One of the loudspeaker trucks was circulating this morning. Its announcement was different from the others because it had traditional-sounding music playing in the background ― similar to the ramen truck, but peaceful rather than creepy. It turned out to be a guy selling watermelons from the back of a covered truck. Naturally, we had to take advantage of this totally Japanese experience and buy one.



Totally worth the 900 yen.

In a nod to Kitakami's famous Onikenbai dance, a phone booth downtown has a pair of demon masks mounted above its doors.



You might not want to try stealing 100 yen coins from the phones inside.

After a little over a year on the Japanese cooking scene, I've gotten quite an education. I'm a bit of a purist, so I've been focusing on using seasonal ingredients and learning traditional techniques. As a general rule, I prefer to avoid processed things ― for example, I won't use okonomiyaki mix because while making it from scratch is a little more involved and itchy (stupid nagaimo juice), it's still really easy and the payoff is good. I don't mind fiddly, time-consuming, involved things if the end result is worth it.

Which is why my first experience with making chirashi-zushi was such a downer. Chirashi-zushi is essentially vinegared rice with seasoned things mixed in and other things scattered on top. Making it from scratch took the better part of an evening: cooking and seasoning each of the ingredients individually, vinegaring the rice and fanning it while stirring, and finally mixing and topping it with the other ingredients. It looked pretty, but it was really underwhelming. Some of the ingredients were undercooked and strongly seasoned, while others were overcooked and strongly seasoned, almost to the point of being candied. The latter point, though, provided a valuable lesson: if you're cooking a mixture involving soy sauce and mirin and it starts to smell like battery acid, it's too far gone.

I shared my sad story of battery-acid-smelling disappointment with a friend. She laughed, then shared her secret. "I'm too busy to make it from scratch," she said. "I use a mix."

A mix?! Horrors! What about tradition, the need to use fresh ingredients, the attention to detail so commonly associated with Japanese cooking? Well, you can get freshness when you choose your toppings; as it turns out, a bag of vinegared vegetables and a pouch of shredded nori seaweed and sesame seeds comprise the mix. The result?



Mix chirashi was vastly superior to my scratch version. And if it's good enough for the natives, it's good enough for me.

A fern growing in the Juniko area (in Aomori Prefecture) of the Shirakami Mountains.

Somewhere across that expanse of water (seen from the Goishi Kaigan on the Iwate coast) lie the shores of California.

Do you remember the Pokemon craze from a few years ago? The Japanese sure do. In fact, it's still a craze here. It's even popular enough to be at the center of a joint advertising campaign between JR East and All Nippon Airways. From today until September 15, you can ride a bullet train decorated with your favorite characters. It all kicked off when one of the decorated trains (actually, a coupled set of two trains, an E3 and an E2) headed north from Tokyo, stopping at Kitakami on its way to Morioka.

To remind motorists to watch for older people in the street, these signs appear in certain areas:



Those areas are called "Silver Zones." Aren't the signs cute?

Well, what have we here? What are you looking at?



Oh, I see! You're looking at the fellow on the roof! And he's looking at us.



Back in May, we were driving along the Sea of Japan coast in Aomori Prefecture. We got quite a surprise when we rounded a curve and discovered a group of monkeys hanging around near the road. We stopped for some photos, and found them to be timid but curious.

Eventually, they lost interest in us and returned to munching on fruit while watching the sun set over the Sea of Japan.

I haven't been able to determine whether it's intentional or a longstanding typo, but I love that the hospital near JR Mizusawa Station appears to have a French name:



It wouldn't be too surprising for the name to actually be French. French has a larger influence on the Japanese language than I would have expected. For example, one of the words for "clown" in Japanese is a loanword from French ― piero. Also, it seems that the more common translation of the word kuri is into French ― marron ― rather than into English ― chestnut.

A pink waterlily floats in the lake beside the tofu-making shop at Battari-mura.