Sunday, November 6, 2011

Asuke and いなご

Yesterday, I went to Asuke again, but this time with a Japanese friend, her family, and another international student.

This season is the time of changing color of the leaves (紅葉).  It's a super famous and popular time of the year, because the trees are so beautiful.  There are even magazines that highlights the best places to see this, and Asuke is one of the best around Nagoya.  Right now, it's a little early to visit, but I heard that in about 2 weeks the place will be swarming with people.

Asuke is also famous for it's small traditional village where you can see artisans at work.  They make everything by themselves using old methods, which gives their products a different feel than the ones you can buy at the store.  In fact, some things you can't buy at a store either, which adds to the handmade item's value.

There was actually once famous workshop - I forget the name but I think it was the blacksmith's shop.  It's where they make knives or other sharp objects.  That place was visited by many famous people, including a band named EXILE and the Emperor himself.  I know this because I've seen the autographs and the pictures - it was pretty awesome when we found that out.

The most interesting fact I learned though was how the people in the area used to get their calcium in the old times.  My friend's mother explained it to me: apparently it was very hard for the people there in the old times to get calcium.  One of the ways they could easily get it though was by eating inago (いなご).  Depending on the person/dictionary you use, it's either a baby grasshopper or locust.  Anyways, as a souvenier, I bought my dorm a box of these insects covered in some kind of sauce and cooked.

Surprising, some of my dorm mates ate them, and some even were okay with the taste!  O_O  I was super surprised.  However, they only ate maybe a fifth of the box, and even our hungry neighborhood cat ran away from the box once I brought it out.  :-P

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