walk from one to the other with your eyes closed, you’ll find true love.

Kiyomizu Temple

From Kiyomizu-dera, meander downhill along the Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka. These two lanes, whose names translate as “three year slope” and “two year slope”, hint at the old superstition that pilgrims who stumbled on these lanes would merit that length of bad luck. If this area seems insanely picturesque, it’s due to its designation as a historic preservation district and is one of the best (and only) spots left in Kyoto to glimpse the wooden two-story homes of former merchants.

Along the Ninenzaka

As you walk the Ninenzaka, you might notice a long set of stairs that seems to disappear up and over the hill. This is the entrance to Kodai-ji, a temple that once functioned as a nunnery. It’s most famous resident was the widow of warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, considered one of Japan’s unifiers in the 16th century. Unless you’re really into Japanese history, it’s not one of Kyoto’s more memorable or photogenic temples, but there is a small bamboo forest and a lovely teahouse on the grounds.

Teahouse at Kodai-ji

If you don’t get too sidetracked by the shops and cafes along the route, eventually the Ninenzaka will lead you to Maruyama Park (a top sight for cherry blossom viewing in the spring) and the back of the Yasaka Shrine. This colorful shrine, allegedly founded in 656 AD, is a favorite of the citizens of Kyoto. On any given day, you’ll find parents arriving with newborns to receive a blessing, young and old alike clad in kimonos, and businessmen and tourists stopping in for a quick prayer. Yasaka Shrine is also the epicenter of the Gion Matsuri every July, a festival that’s considered to be one of Japan’s top three.

Cherries in bloom in Maruyama Park

Southern Higashiyama is home to an amazing tofu restaurant with a stunning garden, an intimate tea ceremony experience, and my favorite chocolate cafe. Want an itinerary that helps you make the most of a day in this neighborhood? Contact me for more details!

You may remember my post on Itako last June. This tiny town is located a two hour train ride east of Tokyo. Normally, there’s not much to draw travelers out here, but flower-loving tourists should absolutely attempt to catch Itako’s iris festival, held every weekend in June. Not only will you see beautiful flowers and kimono-clad dancers, but if you’re lucky, you might catch sight of a traditional wedding party (actors only, sorry) being ferried down one of the city’s many canals.

Golden Week is made up of four individual holidays. Starting off the spree on April 29th is Showa Day. This date marks the birthday of the late Emperor Showa (known to most non-Japanese as Hirohito, Japan’s Imperial ruler during World War II). While the current emperor’s birthday is also a holiday (December 23), this celebration was only added to the calendar in 2006.

Next up is Constitution Day, celebrated on May 3rd. It was on this date in 1947 that Japan’s new post-war constitution – a document that was written with much American assistance – was ratified.

The next holiday kind of snuck onto the calendar by default. May 4th is celebrated as Greenery Day. This holiday actually used to fall on April 29th, as the former Emperor Showa was a lover of nature and a fan of plants and flowers. However, thanks to an obscure law, May 4th must be treated as a holiday since it falls between two other national holidays. In any case, Greenery Day was moved and April 29th was renamed.

The last holiday to bookend the week is Children’s Day (Kodomo no hi). As with Girl’s Day, or Hina Matsuri, which is celebrated on March 3rd, this festival has been around for quite a while and – despite the name – honors boys. Families (and municipalities too) will often display colorful carp streamers outside their homes (or over large bodies of water) to mark the presence of young men in a household. Seeing the carp streamers over the river near my home in Okinawa was always, for me, a true sign of spring.

Forgive my laziness but, as with so many of my Japanese compatriots, I’m taking this week as a vacation myself. Actually, I’ve just returned from two weeks in Italy with my family but, as with many long distance trips, one needs time to recover from one’s vacation! I’ll pick back up here next Monday. I hope you all are enjoying spring!

Carp streamers over a river in Okinawa

Shizuoka is one of those magical prefectures, with scenery to fit anyone’s travel style. Want the sea? How about the entire coast of the Izu Peninsula? Are mountains your thing? Well, there’s Fuji  … need I say more? Surprisingly though, the prefecture’s main town (also named Shizuoka) is overlooked on many a tourist itinerary.

Which is a shame, especially in strawberry season. Yes, bringing it back to those luscious red berries … probably the best place to indulge in a fruit-picking (and eating) experience is in one of the strawberry farms on the road that hugs Suruga Bay. The farms here sit at the base of the Nihondaira Plateau, facing south and in full view of the sun. Pick any one of them, pay your fee and receive your cup of “dipping sugar”. Chances are you won’t need this syrupy concoction – the berries are often sweet enough. But it comes with the price so you might as well try it.

Lush strawberries in Shizuoka

Strawberry picking here is more of the “all you can eat” variety. As I was busy looking around for containers and planning the strawberry jam I would make at home, our farm hand was explaining that we had 30 minutes to pick and eat all the strawberries we wanted. However, if I wanted to take any home, that was an additional fee (and I had to select from the pre-picked flats).

What seemed a tad disappointing at first (30 minutes only?? can’t take any home??) soon turned into strawberry euphoria (which all too quickly melted into strawberry overload ). For half an hour, we cruised the covered rows of one strawberry greenhouse after another, selecting only the plumpest specimens and savoring the crisp, sweet flavors on our tongue. As it turns out, 30 minutes is about 10 minutes too long to eat as many strawberries as one wants and, after that experience, I certainly didn’t want to take any home with me!

A strawberry greenhouse

Should you feel the need to walk off any strawberry-induced calories, the Kunozan Toshogu Mausoleum (the original burial place of the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu) is just down the road … and accessible by some 1159 stairs.

Nothing starts an argument faster in Japan than proclaiming one type of ramen to be better than another. Which is why the ShinYokohama Ramen Museum is the perfect place to go to make up your own mind about the matter.

Sure, part of the ShinYokohama Ramen Museum is just that – a museum. Sadly, the last time I was there, all of the exhibits were in Japanese only but the first floor is entirely devoted to the history and production of this much-admired noodle soup. You’ll see displays on ramen making tools, ramen bowls and even matchbooks from various ramen shops. You can trace the chronological history of ramen and its arrival (from China, of course) in Japan. You’ll even see a corner devoted to the currently maligned (oh the sodium!!) but revolutionary Cup Noodle, a Japanese creation that indeed changed the face of ramen and instant food production the world over.

The ShinYokohama Ramen Museum (Photo courtesy of ShinYokohama Ramen Museum)

But who are we kidding – the real fun is downstairs. Here’s where the museum becomes a pseudo theme park, representing the streets of a shitamachi  (local downtown) n the Showa period (specifically 1958, the year the Cup Noodle was born). There are cotton candy vendors and a roving sake cart, but the highlight is the nine ramen shops that offer noodles from all over Japan. Browse the museum guide to make your pick. Do you want shoyu (soy sauce) or shio (salt) based ramen? What about Kyushu’s famous tonkotsu (pork bone) noodles or the hearty miso broth of Hokkaido? All of the shops here are outposts of actual ramen shops that operate in Japan’s various prefectures. If you’ve got the appetite, you can eat your way from Sapporo to Kumamoto and back again.

Hokkaido miso ramen

Museum entrance is ¥300 and each bowl of ramen is an additional charge on top of that (payable at the individual restaurants). Check the English language website for detailed directions and a printable discount coupon.