One Week in Chiba: Part 3 ~life in the countryside~

Still continuing with my parents' first full day here in Chiba:

After spending some time to enjoy the lovely view from the Kamogawa Grand Tower, we headed back out for second half of our sightseeing in Kamogawa - this time, to enjoy the mountain culture!

First stop: Oyama Senmaida, one of my favoritest places ever!

After the rice has been harvested already, but it's still gorgeous!

The spider lilies were in bloom too!

We also went to a nearby favorite of mine, Minnami no Sato. It's a rest area with a farmer's market, fields/green houses where you can pick vegetables and fruits of the season, a souvenir shop, workshops, as well as a cafeteria serving food made only from locally made ingredients! I love dropping by the cafeteria to see what kind of soft serve ice cream they have, as they always have some sort of limited time flavor.

This time, it was ichijiku, or fig flavored.

Parents enjoying the soft serve.

How to make your very own tai-senbei!

After Minnami, we still had a little time before our next engagement, so I took my parents to make tai-senbei, or sea bream crackers. These are pretty popular souvenirs from Kamogawa - they were originally created for people to eat instead of the sea breams from the Tai-no-Ura, which I mentioned in a previous post.

1) So first, begin by filling the special plate with the batter. It's advisable to pour the batter in one small spoon at a time, and then tilt the plate around to fill it in evenly.

Everyone is real serious about making perfect crackers.

2) Next, you top your crackers with the topping you choose. They have poppy seeds, black and white sesame seeds, and pepper. Then, hand your plate in so they can be baked for about 10 minutes.

3) Next it's a race against time! You need to pick the crackers out of the plate (while taking care not to burn yourself - it's really hot!). This is important because if you take too long, the crackers will harden and you won't be able to get it to bend in so that they look more "realistic."

4) And...the final product! You can eat them there, or take them home. So cute!!!!!

Rosso Bianco!!!

Then, finally it was time for dinner - and another local favorite/my FAVORITE restaurant in the entire world. I joke not. The food is simply AMAZING...I have taken a ton of other people and so far everyone has only agreed with me.

And for your enjoyment, pictures of some of the delicious food here!

Kicchan's favorite - 牛肉のカルパチョ！

Hamburger steak (is that what you call them in English?) with eggplant.

Herb sauce spaghetti!

Day 2...

I am putting this in the same post because I actually only have the following couple of pictures from Day 2. We stayed in our hotel until close to check-out time so we could enjoy the view, and then we visited Kamogawa City Hall before driving along the Tokyo Bay coast up to Chiba City (unfortunately it was pouring buckets all day, so it wasn't nearly as pretty as I was hoping it would be, but still lots of fun nonetheless!

And here are the photos from City Hall:

In my old office, with some of my former coworkers!

And two of my bestest lady friends from Kamogawa! How I miss them~.

Next stop: Tokyo Disneyland's Halloween!