So, as you may remember, we spent many, many months trying to crack the mystery behind a truck that drives down our street every Sunday playing very freaky music. It is a box truck, and as it drives around there is a man's voice on a speaker announcing something, all while bone-chilling, eerie music plays. It always reminded me of something that would play from a haunted music box in a horror movie - beautiful but chilling. If you don't recall this mystery truck, check out our video we took out of the kitchen window..... I'll wait!
Well, we finally solved the mystery, and it's not eerie at all. In fact I cannot believe they play such scary music for the service they are offering (but we love it, nonetheless!). It turns out they are not killing small animals, kidnapping children, or cursing the neighborhood... they are selling sweet potatoes! These trucks have hot stone ovens in the back and they roast sweet potatoes while the driver drives around town. He periodically stops in various neighborhoods so people can walk out and buy roasted potatoes from him. Amazing! I found out that the mobile selling of roasted sweet potatoes has been around in Japan for over 100 years, originally being sold in little 2 wheeled carts that were pushed around town. Nowadays they are in trucks. As you can hear in our video, the recording yells out "Ishi yaki imo!!" in an eerie, sing-song voice, which means "Roasted sweet potatoes!!" They are very delicious, and most grocery stores have a little cart with hot stones with paper bags full of roasted potatoes you can buy. Because of this in-store set up, the Yaki Imo drivers are not as numerous as they were back in the day.
After a year of listening to the freaky Yaki Imo man come and go, I finally just this week decided to go out and see first hand what was going on. As I approached the truck, the driver was in the back, turning potatoes on the hot rocks. I asked him for one, and he was such a nice, older fellow. He told me to be careful because the bag was hot. I was so excited! I'd had roasted Japanese sweet potatoes many times, but never from the Yaki Imo man!! I feel like we've come full circle. As I scurried back home with my potato in a paper bag, I heard the engine start and the beautiful, eerie music fill the night. That music still gives me chills, but I love it so much. Thank you Yaki Imo man!
In the middle of Kinugasayama nature park is a monument of Tama, a shiba inu that saved her owner in a snow storm in 1934. I couldn't find a ton of info about the story, but apparently her owner was a hunter and nearly died in an avalanche that winter. His faithful dog stayed with him and helped him escape.
This shrine is located on the border of Kinugasayama nature park. It's very pretty and serene there. It was Toby's first time seeing a shrine! I think he was so tired from hiking that he couldn't care less haha!
Ever since we first learned about them, I've been fascinated by the traditional Japanese sweets that are wrapped in leaves. You just don't get this kind of stuff back home! I've had the sakuramochi (as seen here) which is wrapped in a cherry blossom leaf. I recently tried kashiwa mochi, which is regular mochi filled with red bean paste, and wrapped in an oak leaf. There is debate as to whether you should eat the oak leaf. Some say it's bad for you and can make you sick, others say it's fine, some say it's for decoration only. I've seen people eat it, so I tried it too. It's not very tasty, and I honestly think that's why some people say not to eat it - it just simply doesn't taste good! But I didn't get sick in any way. A cool experience though!
One day we were visited by a milkman! Seeing as how we are American and didn't exist before the 1980s, we've never experienced milk dropped at our door before! And in glass bottles to boot! We were thrilled, and I hopped on the Meiji website to research our free samples (which was whole milk, skim, etc). We were surprised to learn that we didn't have any milk at all. Instead, all four samples were fortified yogurt drinks! They tasted like plain Greek yogurt, just really thin like water.
After a year of listening to the freaky Yaki Imo man come and go, I finally just this week decided to go out and see first hand what was going on. As I approached the truck, the driver was in the back, turning potatoes on the hot rocks. I asked him for one, and he was such a nice, older fellow. He told me to be careful because the bag was hot. I was so excited! I'd had roasted Japanese sweet potatoes many times, but never from the Yaki Imo man!! I feel like we've come full circle. As I scurried back home with my potato in a paper bag, I heard the engine start and the beautiful, eerie music fill the night. That music still gives me chills, but I love it so much. Thank you Yaki Imo man!
Toby and I spent the whole day out and about, exploring! We went to the dog park, got ice cream, and drove all over the place just to see what we could find. We discovered an awesome shrine and hiking trail at the top of a nearby hill, but the parking area closes at 5pm, so I had no place to park the car while we looked around. That's totally ok though - we are going back tomorrow!! If we have time, we may explore a beach, too. If not, then that will be saved for another day of adventure! Oh, and we didn't get a car, we are borrowing one from a friend!
