Last night's michi no eki
Our first lunch
Sleeping at a michi no eki or roadstation is a great way to see a side of Japanese life that you won't get on a package holiday, the interesting thing is that the Japanese are prepared to overnight in the family saloon car, and not necessarily a big one either. Some of the bigger people carriers have been adapted to create a sleeping platform but in other cases people seem to sleep on reclined seats. Maybe it's because of these sleeping arrangements these people tend to get moving pretty early with all the usual door slamming that usually involves. This means that today we were up (reluctantly) at 5.45 am breakfasted by 6.30 and on the road soon after eight.
Not surprisingly we were starving by 11.30 and stopped at another roadside station for lunch . For about £4 we got a big bowl of vegetable soup containing lots of udon noodles. You order your food by machine, if you're lucky there's a picture on the buttons because the descriptions are only in Japanese but we've got pretty good at ordering this way now and had no nasty surprises. Once your order is made the machine prints out a ticket that you hand in at the kitchen counter. When your order is ready your number is called out, fortunately we are such an unusual sight that the ladies in the kitchen give us a nod as well as shouting out our number, we do not know Japanese numbers. These cafes are really popular and the food is quick delicious and cheap and you can usually help yourself to free Japanese tea and iced water.
Not surprisingly we were starving by 11.30 and stopped at another roadside station for lunch . For about £4 we got a big bowl of vegetable soup containing lots of udon noodles. You order your food by machine, if you're lucky there's a picture on the buttons because the descriptions are only in Japanese but we've got pretty good at ordering this way now and had no nasty surprises. Once your order is made the machine prints out a ticket that you hand in at the kitchen counter. When your order is ready your number is called out, fortunately we are such an unusual sight that the ladies in the kitchen give us a nod as well as shouting out our number, we do not know Japanese numbers. These cafes are really popular and the food is quick delicious and cheap and you can usually help yourself to free Japanese tea and iced water.
So having had our early lunch we continued our journey but decided to stop at the next roadside station half an hour further on as its location beside a river running along side a big cliff looked rather picturesque. Once there we discovered that there was the village mushroom festival, temporary awnings had been erected and tables and chairs all laid out. Lots of truly exotic and rather dangerous looking mushrooms were on display. The festival meant food and we were pressed to try mushroom soup that was bubbling away in a large vat. Despite the first bowl of soup still swilling in our bellies it would have been rude to decline it as people seemed pleased to see us and were insistent.
The soup was rather good but then the next stage of this event was the beating of cooked rice to make a traditional Japanese food called mochi and we were encouraged to join in and beat the rice with large wooden sledgehammers. All great fun and we got to eat the rice cakes afterwards, these were a bit of an acquired taste as they were very gelatinous and took a while to get down. So, it was cooked rice beaten to a sticky thick paste heaped into little round balls and covered in very tasty toasted soy-bean flour.
This event only takes place once a year so we're thrilled to have caught it even if it did mean two lunches in the space of an hour.
The soup was rather good but then the next stage of this event was the beating of cooked rice to make a traditional Japanese food called mochi and we were encouraged to join in and beat the rice with large wooden sledgehammers. All great fun and we got to eat the rice cakes afterwards, these were a bit of an acquired taste as they were very gelatinous and took a while to get down. So, it was cooked rice beaten to a sticky thick paste heaped into little round balls and covered in very tasty toasted soy-bean flour.
This event only takes place once a year so we're thrilled to have caught it even if it did mean two lunches in the space of an hour.
Pounding rice
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