S1 Grand Prix = Strawberry Sweets in Sammu!

In line and desperate for strawberry sweets!

A couple weekends ago, I was up in Naruto, Sammu City, to attend the first ever S1 Grand Prix!

...and what is the S1 Grand Prix, you ask? Simple enough...a contest in Sammu City to see who can make the most delicious strawberry sweets!!

Since this is the first year they have ever done this event, my partner-in-crime and I agreed that we wouldn't really have to rush to get there. Boy were we wrong! We got there around 1pm, about 2 hours since the beginning of the event, and there was hardly anything left! Voting was completely over too.

Milk strawberry ice cream! It was seriously amazing.

Still, we managed to get strawberry daifuku, milk strawberry ice cream, and a couple other items that were probably not-so-strawberry related, but that stores had brought in to sell to people who had missed out on the sweets for the contest.

It was really cold, but the ice cream was so good it didn't matter!

Award winners, together with CHI-BA+KUN!

We weren't able to participate in the voting, but we did get to see the awards ceremony! I can't remember what everyone made, but I do know that the grand prize went to some place that had made a strawberry roll cake....which was totally gone by the time we had gotten there.

There were definitely a couple of foods I wished I had been able to try though! I remember there was a sign for strawberry ramen as well as for strawberry gnocchi...in any case, this is definitely an event to keep an eye out for! It was pretty popular despite only being the first year, so I'm looking forward to see how it will improve and expand next year.

Here's the event info in English though, just for your reference:
http://www.pref.chiba.lg.jp/kokusai/english/information/residents/news/issues/january2012.html#event0103