BAGEL & BAGEL - Vegan bread available in JR Hamamatsu Station

When I went on a trip to Nagasaki the other day, I bought my lunch before getting on Shinkansen. In Shinkansen, box lunches are available, but they are not for vegetarians/vegans. So, I had to take something with me. I was going to meet my mother at 7:30 near the ticket gate of Shinkansen. Before that, I went to Bagel & Bagel and bought some bagels. To my surprise, my mother did the same (but not for lunch) before we met. Bagels are good to eat under a long train trip because they are pretty filling.

BAGEL & BAGEL is a nationwide bagel chain with more than 40 shops. The open hours vary depending on shops, and the one in May One Ekimachi West in JR Hamamatsu Station is open from 7:00 to 22:00. It is convenient not only for travelers but also for commuters. The shop is easy to find because it is in front of an automatic glass door.

Yesterday, I found a sign with a picture of a bagel sandwich in front of the glass door. It was a seasonal new sandwich called “spring vegetables and cheese omelet” and looked suitable for vegetarians. Spring vegetables were canola flowers and snap peas. I didn’t want to any sandwiches but went inside. I noticed an indication saying that you can get six bagels you like for 1080 yen! One bagel costs 180 to 200 yen, so it may become less expensive.

I chose six vegan bagels (those without 乳 (milk) written as an ingredient) out of some more options.

When I got home, I tried the most delicious-looking one and the most interesting one. They were Triple Berry and Soy Milk & Edamame.

Triple Berry is a brand-new product with strawberries, cranberries, and blueberries contained. According to the website of BAGEL & BAGEL, it is on sale from February 25 to April 7. It had a beautiful color and sweet smell. As I expected, it was delicious and not too sweet.

Soy Milk & Edamame was also good, but edamame or green soybeans were small pieces, and I couldn’t feel their taste very much. It seemed to be sweetened with apple juice, and this sweetness was more noticeable.

Today, I had Sesame and 15 kinds of Grain for lunch. They were simple but nutritious.

In fact, I thought of keeping the remaining two in the refrigerator to eat on some other day. But I couldn’t wait because they were my favorites. I ate Cinnamon Raisins and Maple Walnuts for dinner.

I like the flavor of maple syrup. It tasted especially good when I was tired after work.

Trip to Nagasaki (5) - Traditional vegan sweets

Nagasaki is in the island Kyushu where the climate is warm. In Kyushu, they cultivate some fruits, especially citrus fruits, that are rare in Hamamatsu. Near Oura Church in Nagasaki, there was a shop that sold zabon juice, fresh zabon, etc. Zabon is a big citrus fruit whose diameter can be more than 20 cm. My mother and I drank a cup of juice from a blender. It was cold but refreshing. Several years ago, I ate fresh zabon. It tasted like a grape fruit, but the texture was a little firmer.

My mother bought a pack of crystallized zabon peel as a souvenir for her friend. It looked like this. I learned later that this is a traditional sweet in Nagasaki.

Since I didn’t want to take much sugar, I bought other thing for myself. In Lantern Festival, I ate a pack of kankoromochi. It is a traditional sweet of Goto Islands made of sweet potatoes, glutinous rice, and sugar.

As kankoromochi is a kind of mixture of a steamed sweet potatoes and rice cakes, it had a unique elastic texture though the taste was that of sweet potatoes. I liked it, so I was glad to find some kinds of kankoromochi sold in a souvenir shop in JR Nagasaki Station. I bought two kinds. Both of them contain sesame and thick malt syrup in addition to common ingredients. The right one contains also mugwort.

I think I’ll eat them later, because their expiration dates are in May 2019.

Trip to Nagasaki (4) - Church destroyed by atomic bomb

The check-out time was 12:00, so we went back to the hotel around 11:45. As it was lunch time, restaurants on the guidebook were surely crowded. After check-out, we bought a one-day ticket of the tram and went to JR Nagasaki Station. There we left our baggage in a locker and had a lunch in a Chinese restaurant. When it is impossible to have a vegetarian or vegan dish, I choose fish rather than meat. This time, I had saraudon with vegetables and seafood on. Then, we took a tram in front of the train station.

The last destination of this trip was Urakami where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. It was also a district where hidden Christians lived. As I wrote in the last article, they came to Oura Church in 1865 and confessed their faith to Father Petitijean though the ban of Christianity still continued. In 1867, a severe crackdown (Urakami Yoban Kuzure) began, and all the believers in Urakami were finally transported to other regions in Japan. They went through forced labor and tortures for conversion, and 662 out of 3394 people died. When the ban of Christianity ended in 1873, the survivors returned to Urakami. After that they started to build their own church. In 1914, Urakami Cathedral was completed. It was said to be the largest church in the East. The atomic bomb was dropped 500m away from this church.

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is located near the tram stop Atomic Bomb Museum. The exhibition was started with pictures taken before August 9, 1945. One of them was taken in a sacrament of confirmation. In the picture, there were many children dressed neatly in kimono, and the hairstyle of the girls reminded me of a picture of my grandmother in her childhood. I wondered how many of them survived from the bomb, and became sad.

The atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki killed about 74,000 people. Urakami Cathedral was also destroyed beyond recognition. All the people inside were killed. There was a rosary melted by heat exhibited in a showcase. It was horrible.

As in Hiroshima, there was a clock that stopped when the bomb was dropped. It showed 11:02. In the museum, it was prohibited to take pictures. But some of the exhibits were unforgettable. The pictures taken after the bombing were painful to look at: charred bodies, people badly burned, rubble, etc.

