Terrine of mint and fruits

As peppermint in our garden has grown up, I decided to cook something harvesting some of them today.


Put peppermints, pineapples, peaches, mangos and strawberries in turns in a pot.
Then pour some vegitable geratine what we call "kanten" in Japanese instead of normal geratine. As it has enough peppermints in it, my mouth felt cool when I ate some.

Hayaokidori website

Cherry blossom tea

What we call "Sakura-cha" in Japanese.

Served in some events which people would like to celebrate e.g. someone graduate from or get in school, get a job, marriage etc. Never at a funeral.
Cherry blossom flowers for this tea are pickled in some salt, so this tea tastes salty. We have some other "salty" teas e.g. "Kobu-cha" ( sea weed tea ). I guess perhaps "salty" teas are Japan original? Never heard any "salty" teas abroad or I just don't know any?

Hayaokidori website

Forget-me-not

There are blue, white and pink flowers. ( No pink ones in this picture below.)

I hear why they are called "Forget-me-not". Because once upon a time in Germany, a prince got in a river to rescue a princess. He successed to rescue her but unfortunately he was drowned after the rescue. While he was carried away lower stream, he tried to pick some of these flowers at the riverside and tossed them out to her shouting out loud something like....

"Don't forget me"

Perhaps that was at the year I moved into Hakuba or maybe next year when I bought a pack of seeds of this flower. Put them in a box to grow. They actually grew but it didn't go as the back of the pack said. It said it would be in bloom in July or August if you seeded them in spring. But things sometimes go different as we know. Usually explanations about how to grow flowers base on Yokohama standard circumstances if it's in Japan. Hakuba has different climate, so things go different here. I wondered if I should have pulled them out after the summer when we didn't see any flowers but I just left them as they were. After the winter was over when the snow melted away, they were still alive! They started being in bloom at the second half of May. It seems that they are a 2 years plant here in Hakuba. How does it go in your place?

Hayaokidori website

A water tower from Texas.

A guest from Texas brought this to me as a present!

Have to think about where to put :-)

Hayaokidori website

Snow mark vol.2 Tanemakijii

This one is not visible from Hakuba, visible from Oomachi city though.


They say it looks as if a grandfather with a straw is seeding some at the ground.

Hayaokidori website

Rape blossoms

Rape blossoms are now in bloom, it looks as if there was some yellow carpets on the ground.




This is one of my favorite food which is good to see and eat.

Hayaokidori website

E257 series Azusa running a 2.5% uphill

I heard some noise which told me a train getting close, my fingers changed my degital camera mode into "movie" being unconscious. lol...


The train was pre-running for the 2.5% uphill after passing through Uminokuchi station for Yanaba station. This 2.5% uphill continues for a while curving right then left. So trains can not have so much speed because of the curve but anyway it's an continuous uphill which must be tough for them.

Hayaokidori website