Destinations: your mouths and barrels

We have hung persimmons under the eaves of
our ryokan.



They will become delicious dried persimmons.
The skin are finly peeled and hung with a bamboo
pole.

The skin is not directly sent to a bin; it is spread on a
big sheet and are dried for some use.



When it gets colder, we prepare a kind of pickled vegetables
called "takuan", pickled Japanese daikon raddish. The skin
is added to enrich the taste.

Sasakami area in Agano City is famous for persimmons
and there is an association among farmers that especially glow
this fruit.

I like both hard and soft texture of the persimmons. Dried ones
are also attractive. I like having the dried persimmons with some
cheese. It's brilliant!

They are hard workers, aren't they? ---Giving us a lot of happiness
from fruit itself and the skin!

Colours of autumn

We had a cold raining day today, however, one of our guests
stayed last night gave me a lovely way of thinking. He travelled
by his motor bike, and told me he enjoys each weather; if it rains,
he enjoys driving in the rain. How lovely, the ways he thinks.

Steps of autumn have been approaching to Deyu Onsen.
Leaves have been changing their colours into red, orange and
yellow. I guess it's slightly earlier than normal for them to
get into colours.

(Sorry, these were taken last week...)
At Kehoji temple:





Those coloured leaves are harmonised with leaves
of evergreen trees, giving us a gorgeous and colourful
time prior to a monochrome world made by pure
white snow in winter.

Welcome back

I visited a lake that is about 7km away from Deyu

Onsen yesterday moring. This lake, Hyoko, is famous for

swans from Siberia for passing the coldness of winter.

They come every autumn, staying over winter in the Hyoko.

The first group of this season arrived 1st of October,

which was nine days earlier than last year, accoring to

information that I got from the administraltion office

at the lake. Don' surprise the number they will be.....

it's over 5,000! Acutually, it is counted up to 5,678 today.

I guess Hyoko is pretty famous among Siberian swans.

The swan lake has been registered as one of the Ramsar

Convention sites hich tries to susutain original ecologies

on waterlands since 30.Oct.08.

(Please see their website: http://www.ramsar.org/

for more details.)

Thre are totally 37 registered sites in Japan so far.

It is amazing to have such a lovely site nearby!

Heading to the lake from a car parking, I found

somethig widely spread on a big blue sheet.

These are a lot of crust for the swans when they are

at the lake. Oh, I should mind you that they are out

for rice fields surrounded by the lake at day time,

seeking leftovers of rice, their gorgeous meal.

The crust is packaged in these cute paper bags.

when I arrived, there weren't so many swans...

Oh well, I was a bit late for visiting. Lucky them,

they are really the early birds!

I should ask them tips for getting up early.

Yet, there are a huge number of ducks.

Some of them were having rest on a small pier.

Of course as it's the swan lake, the litter is also.....

a swan! Pretty isn't it?

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. Please enjoy your

winter life.

Long time no see...

Hello.

I'm sorry....
I must admit that I was lazy not to update
our blog at all.

Summer is over, and it's autumn already. Oops.

OK, let me change the subject...

At dinner time, our guests have a lovely cup of
pudding. These days, we prepare this ↓




This is Yogurt mousse! The yogurt is local one,
and has got rich taste of freshness.
Apparently, my father also runs a sweet shop nearby,
and the paticier at the shop produces this delicious
afterwards.

I pretty enjoy seeing our guests' smiles after
dinner.

Bamboo basket: Traditional local craft

Imaita area, which is a next hamlet of our area, Deyu,

is famous for a handcraft.

Bamboo baskets! Take Kago in Japanese.

(Take=bamboo, Kago=basket)

They are so convenient and very useful.

I love these traditional handcrafts.

The big basket showed below has been used over

20 years. The more you use, the more it becomes

beautiful in colours.

The name of this basked is"Yumeji Kago"

Yumeji is a name of an famous illustlater

in an older time(Taisho period, back to

some 100 years ago) in Japan. He stayed in

Deyu spa for a certain time.

Old photo

Hello.

The photo below was taken in 1928, back to 81 years ago
when our present building was established.



Can you find people on the ground floor's roof?
They were special carpenters who mainly
built Buddism temples and Shinto shrines.

My great grand father and the leader of the
carpenters travelled many places to collect
their favourite timbers. The timbers used
for our building seem very strong, so after
over 80 years, it still remains "healthy".

The long time has essenced flavours to the
building.

Ume Power

It is a season of ume (Japanese plum).
We got the ume from our next door's beautiful garden.
My mother and I visited them and picked the gorgeous
fruit. We make umeboshi (pickled ume with salt and shiso leaves),
using the ume.



Ume plums are rippen around this season of a year,
which is also known as a raining season.
The raining season is called "tsuyu" that is written
"ume"(Japanese plum) and "ame" (rain).

Umeboshi gives great power to your body,
especially in summer, when you've got tiredness.