DAY 1 – FEAST UNDER THE SHADES OF SAKURA, Mount Yoshino (吉野山) 2 of 2, Japan

If one wishes to burn some calories with uphill hiking, Mount Yoshino may not be a good destination, especially during the hanami season. In fact, hiking on Mount Yoshino during cherry blossoms would likely become a journey for tasting local delicacies. This vendor was selling made-to-order imagawayaki. It is a popular Japanese snack like a thick pancake with sweet azuki bean paste. We tried a few kinds of freshly made mochi. They were perfect complement to a cup of warm green tea. A store is selling fresh amago (Angel Fish) on the sidewalk. Amago is commonly found in the mountainous rivers and streams. With its vertical strips and pink dots, Amago is highly recognizable. Grilled amago (Angel Fish) skewer was a popular snack. This store was selling sakura products of all kinds: sakura tea bag, sakura salt, sakura candies, sakura scened papers… Rice crackers, round or square… Fresh ingredients are the soul of Japanese cuisine. Spring must be the season for fresh mushrooms and bamboo shoots. During our hike, we met a vendor grilling fresh mushrooms. He waved at us and asked us where we came from. He introduced his own organic mushrooms to us. We picked up a bag of dried mushroom from him. The skewers in the pictures are fresh bamboo shoots. After we placed the order, the shop owner dipped a bamboo shoot skewer into a tempura batter and deep fried it.The bamboo shoot tempura was served with sakura salt. It was very delicious. No wonder why there was a long queue in front of the store. We couldn’t bring the local sake back home but we were lucky to have a chance to sample some local sake. It was almost sunset and most visitors had started descending. On our way back to the train station, we passed by a store selling kusa mochi, a Japanese sweet made from the leaves of Japanese mugwort. Through a side window we could see some of the preparation process. The store was near closing and the chef was preparing the dough. We couldn’t resist but bought a few freshly made mochi with red bean filling. “Persimmon leaf sushi”, sushi wrapped in preserved persimmon leaf, is popular in the Nara area since the Nara period. it can last in room temperature for about 2 days, kind of perfect for hiking. We bought a box of persimmon leaf sushi from a store near Yoshino train station. The store put up a big sign that said “自家製”, meaning “homemade”. Obviously it caught our attention. We bought a box of persimmon leaf sushi from the Yoshino station before our hike. We couldn’t find a good time to open it during our hike. Instead, we had the box of sushi as breakfast in the next morning. Each sushi was neatly wrapped. At first, we were skeptical about the taste as we never had “overnight” sushi before. They turned out to be a pleasant surprise. These sushi had been preserved with seasoned rice vinegar. A subtle aromatic flavor from the persimmon leaf lingered in the rice.