Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Memorial trip


I have had the same brand of car for twenty years.  This year, I’m thinking letting it go.  Before that, I wanted to go to a memorable trip with it.  We headed to Shizuoka prefecture where you can view Mt. Fuji!! 


  

One of the places where we stopped by is Gyokuoro-no-sato that has a small garden and a tea house.  Let me introduce some photos.
It is located in a country side surrounded with greens.

You can walk around the garden for free.

  
There is a tea house. 
 Only the people who pay for tea can get in.Of course, we had tea there.After having tea in a large room, you can look around the house.  This tea house also has a small tea room.  I got to see it. 
Preparation room

Small tea room (about 4 tatami mats)


hanging scroll and flower at tokonoma alcove

Elaborately designed ceiling

 

Nijiriguchi, crawl-in entrance


 

Position where the host prepares tea
  
I found a pretty unique thing there.Look at the sign.  Can you read Japanese?


It is gyokuro ice cream!!
I have seen matcha ice cream or green tea ice cream, but never gyokuoro’s.


 Its flavor … um … I didn’t find significant difference from regular green tea ice cream. But, it tastes really good, and it has actual tea on the top as sprinkles^^  

On the next entry, I’ll introduce the gyokoro we had in the tea house.

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful! And that is a sweet story about your car =)

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    1. I have a lot of memories with it. The most memorable event was that I traveled all around Japan with the car when I was a college student. I took all my camping equipment and some clothing into the car, and hit the road. I drove to a city to a city and slept in the car. It took about 6 weeks to drive around. It was a great experience(^^).

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  2. What is behind the window where the host prepares tea in the 10th picture?

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    1. Should be the tokonoma?

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    2. Are you referring the widow with bamboo lattice? If so, the Anonymous-san is right. It is tokonama.

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  3. Hi Kohei-san
    what automotive brand did you were loyal to?
    Honda?
    Toyota?

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    1. Good question! Actually, it is not Japanese. It’s British, hehehe. It is Mini cooper that you can find in the second picture in this entry. My first Mini had a red body and white roof. I had it for thirteen years. The current black one is the second. I customized it in the way I like. I can talk about it for hours, hahah (^0^)

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    2. Very unusual for a japanese to have a british car!
      The historical Mini!!
      The Mister Bean's car!! :-))
      Do you think japanese cars are better than italian or german cars?
      I own a Honda Fit bought used. The car is fine unfortunately here in Italy Honda service is very poor.
      I used to have two Toyotas (Vitz) and before those an Innocenti.

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    3. You have driven a lot of Japanese cars more than I have, hahaha.

      I think there are many attractive Italian and German cars. Each manufacture and car has a good individuality. When it comes to the design, I find more attractive cars in Europe. But, we Japanese have good cars as well. I have a very reliable image on Toyota’s. My next car will be Japanese (Nissan?), probably ^^

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  4. i enjoyed looking at the photos. what at interesting trip to an interesting place.

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    1. Gyokuro-no-sato is an interesting place for someone who loves green tea like me^^ It has an easy access from an newly-opened expressway.

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