A Gentle, Delicious Trip to Ehime
AI helped me translate this post from the Japanese original.
The new year has begun and I’m slowly getting back to everyday life,
but this week I’m only easing back into work.
I want to take my time picturing how I’ll spend this year.
Over the New Year holidays, I played Monster Hunter and went on a trip!
Day 1: eating!
12:30, leaving Haneda Airport (Tokyo).
It was my first trip with my Globe-Trotter suitcase, so I was so excited.
The day my dream Globe-Trotter arrived
This is where we stayed.
The rooms sit by a pond, so you can really relax.
Since it was New Year, flowers for the holiday decorations were set on the table.
A Tobe ware tea set
The Tobe ware (a local porcelain, white with blue designs) was so lovely that I bought a blue rice bowl that caught my eye in a shop to take home.
I’d already stocked up on sweets to eat in the room.
Ichiroku Tart from Ehime and Fukuume from Kanazawa
A little aside: on the right of the photo is fukuume, a New Year sweet from Kanazawa.
I learned about it when I went to Kanazawa one New Year. Just before this trip, I happened to find it at a shop selling regional products at Tokyo Station and couldn’t resist buying it!
One of the best things about traveling is discovering new foods tied to each place, isn’t it?
The meals, full of ingredients from Ehime, were delicious from start to finish.
I love white wine
So many different vegetables grow here
Wonderful charcoal grilling
I think of wagyu as very fatty, so I’m not usually a fan,
but this beef was easy to eat and tender, and I polished it off in no time.
Tender beef, crisp lettuce.
To finish, a shrimp paella.
Nice and crispy
Dessert was mikan (Japanese mandarin oranges) 🍊
Even the plates are beautiful
Day 2: sightseeing
Breakfast was Japanese.
The tai-meshi (rice cooked with sea bream) was so good that I almost wanted them to make it into rice balls for my lunch.
First, we visited Tsubaki Shrine near the inn.
I drew an omikuji (a paper fortune) and got “great blessing”, a great start! (People around me were saying they got great blessings too, so maybe they were handing out luck generously.)
Camellia ema (wooden wish plaques)!
The camellia ema are so cute
Then on to Dogo Onsen, a famous old hot spring.
It was lively even over the New Year holidays!
Ehime is apparently the setting of Botchan, a classic novel by Natsume Soseki.
Come to think of it, I’ve never read it, so I have to read it this year!
Madonna, from “Botchan”, on the clock
We bought sweets as souvenirs and snacked our way around town.
Botchan dango (rice dumplings on a skewer).
Here, you choose three flavors and make your own dango 🍡
https://w-harmony.jp/shop/my-botchan-dango-30/
Total Monster Hunter vibes.
Ready for a hunt
And we had mandarin orange gelato!
There were so many kinds of mandarins that their family tree had gotten pretty wild.
Ehime’s love of mandarins is something else.
Day 3
The Beni Madonna jelly was sweet and just too delicious.
On this trip I learned about the Beni Madonna variety of mandarin.
We wrapped up the trip with tai-meshi!
I polished it off at the airport before our flight.
It was my first trip to Ehime, and it was a relaxed, comfortable place.
Every taxi driver was friendly and always had a kind word or two for us.
While we were in line to buy croquettes at a food stall, they ran out just two or three groups ahead of us. The person at the stall said, “Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s cold, isn’t it? We’re frying a new batch now, so please have this in the meantime,” and brought us jakoten (fried fish cake) while we waited. They didn’t need to apologize at all, and their kindness really moved me.
It was a trip where I felt the gentle, soothing kindness of Japan ✨
