The Golden (Week) Rule

The latest edition of “True Portland”—a high-quality Portland, Ore. guidebook written by Japanese authors in Japanese—was released recently. The authors had a pop-up tent at the UN Farmers Market featuring Portland products like Jacobsen Salt and Fuller Foods Serious Cheesy Puffs.

Oregon Beer Geeks is a company in Japan that imports beer from Oregon and sells it online. At the UN Market, they had two beers from Burnside Brewing and one from The Commons Brewery, both based in Portland.

Lunch at the UN Farmers Market—a vegetarian take on Hawaiian plate lunch, a hummus and veggie bagel pizza and Burnside Brewing’s “Too Sticky To Roll India Red Ale” and “Sweet Heat,” an apricot and Scotch bonnet pepper wheat beer.

Tokyo’s take on Cinco de Mayo is a lot like America’s take—lots of drinking and sad Mexican-ish food. The best find was probably this Day of the Dead Porter from Mexico’s Cerveceria Mexicana brewery.

Phans of the phlox phlocking to Chichibu (see what I did there?)

The phlox fields at Hitsujiyama Park in Chichibu (click to zoom)

The heart of the phlox garden

Mt. Buko sits in the distance

People sitting around the edge of the garden having a picnic and, in many cases, a nap

Tourists getting in the way of the view of the phlox 🙂

Local Chichibu honey for sale at Hitsujiyama Park. A large queen bee is inside each jar.

“Hitsuji” means “sheep” in Japanese and “yama” means “mountain,” so the aptly-named Sheep Mountain Park should have a few sheep wandering the grounds. The local paparazzi went crazy for this one.

A window in a home near the park proudly displaying its winnings from the UFO Catcher games

Mt. Buko and a bright red neighborhood shrine. The scarring at the top of Mt. Buko is a result of heavy mining of limestone used for the ever-present construction in the larger cities.

After a day of walking, we went to an onsen (hot springs) in the nearby Yokoze neighborhood. This is proof that I can use chopsticks like a champ!

Lots to see along the way, like this statue of Buddha playing a mandolin

These happy farm animals were painted outside a local butcher shop

Walking up the road to the hiking trails leading to Koburi Pass

Several small shrines appear along the path, like this one of the Seven Gods of Fortune (七福神). Hikers leave coins at each shrine for good fortune.

A view of the Okuchichibu Mountains as we approached the top of Koburi Pass. Mt. Fuji was barely visible due to the cloud cover, but it’s not at all visible in this photo

Lunch under the pagoda of Marishiten Temple. 

From the very top of the pass, we could look over the entirety of Saitama Prefecture. On a clear day, Tokyo Skytree is visible, nearly 50 miles away.

Springtime in Japan in all of its glory. The wisteria trees in bloom.

Viburnum plicatum is better known as the Japanese snowball.

Mountain laurel is native to the eastern United States, but it found its way to Japan

Koi swimming free in a stream near the train station