Shirakaba Highland, a traditional Japanese resort

shirakaba highlands (2) center shirakaba lake

What conditions make it feel like a resort?     It is important not only to have a good view, but also to have a painterly color and a quiet atmosphere.

 

Perhaps it’s because the white birch (Shirakaba in Japanese) forest looks completely white and gives off a feeling that can’t exist in the ordinary world.    So why are pure white birch forest areas created?   This is because seeds in the soil stay dormant until the conditions are right, and when a forest fire or landslide leaves a ruin, they all switch to germinate all at once in order to suppress other plants and monopolize the area where they can grow as quickly as possible.   That’s why there’s a white forest all around, so it’s beautiful.    However, the lifespan of a tree is about 70 years, so the expression “beautiful and short-lived” can also be applied to these trees.

Lake Shirakaba View Point

Although it looks like a picturesque scene, Lake Shirakaba in the center of photos is actually an artificial lake.   There is a restaurant called Asahigaoka on this lakeside that serves very delicious soba noodles.    It’s more like a private house than a storefront.    You can also eat rainbow trout caught in Lake Shirakaba.    This is real, not artificial, indeed.

Detour (Goddess View Point on the way of Venus-Line)

Detour (Going down to Lake Tateshina on the way of Venus-Line)

shirakoma pond0 cover photo
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The most densely populated area, foothills of Yatsugatake

chino hightland1 cabbage field and yatsugatake

This was during the Jomon period.    To begin with, the Suwa region is where the Japanese archipelago was split in two after it was torn apart from Asia due to tectonic plate movement.   It is said that 5,000 years ago during the middle Jomon period, it had the highest population density in Japan.    The reason for this is said that people have fled as sea levels have risen due to global warming, people have fled ash fall from a major eruption in Kyushu, and people have come looking for obsidian to use as arrowheads and knives.   The Jomon period had a strong image of being primarily about hunting, but recent research shows that there was a lot of farming involved.

hacchi clay figurine2 national tresure
go to Hachinohe clay ( national tresure)

Chino also has two of the five national treasure clay figurines.   Pregnant Jomon Venus, masked goddess (above).    Their shape probably have a meaning from the Jomon period, but their deformation is amazing even as modern art.    I also like the clay figures with palms together of Hachinohe.

 

The current foothills of Mt. Yatsugatake are cool throughout the year, sometimes causing rice harvest failures.    The water is warmed by a reservoir, and the crops are protected by a windbreak forest of red pines.   The cabbage fields, buckwheat fields, and windbreak forest with Yatsugatake in the background are the best photo spots.

shirakoma pond0 cover photo
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Hanagasa Dancing Festival (Yamagata Prefecture)

yamagata6 star wars

An important tool in Hanagasa Dance is a hat decorated with flowers.  The flower is safflower, and it was very valuable in the Edo period as a raw material for dyes and lipsticks.  ”Beautiful flowers have thorns.”  It was said that the hands of the young women who hand-picked them were dyed red with thorns.   Please refer to safflower stories in Yamagata at the botton below.

safflower
Go to safflower stories

Go back to the festival, many teams that make up the parade show off their unique dances from in traditional and elegant style to in brave and dynamic style.  Television news programs often show dances in an elegant style, but in contrast to folk music, the force of moving the hanagasa hats violently in dynamic style cannot be conveyed unless you come to the site.  My impression was that elegant dance and dynamic dance in the parade were half and half.   Original dances were occasionally seen.  Each team consists of communities, schools, and workplaces, and each of them appeals their own characteristics in their dance.

yamagata3 soba
yamagata3 soba

It is held on the long main street at night.  So, no need to keep a viewing spot in advance.  Please enjoy Yamagata soba in between viewings.   Yamagata Prefecture ranks first in the consumption ranking of soba.   Please refer to soba stories in Yamagata at the botton below.

white flower of buckwheat
Go to white flower of buckwheat and soba stories

morioka6
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Nametsu Waterfall like a water slider, stopping by fresh soba festival

nametsu big waterfall2
nametsu big waterfall top
nametsu big waterfall top

Nametsu Otaki Waterfall is a two-tiered waterfall that covers a wide river width (30m), but the remarkable feature is the smooth surface of tuff under the waterfall.  So I intuitively thought it would be interesting if this was a water slider.  Another idea is to pour somen (noodle) from the top of waterfall and scoop it up at the bottom of waterfall.  It would be a fun for cool noodle !
Shichikashuku town wouldn’t adopt these ideas……..

shichigasyuku road soba festival
shichikashuku road soba festival

There are a lot of soba restaurants along Shichikashuku Highroad connected to Takahata town, Yamagata where Takahata winery is located.  In this season  we can eat fresh buckwheat noodles by grinding freshly picked soba with a stone mill.   Especially you can try some remarkable restaurants at the same time at cheap price during soba festival.

soba restaurant
soba reataurant

 

chourou lake3
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Fresh Soba worth waiting in line for eat at Yanaizu

soba menu
soba new season
soba new season

In late autumn,  the pasting “The first product of the season appears !” is indicated at the entrance of Soba restaurant here and there.  Buckwheat that bloomed small white flowers in the summer is harvested in early autumn and good scent of the first product of season comes out.  Usually the locals are waiting in line for eat.  Feel the fall with your tongue in the mountains.

waiting for soba
waiting for soba

 

 

tenpura
tenpura in soba restaurant

 

 

 

 

 

 

tou no hetsuri shrine
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Soba is cool in the throat

white flower of buckwheat

Soba, a thin noodle made of buckwheat flour, is eaten or the scent enjoyed all over Japan and had become a subject of classical literary arts, especially rakugo.
Yamagata was a place to ship rice to the Edo Shogunate by Kitamae ship, so rice production was popular.  Soba has historically been offered as thank-you after the rice farming work that many neighbors helped, and its taste was a showcase for the farmers.  That is why soba became famous in Yamagata prefecture.
Soba fields spread along the Oishi Kaido(highroad) in the countryside, and many soba restaurants are concentrated in it.  In August, the fields are filled with small white flowers, and in the fall you can enjoy the fragrant new soba.

Gallery (click photos)

The restaurant ‘Heikichi’ I found in the countryside by chance is the following.
The place name is “Jinego”, literary ‘next year’s children’ in Japanese characters, because it was too snowy to register the birth at the government office only next year.