This is my favorite time of year, when the wisteria sweeps onto the seasonal stage, full of fragrance and old-world charm.  Wisteria is the grande dame of flowers: rich, opulent, and unapologetic. Tenacious and bold, she is lovely to behold, but if left to her own devices, she will conquer everything, including the yard and house.  In some parts of the U.S., wisteria is considered an invasive and dangerous species, ranking up there with bamboo.  What sad places these must be.

Fortunately, in Japan, one can enjoy this beautiful tree in its natural habitat.  The Japanese celebrate wisteria almost to the same fevered pitch as the sakura, with Wisteria Festivals (藤まつり) in almost every prefecture. At the Wisteria Festival in Ashikagawa flower park, one can even try the wisteria ice cream.  Closer to home, the Kameido Tenjin Shrine  is known as the best place in Tokyo to view the wisteria.  

From mid-April until the first week of May when the wisteria begin to bloom, the shrine plays host to its own matsuri.  Vendors tout the usual festival foods--yakisoba, yakiniku, okonomiyaki, fried donuts, etc. beneath the iridescent flowers.  Today it rained, so the vendors were not there.  It was too bad because I was looking forward to buying candied kumquats (a household favorite). On the bright side, the shrine grounds were not so crowded and a few perfectly placed people snaps could be had.

The shrine grounds are beautifully maintained, complete with koi pond, red bridges, and of course, a turtle fountain.

Wishes and prayers are written on strips of paper and tied to lines on the temple grounds.

The blooms are just getting started. I imagine within the next week or two, they will be at their radiant heights.  The shrine is easy to get to from the Kameido station, just follow the purple wisteria flags.  

Soaking my life away...

"Kusatsu yoi toko, ichido wa o-ide" (Come to Kusatsu once in your life, since it's such a wonderful place.).  What a compelling argument in favor of making the 2.5 hour + trek to the famed and almost mythical hot springs of Kusatsu (草津町), located deep in the heart of Gunma Prefecture.  Although it has only 6,000 inhabitants, there are over 100 hot springs in the area, all of which have an estimated 34,000 litres of hot spring water bubbles out of the ground per minute.  The town famously boasts the magical Yubatake (湯畑 "hot water field"), which helps the town consistently achieve the status of top ten onsen to visit in Japan.  Naturally, such an esteemed town would be adorned with the most fitting storm cover.

 

The Yubatake alone pours 5,000 litres per minute of hot spring water to the surface, and it is ranked as the most productive hot spring in all of Japan. The surface temperature of the water is more than 70 degrees Celsius, so it must be cooled before it can be used.  

As the water bubbles to the surface, it is channeled into long wooden tunnels made of Japanese pinewood. Here, the water is cooled and minerals are collected (also known as 湯の花 "flower crystals").  The water comes to the bottom of the field into a pool where it is eventually pumped to the nearby ryokans and onsens.

The Japanese love their hot springs, and for good reason. The minerals from hot springs generally, and the Yubatake specifically purportedly cure everything except heartache.  The yu no hana collected from the Yubatake are sold as powders, boasting the same medicinal properties as the water itself.

Wikipedia has a better picture of the entire enterprise.

We enjoyed our stay in Kusatsu.  In addition to the onsening, we hiked around the Sai No Kawa Koen, shopped, and ate many delicacies.  Below are some of the local favorites, in order: maitake with udon in a miso soy broth, maitake tempura, and sansai with soba.

In addition to the Japanese flavors, we ate some of the best (albeit more expensive) Korean cuisine.  Korean pancake, a shot of ginseng liquor, grilled garlic, shrimp, and for the GP, some beef tongue.

My personal favorite activity (aside from the onsen and the eating) was to go to the foot bath cafe to enjoy a foot soak and a relaxing drink.  This is located right next to the Yubatake, so you can't miss it.

 There's even an English sign.  

Foot spa bar is a perfect get away from a cold, rainy evening.  

I elected for the honey ice cream.  To my surprise, it also came with a frozen egg yolk.  Tasty, yet strange. 

We hit up the foot spa bar again the next day; this time I opted for matcha ice cream with "running bean"; this is ice cream more my speed. I have no idea what a "running bean" is in Japanese, except that it is a bigger, bolder, less sweet version of adzuki bean.  Although it has the look and feel of a giant pinto, like its adzuki cousin, the running bean pairs nicely with the matcha and vanilla.

The little shopping area around the town center is quite lovely as well, and has many interesting shops, including a place to buy eggs boiled by the hot spring waters.  

Just follow the lanterns and you will find your way to the shopping areas.  They do tend to close early, about dinner time.

