5/18/2012

Lee SeoJin’s Ceramic Art Exhibition


Lee SeoJin, a famous actor, and popular both in Korea and Japan had made ceramics in the pottery “Tsugaru Kanayamayaki” in Kanagi area, Goshogawara City.

There was an exhibition of his ceramics in Aomori Museum of Art in February this year.  Many fans who visited the museum then and those who couldn’t, both wished the exhibition to be held again, and there has started 2nd one in ASPAM, Aomori Prefecture Tourist Center in Aomori City.

As my office is the organizer of the exhibition, I luckily could see the venue before opening.

There are Lee SeoJin’s hand-made ceramics, his photos taken while engrossed in pottery by Cho SeiHon.  You can also watch a video of TV program shot during his stay in Aomori (no Japanese or English subtitles though).








The exhibition is from May 18th to 27th at Aomori Prefecture Tourist Center.  To know the details, go to the blog of my co-worker, Floren, http://blog.naver.com/pjs2457.

5/09/2012

Very Proud of Cherry Blossoms.

I went to Hirosaki Park on May 6, to see cherry blossoms, but unfortunately, because of the bad weather on previous days, blossoms of Somei Yoshino (the most popular and common cherry blossoms) had already fallen.  Blossoms had gone away from the trees, but you could still enjoy their petals on the ground.  As the color of petals are rather white than pink, it looked like snow.
     
Oldest Somei Yoshino in Japan.
If you wish to see the tree in full bloom,
go to the older post of April.



  


There’re about 2600 cherry trees of 50 kinds, and here you can see some of them.

Yae Benishidare
Yae – double flowering/beni – red/shidare – weeping/
(When other words come prior to “sakura”,
the sound and letter of “s” changes to “z”.)
Yae Benishidare, close-up
Ukon-zakura
“Ukon” means turmeric.  The name comes from
the color of turmeric’s yellow.
Oshima-zakura
“Oshima” is the name of the largest island of Izu Islands.

Yokohama Hizakura
“Hi” of “hizakura” means scarlet.

Yokohama Hizakura, close-up
Azuma-nishiki
“Azuma” means east, “nishiki” means brocade.
Azuma Nishiki, close-up

Ume (plum) blossom
Thickest cherry tree in Japan
(5.37m in diameter, estimated 100~120 yo.)

If you want to know more about Aomori, go and see “aptinet Aomori Sightseeing Guide”. http://en.aptinet.jp/

5/02/2012

Donburi Festival

Spring festival is being held at Aomori Prefecture Tourist Center “ASPAM” (where my office is), and one of the main attractions is “Donburi Festival”.  “Donburi”, often called “don” means bowl, and there you can taste various local donburi of Aomori.

“Ochazuke” is cooked rice with hot soup stock or green tea, and what I had for lunch today is “ochazuke-don”, garnished with boiled oratorias, chopped Japanese parsley, pickled radish, shredded fried egg, “nori” (seaweed) and wasabi.  As oratorias are caught only in spring, Aomori people enjoy them at hanami (cherry-viewing).

350 yen
There are 13 other bowls, but unfortunately, you cannot eat them all at one time.


Spring festival at ASPAM closes on May 6th.

Buckwheat Ice Cream

One of my favorite ice creams.

There’re about 987 road stations (“michi-no-eki”) in Japan.  Road stations are established, by MLIT, to have facilities with certain number of parking spaces, toilet and facility information which are 24 hours available.

You can try this ice cream at one of 27 road stations in Aomori.  Go to “Road Station Shichinohe” located in Shichinohe Town where Shinkansen (bullet train) stops at Shichinohe-Towada Station (you can walk to the road station).

Buckwheat ice cream is soft-served and vanilla based, with buckwheat powder.  Buckwheat is usually used for Japanese noodle “soba”, but there’re some other buckwheat foods like pancakes, dumplings and bread, and besides soba, ice cream is my favorite.


Taste of the ice cream itself is vanilla, but you can feel marvelous flavor of buckwheat all over your mouth, even the flavor might come out from your nose!  I love New Zealand’s hokey pokey, with its taste and the texture of honey lumps, but when it comes to the flavor, Shichinohe’s ice cream is preferable.

Shichinohe is famous for horse breeding.