Category Archives: Photos

The number of gourmet food trucks is growing in the central part of Tokyo. At lunch time at several locations in downtown Tokyo, you’ll find groups of small trucks with on-board kitchens, which serve a various kind of dishes cooked on the wheels. They are called “Kitchen Cars” in Japanese and their menu items hail from all over the world and include not only Japanese food but also Western, Chinese and Ethnic food, successfully drawing the attentions of foodies in Tokyo.

Okawara-no-Hinagashi is a festival held on August 16, every year, in Okawara, Kuroishi-shi, Aomori Prefecture, where small straw boats are set on fire and let out in the river. The festival with an approximately 700 years of history has been preserved by the community as a ritual to tell if people can expect abundant crops next year. The three boats were put in the water in the evening and the locals set fire to them. Five or six young local men called Funako in traditional working clothes walked along each boat, pulling and pushing it to help it travel approximately 400 meters in the wild rocky river. At the end … Continue reading →

Once a year on the day of the ox in midsummer in Japan, a Buddhist temple in Saijo-shi, Ehime Prefecture performs a unique traditional ritual called Kyuri-fuji, which literally means a cucumber sealing service. The Buddhist rite is held by the temple, Setayakushi, to pray for good health of people by having cucumbers bear all the bad conditions of for example the people suffering long-standing illnesses. On July 30, 2016, the ceremony began with the sound of a shell horn blown loudly. The main hall of the temple was filled with approximately 6,000 cucumbers set on big wooden trays. Local Buddhist practitioners beat a dram and ringed shakujo, Buddhist ringed … Continue reading →

A patchwork of golden rice plants and white soba buckwheat flowers is in full harvest in the Ikegahara district of Ojiya, Niigata Prefecture. In the Ikegahara district, which mainly produces rice, such patchwork landscape has been seen in autumn since around 2000, when farmers began cultivating soba to rotate crops. This year, harvesting started on Sept. 10 and combines are plowing on in the fields lining up in geometric patterns.