In addition to the onsens at your hotel and around town, you can go to the  Sai no kawara koen (西の河原公園) where there is a great open air bath. 

We planned to partake when it got a little darker because the men's side of the bath is quite exposed to the hikers in the upper levels of the trail.  As one Tripadvisor reviewer put it:

"The men's bath is exposed. EXPOSED.  There is a 2-3m wall surrounding the bathing area but there is also a public walking path that goes uphill a few meters from the wall.  Once people get sufficiently high up the path they will be able to see everything. EVERYTHING. EVERYONE.  ... The moment you get up and walk toward sthe changing room, you're flashing.  What an experience."

Accordingly, if you are not comfortable being nude and viewed, perhaps stick to the onsens in the town.  Below is a view of the men's side.  The reviewer was indeed correct.  Maybe in the summer, the vegetation is more lush, but during the rest of the seasons, the entrance to and egress from the pool could be more than daunting.  I wish I had a better shot, but there was a guy in the pool. I didn't want him to think I was a creepy pervert Westerner, so I took pictures behind the trees.

By the time we made back to the ryokan, it was raining, so we indulged in our onsen bath at the ryokan, drank ginseng liquor and ate shrimp and pancakes, and didn't make it back to the park at dusk.  All in all, Kusatsu gets five stars.  We stayed for three days, and that was plenty of time to really enjoy the area.

Another day, another mochi

Today's food adventure involved fire in the shichirin, pounded sweet rice flour (mochi), and featured the talented and chivalrous Guinea Pig (GP), as grill artiste extraordinaire.  Thankfully, the GP was on hand to tend to the grilled mochi (yakimochi) so we didn't burn our house down.

Mochi is glutinous rice, pounded into sticky balls and squares that form the base for both sweet and savory treats. Like its grainier cousin, rice, the mochi has no distinct flavor of its own, which makes it wonderfully versatile. You can buy them in an abundance of forms from fresh confectioneries (popularly sold as a sweet with a creme, strawberry, or green tea flavor filling) to hard little puck-shaped disks, dried, and shrink wrapped in their individual packages.

I purchased the pucks (depicted above) as a cooking experiment.  The dried mochi is likewise surprisingly versatile, as one can boil, grill, bake, or fry it depending on how it will ultimately be served. In its dried form, it has the look and consistency of concrete, and does not even remotely resemble a food product.  But they are sold everywhere in the supermarkets, so I knew it was edible. And because it was mochi, I knew it could be delicious; it just had to be deconstructed it from its indurate form.  Traditionally, they are hand-pounded and then served rather immediately:

Alas we have no human-sized mortal and pestle to hand pound.  So with the encouragement of the GP, with the pucks I went.  Inspired by my all-time fav, tempura mochi in kare udon (Japanese curry udon stew), I planned to recreate the dish without the oily oppression of tempura (although I love tempura, I fear my pancreas may not).  The tempura mochi is often served in a square shape, battered and deep fried and then served in all of its chewy, oily goodness in a hearty (unlikely vegetarian) Japanese curry stock with udon noodles. Divine! I wanted to try my hand at a healthier version that skips the deep frying in favor of the grill.  In addition, I wanted to try out my shichirin, or little Edo-esque table-top personal grill. Benridesuyo!

To grill it correctly on the shichirin, one must flip and flip it because there is no way (or at least I have no idea how) to control the heat from the grill.  The first two blackened quickly.  Too quickly. For its size, the table top Edo packs a lot of punch and as I watched the flames leap precariously beyond the grates, I began to doubt the wisdom of using it in a tatami-laden room. Fortunately, the GP was on standby and quickly assumed his station as sous-chef. Ideally, the mochi will crisp to a golden brown (not unlike a marshmallow over the campfire), and puff up like a rice puff.

It also should retain the chewy, glutinous consistency on the inside.  Ours turned out pretty well for our first attempt.  After the first few mochi fatalities (not total losses because they were consumed), the GP developed a decent technique.  Under his sage command, the mochis puffed beautifully, with a delicate golden hue on the outside, while retaining its signature toothiness on the inside.  We ate ours with vegetable and potato kare, sans udon.

Mochis are also excellent as a confectionery and make wonderful omiyage (souvenirs) for friends back home.  Kyoto is famous for yatsuhashi, a raw mochi, pounded into thin opaque triangles filled with sweet red bean and cinnamon.  In our recent trip to Kyoto, we obtained the seasonal specialty of strawberry cinnamon yatsuhashi (below) and for our neighbor we brought her the sakura cinnamon yatsuhashi.  Hands down delicious.