Category Archives: Photos

MOOKA, March 3 ― Mooka, north of Tokyo, is Japan’s largest producer of strawberries. Now, the growers welcome visitors with strawberry-shaped handmade dolls hanging from ceiling. The timing coincides March 3, a Japanese traditional holiday, also known as Girls’ Day or Hina Matsuri, which wishes for the good health for young females in a family. It is customary to display beautiful dolls in the house. The strawberry growers started hanging the handmade dolls from ceiling since last year, as a way to promote the National Strawberry Summit, which will be taken place in March 2020 in Mooka, Tochigi prefecture.

TSURUOKA, Feb. 24 ― As the month of March is approaching, so is the production of Japanese rice cakes here that feature local farm produce in Yamagata prefecture. March 3 is a Japanese traditional holiday, also known as Girls’ Day or Hina Matsuri, which wishes for the good health for young females in a family. It is customary to display beautiful dolls in the house. Tsuruoka city has a tradition to display its rice cakes next to those dolls. The rice cakes resemble locally grown vegetables and fruits such as cherry.

SAITAMA, Feb. 18 ― Japanese growers are harvesting chicory leaves in Saitama, one of the country’s main suppliers of the western vegetable for more than three decades. The chicory heads have fully grown out of the root and are now ready to be packaged. All this is done in early mornings or evenings to avoid daylight in order to maintain the white color of delicate leaves.

IWATE, Mar. 11 – The large mural measures 8 meters in height and 43 meters in width and under the colorful trees and flowers, children are holding hands with each other－the picture on the wall was painted by Saeko Fujii, a 74-year-old persimmon farmer in Kamaishi city, Iwate Prefecture, and the locals. She turned part of her farmland into the park and painted the wall of the adjacent plant with the colorful picture for the children who lost their playgrounds because of the tsunami after the Great East Japan Earthquake, The idea of painting the wall came from a word murmured by a girl. In 2012, Fujii created the park … Continue reading →