Hey Hive!
I'm currently recounting our anniversary trip to Tokyo back in Feb 2023! It'd been at least 3 years since we visited Tokyo and the last time was pre-covid so we decided to go back and find some new places to explore while revisiting our favourite hot-spots.
Last week, we continued on our bus tour in Gunma by going strawberry picking! We enjoyed a very sweet and delicious buffet of strawberries in a greenhouse and it was amazing!
Japanese strawberries are definitely my favourite since they're so sweet and juicy. We only ever buy the cheap strawberries when we're there but they're so good and these one taste like them.
7 Feb 2023. Tuesday.
After we got done with our strawberry buffet, we headed back to the bus and drove for a little bit to a parking lot further into the nearby town. We then alighted and were free to roam the town for a while.
Our bus was parked in front of this souvenir store so we were free to roam for an hour or so.
We walked around town and came across this huge tengu mask float that I assume is sued for festivals.
The town itself looked just like any Japanese suburban town tbh.
It didn't have much other than some small shops here and there and a mini supermarket.
I'm not sure why but there were some houses with a cardboard standee outside it for some reason.
We didn't really have a place in mind to go so we just walked along the street looking at the shops.
This was like the kind of scene that you'd see in anime.
We saw this stamp station at a souvenir shop but I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be.
We had some coupons that we could use to buy things in this town but we could only use it in certain shops so we went in search for them.
I think the coupons help to encourage sales in these more remote towns. It must be a campaign by the Japanese government to try to revive them due to the brain drain to big cities.
We saw this cafe that had drinks and it looked quite good although it was mostly matcha.
This shop had all sorts of local snacks and souvenirs.
They had a lot of different snacks that we could get but the coupon was only for a certain amount.
We used our coupons to get a drink since we didn't know what else to buy.
They had some really cute cat designs on the tea and I couldn't resist buying a tin, even though neither of us drink tea.
We just wanted a warm drink since it was pretty cold out in the cloudy weather. The owners made a fresh cup of tea for us on the spot.
It was pretty mild tea but at least it wasn't very bitter. The warmth itself was comforting enough.
After that we headed back to the bus where we enjoyed our snack from the cafe, a dorayaki, which is sort of a Japanese cream sandwich.
I think it was black sesame cream and it was honestly not bad except that it was pretty cold, so it was a good match with the tea.
Our tour guide brought us to this shop next.
Initially I thought it was just another souvenir shop that felt like a wholesale market. There were a lot of dried goods and packaged food for sale.
There was something called Takoyaki Beans that I think was a local specialty.
It looked like a mini supermarket but there was a surprise room in the back.
The back had a room which was warm and smelled of bean curd because they were making bean curd skins.
They had quite the setup here with lots of industrial grade machinery.
We were given some tools and could basically scoop the bean curd skin and eat it fresh!
It was very warm since the bean curd was being heated constantly so it would curdle.
It was pretty interesting to try scooping the bean curd skin ourselves. It's definitely something we've never tried before and the guide was raving about all the health benefits of this bean curd skin.
There were lots of condiments that we could add to the bean curd skin like chili, hot sauce and soy sauce.
We tried it with soy sauce and I think the bean curd skin itself tasted too much like a dessert that it was a little weird with soy sauce.
There were also some other dishes available too like different soups.
The soup also had some conjac which is also healthy and good for skin.
The soup was actually quite tasty but I was getting too full.
There were also some vegetables and eggs. It tasted alright, but I wasn't very hungry since we also had a snack and lots of strawberries earlier.
I did try to have more of the bean curd though since it's healthy.
I was quite fascinated with the bean curd skins honestly, since they just kept forming on the surface. It was like an endless supply.
After that it was time to head back to the bus but not before taking a photo with this tanuki statue!
It was a long day, and when we went back to the bus I fell asleep from all the food and walking.
We stopped at a rest stop on the way back and this one actually looked bigger than the first one we went to.
It even had a whole supermarket.
It was like a fancy supermarket too, with all sorts of souvenirs from the region.
I saw this file with meme cat pictures that looked quite cute.
We walked around for a bit before it was time to head back to the bus.
We were dropped off at the LOVE sign once again and it was the end of our tour!
We had a lot of fun on the tour with lots of new and unique experiences! It was definitely a good experience that we would recommend.
There's a little bit more to this day but I think I'll leave it for next week!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #284 (Tokyo): Sweet Strawberry Treats! 🍓
