Omiyage Giveaway!

There are about six more days of the tour left to blog about! In no time, it'll be all ova. So fast.

I have some omiyage left, so I'd like to have a small giveaway. If you'd like to enter the drawing, you can just leave a comment here on this post or email me at JalnaA@aol.com. Your name will be put into a ziplock container. I'll ask Wendell to draw a name and I'll announce the winner the day after my last "Japan 2015" blog post. 

The prize package will contain the following:

Niigata sweet.  Made with Koshihikari rice flour and contains white chocolate. Oooooh!


Scallop-flavored fried mochi bits.


Fried squid.


Crepe pouch.  100-yen store is da bomb.


Little decorative post-it pads.


Hoshi ume (dried plum). Maroyaka (mellow). Yawarakai (soft).


Translucent stickers. Kawaiiiii (cuuuuute).


Totoro charm. It looks bigger in my hand than it is.  It's only about 1 1/2 inches long. It's soooo cute! My favorite, favorite. But you can have it. Because you deserve it. And plus I got more.


And last, Shiragawa-go's winter-dried "Tezukuri (handmade) Kakimochi". We still haven't made ours yet. Waiting for Mother's Day when the family comes over to try it out.


So interesting yah!  Information online says that you can grill it or fry it. 


I found this video called "Creating Kakimochi". It shows how its made.


Anybody can enter the drawing. Even if I gave you something from Japan already. Even if you just came back from Japan yourself. Even if you're one of my cousins. Or my cousin's cousin. If something in the prize package interests you, just enter. 

Good luck! You get good chance to win 'cause usually not too many people enter my drawings.

Japan 2015 - Day 7 - Takayama to Kanazawa

April 13, 2015: Shirakawa-go, Kenrokuen Garden

Here's my breakfast for this morning.  My favorite thing was the arabiki sausages.  Oh yah, and the roll too.  It was buttery and flaky with a little bit of chocolate in it. And the egg drop soup was good too. And the apple juice also.


I give you one guess what Sweetie had.


Our first stop today on our way to Kanazawa was Shirakagawa-go, UNESCO World Heritage Site, famous for the gassho-zukuri (hands in prayer) farmhouses, some which are more than 250 years old.


Our bus driver agreed to take us up a very narrow hilly road so that we could get a bird's eye view of the area. That was so nice of him.






Rubbah slippahs in da snow.  Funny, yah!!


It was rainy. Very, very rainy.  It rained pretty much all day.


We had to take pictures holding our umbrellas like this. With me, I had to hold my umbrella under my chin 'cause I need two hands to shoot.


But so nice the view, yah!




There was one house, called the Wada House, that was open to the public. You can go inside and look around.  I actually didn't take a picture of the house because it was pouring when we got there and everybody was rushing to get in. It's situated to the left of the house below.  You can kinda see the sign pointing the way. Anyway, there was only one small entrance to get into and out of the house. And you need to take off your shoes.  People trying to get into the house gotta wait for the people trying to get out of the house because they're blocking the way. The people trying to get out of the house are trying to put on their shoes before they can go out so it takes kinda long. And did I mention that it was raining? 

Needless to say, it was a mess there at the entrance/exit. 


I didn't take many pictures while we were in the Wada House. I was too worried about the congestion that would form when all 30-something in our tour group needed to exit. I whispered to Sweetie that we should dig while the digging was good.

So we did.  We had a nice walk back to the bus.




One of the restaurants lining the road had these Studio Ghibli figurines in its window.


I love the Hayao Miyazaki movies. My favorite is Spirited Away.


My Neighbor Totoro is my next favorite. 


On the way to the bus I passed another tour group. They looked pretty wet. I guess we did too.


Lunch was supermarket fare. I love these. Do we have stuff like this anywhere in Hawaii?


Yummm!!


After lunch, our next stop was the Kenrokuen Garden, ranked as one of Japan's top three most beautiful gardens. And it really was that beautiful. I wonder what the top two are.


It was raining here too.


But the good thing is that the wetness helps with color saturation in photos.


At least it wasn't pouring. "Pouring" would come two days later at the cliffs. But that's another story.


For today . . . 


a little drizzle . . . 


would be fine.


Well . . . sort of.


Nice color saturation . . . right?




























Our hotel for the next two nights was the Kanazawa Tokyu Hotel.  It always felt so good after a long, busy day to just drop our stuff on the bed, take off our shoes and just kick back and go, "Ahhhhhhh".


Here's our view.


This is what we did in the evening.


Here's my prize. Cost me 500 yen.