Hirakawa Apple-Picking

Before my eagerly-anticipated post about my new apartment and schools, I've gotta write about my experiences on a field trip! Here's why.

Since Aomori is so difficult to travel to, not many tourists come to visit the area (except during Nebuta season). To help boost the tourism industry, the prefectural office offers many opportunities for foreigners to explore, experience, and learn more about Aomori, so long as they write about it and post it to my Facebook account so that their experiences are shared with their friends and family from their home countries.

Here goes~!

Last weekend, Ryan and I went on a field trip showcasing an Aomori specialty...apples! I may have mentioned before that Nagano was famous for apples (if I didn't, well, now you know! ^_^)...but did you know that Aomori is the number 1 producer of apples in Japan? It accounts for a whopping 50% of the total apples produced! This tour decided to showcase some of these apples.

We took a bus to Hirakawa City with a lot of Aomori Chuo Gakuen University foreign exchange students from China, Taiwan, and Korea, to our destination. It was then and there we realized that were the only fluent English speakers on the tour. All of the university students' Japanese easily outclassed ours (especially mine), but they were super friendly and easy to get along with.

Our first stop was at an apple orchard. It reminded me of my grandma's backyard a little bit!! One of the farmers told us that the yellow apples growing there were called “Toki” apples and that the grove next to it had “Fuji” apples, which were a more familiar red color. After his explanation in Japanese, he gave us plastic bags and told us that we could take home 3 apples from the Toki orchard!

Thus, our apple-picking quest to find the biggest apples began.

The apple orchard!

It was a little difficult to judge which apples were good or not because you don't really see yellow-colored apples very often in America. In any case, we decided to set our sights on the biggest apples that we could possibly find.

Ryan had the biggest picks of the day! Here's a video of him caught in the action, although this video doesn't quite do the size of the apple justice... 

Ryan's spoils (with a nice view of Mt. Iwaki in the background)

After our great success (minus my shoes becoming very smelly thanks to the fertilizer on the ground), we headed back to the meeting spot, where we were offered some free apple slices~

Our next (and final) destination was a place called Hotel Appleland. There, our first order of business involved chowing down on a traditional Japanese-style lunch.

Sushi (salmon, tuna, sea bream [tai], and amberjack [kampachi]), soba, pickled daikon and eggplant, bamboo shoots with a goma dressing, and a side of cold apple juice!

After eating, they asked one representative from each country about his or her opinions about the food: compliments, critiques, and how it compares to the food culture of his or her home country. Would our families back home enjoy it? Why or why not? Etc.

Opinions varied from country to country. While I enjoyed the fish (not as much as nokkedon, but it was much better than anything in California) and thought that the soba noodles weren't that special, I got to thinking...would my brother or sister, who are a little bit picky, eat any of this? Maybe they would enjoy the noodles and the apple juice the most, but avoid the rest of the food, opting not to eat the raw fish, pickled eggplant, and bamboo shoots covered with some sort of sesame dressing. Would you have any objections eating any of this food? It must be very hard, as a Japanese hotel trying to cater towards tourists, to try to please picky eaters but still offer the experience of tasting the regional delicacies...

After the opinion exchange, we toured the hotel. We were led to a large guest room overlooking a somewhat blasphemous statue of a female buddha-like person holding an apple (one of the symbols of Aomori), a few large showrooms suitable for holding conferences or wedding receptions, a buffet room which would be used to showcase various Aomori apple dishes, and finally, we were led to the onsen area. We couldn't go into the onsen, but we could dip our feet in the 足湯...the outdoor footbath! This one had apples floating in it! I'm not sure how sanitary it was for those to be bobbing about in there, but they smelled wonderful~

In the information exchange after this portion of the tour, I was the next American up for commentary, but due to my incompetence, I only really managed to say that there should be more signs in English next to the art displays... >.<;;;

Our final activity of the day involved making apple pies!! As a food-lover, this was easily my favorite part of the tour. It was really fun learning how to peel apples (from Master Chef [Ryan], who was applauded by the host for being the most skillful at cooking) and it was interesting to note the differences between what Japanese people and I think of when apple pie comes to mind. Whereas American ones are usually big, round, usually have lots of added sugar, and have intricate woven top layers, the Japanese ones are more similar to what we would consider a danish or a pie tart.

Before baking...

After baking! Aren't we adorable?

The tour concluded after we ate the fruits of our labor (pun intended), and we were driven back home...but not before Ryan could take a ridiculous picture next to a Nebuta!

Ryan's Doppleganger

I hope that you enjoy my post as much as I enjoyed this tour! Please look forward to more of these kinds of posts in the future~

As mentioned above, soon (hopefully), I'll get around to writing a Q&A style blog post about my new apartment, schools, and life! Thanks for reading!!