Mushroom Hunt

July 15 was the long awaited summer mushroom hunt at Mikiyama Forest Park. I say long-awaited because we signed up for the same event last October, but it was cancelled due to rain. Seventy-three percent of Japan is covered by mountains, and the innumerable mountain forests make it an extremely fertile ground for mushrooms. The fall is the best season for mushrooms and extremely ideal locations offer mushroom hunting tourism then. But the humid, post-rainy season climate in July also offers great conditions and many different species of mushrooms from the fall.

We joined 40 or 50 people, along with three guides, and scoured the forest in search of mushrooms. We quickly realized they were everywhere, and every person brought pack at least a handful to the forest education center.

The choice, edible mushrooms were used in a wild mushroom miso soup. The children took charge of mushroom preparation.

Much of the flavor of the mushrooms was overpowered by the miso, but subtle differences were distinguishable. More important than flavor, it was the many different textures that made each mushroom unique.

The end of the event consisted of the experts explaining the many mushrooms we discovered, and making sure we learned which were deadly and which were delicious.

Deadly!

Our mushroom guide was very nice to us throughout the day, and he gave us some mushrooms to take home! We cooked them alongside carrots, asparagus, and onions, put them in a curry sauce, and ate them with a pork chop. Delicious!

Hiroshima and Miyajima

For the long New Year holiday, we went on a road trip to Iwakuni, about five hours west of Miki by car. We went with our friends, Atsushi and Yuko, and stayed at Atsushi’s family’s house in Iwakuni. I used to work with Atsushi three years ago in Amagasaki, and I went to his parents’ house for the New Year holiday then as well.

Atomic Bomb Dome (near epicenter)

One of the many peace memorials

Iwakuni is only about an hour west of Hiroshima, so we started our first day at the Hiroshima Peace park. We had hoped to go to the museum also, but we didn’t realize until we were on our way there that the museum was closed for the New Year holiday (we managed to go a few days later). Much of Japan shuts down at some point between December 29 and January 3, so you want to plan accordingly if you visit Japan during your winter vacation. We snapped a few pictures in the peace park, which wasn't terribly interesting when they hadn't been put in context by the explanations in the museum.

From there we went to Miyajima, an island near Hiroshima and home to Itsukushima Shrine, one of Japan’s most visited tourist sites and a UNESCO world heritage site. Miyajima, like Nara in Kansai, is home to many tame deer, which happily eat rice crackers from tourists. Either because of the cold or the holiday, no one was there to sell crackers, so the deer were much more lethargic than the last time I visited the island. There was one exception when a hungry deer decided to try to eat a sample piece of cake sitting in front of a coffee shop. Becky did her best to make sure he didn’t eat too much!