In addition, there was a room that showed a chronological table of wars, victims of experiments of nuclear weapons, and so on. The exhibition of this museum was very well organized. After we left the museum, we walked to Urakami Cathedral. It was just 7-minute walk, but it was a little tiring because we had to go up slopes. The church was rebuilt in 1959.

In front of the church, there were ruins of the old church destroyed by the atomic bomb.

Urakami Cathedral was admission free. When we arrived there, there was a chorus group inside singing in front of the alter. We walked through the backmost passage quietly, seeing stained glass and hearing their song. Both stained glass and the song were very beautiful, and I thought this was really a church for believers. I imagined that there might be descendants of survivors of the atomic bomb in the chorus group.

Before we returned to Nagasaki Station, we dropped in a dance shop near JR Urakami Station because my mother wanted to see dresses. The owner of the shop said that she had seen the pope. It was Pope John Paul II who visited Urakami Cathedral in 1981.
We left JR Nagasaki Station at 15:47 and arrived at Hamamatsu at 22:27. Though the schedule was rather hard, both my mother and I had a very good time during the trip.

Trip to Nagasaki (3) - Oura Church and Glover Garden

Next morning, we relaxed at the hotel until 9:00. They provided a great breakfast buffet, including local specialties such as saraudon. It is deep-fried noodles with thick sauce including vegetables and seafood on top. In the hotel, noodles and the sauce were provided separately, so I took some noodles and vegetables in the sauce. The noodles were very thin and crispy, reminding me of snack confectionaries. I wanted to have them at home and wondered if they were sold separately in stores, not with the sauce.

After eating substantial breakfast, we went to Oura Church near the hotel. It is the oldest existing church in Japan established in 1865 and dedicated to the memory of 26 martyrs who were executed in Nagasaki in 1597. It was originally intended for French people living in Nagasaki, because Christianity was still forbidden in Japan.

On March 17, 1865, a group of Japanese people came to Oura Church. They were hidden Christians from Urakami, about 4 km from the church. When Father Petitjean let them in and prayed, one of them came to him and confessed their faith, saying “We have the same hearts as you do.” Then she asked, “Where is the statue of Virgin Mary?”

This is known as “discovery of believers” after more than 250 years of suppression of Christianity. The next year, believers in Urakami donated a great sum of money they had saved in poverty, saying that this was for the God and Virgin Mary. Father Petijean ordered a statue of Virgin Mary to France, which is now at the entrance of the church, as a memory of discovery of believers.

Though I’m not a Christian, I was moved by this history of Oura Church. In 2018, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of “Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.” It’s a pity that it was prohibited to take pictures inside. As it was a fine day, light coming through stained glass made it more beautiful, and the atmosphere was cozy and warm. This is the entrance ticket of the church with a picture of the alter.

As you see, the admission fee is 1000 yen. It includes entry to the museum outside. In the museum, you can learn about the 26 martyrs and the history of Christianity in Japan and see a short film of the life of Jesus Christ. There is also a shop where you can buy some souvenirs. My mother bought three cans of kompeito, a kind of sugar candy.

The museum was informative. However, I still thought the admission fee was too expensive. It was also unreasonable that you had to pay 1000 yen even if you just wanted to go inside the church itself. I wondered if it was suitable for a church to charge so much money in such a case because I had imagined that churches were open to everyone regardless of his/her economic situations.

After that, we went to Glover Garden adjacent to the church. This area was established as a foreign settlement in the second half of 19th century, and you can see several old Western style houses in the garden. The main residence is that of Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who contributed to modernization of Japan. Unfortunately, it was impossible to go inside the house because it was under repair. But it was not so cold outside, and we could enjoy the view toward the port. The weather was fine and refreshing.

Trip to Nagasaki (2) - Lantern Festival

In Japan, there are three major Chinatowns, and Shinchi Chinatown in Nagasaki is the oldest. Nagasaki Lantern Festival is originated from celebration of Chinese New Year. After leaving Dejima, we got on the tram to go to Hamano-machi Arcade. But the arcade was crowded with people, and we found it difficult to eat at a restaurant we thought of. We went to the Chinatown and managed to find something to eat. It was hottoek filled with fried vegetables sold on the main street. 

As it was cold, it was nice to have hot hottoek. I thought it was a Korean food, but I learned later that it originated from Chinese merchants who immigrated to Korea.

The first attraction we saw was dragon dance. It originated from China and was originally performed to pray for rain. In the 18th century, people in Nagasaki learned this dance from residents of the Chinese settlement and began to perform it in Nagasaki Kunchi, a festival of Suwa Shrine. It is a very famous performance art in Nagasaki, and my mother had seen it once on TV. But it was worthy to see it on the spot! Four long dragons were moving dynamically with support of teams of people. I heard powerful sounds of musical instruments such as a gong and drum. 

At the end of a concert, the audience often shout “Encore.” For the dragon dance in Nagasaki, they shout “Mottekoi.” The hostess of the attractions taught us this word, and we repeated it several times. After the performance here, the dragon dance was continued on the street.

There was a pause of 30 minutes, so we walked around for a while. At the entrance of Minato Park where attractions were held, there were many colorful lanterns, creating a splendid atmosphere.

For Japanese people, 2019 is year of the Wild Boar. In China and many other countries, it is year of the Pig.

I saw also a typical Chinese character "福 (fortune)" for New Year's celebration.

The next performance was lion dance. Though we have lion dance also in Japan, it was Chinese lion dance. The lions were more colorful and prettier than Japanese ones.

After watching it for a while, we left the park. As we walked, we saw lanterns reflected on the surface on water. It was a dreamlike view.

We took the tram to Oura Cathedral. Before we returned to the hotel, we dropped in Confucian Shrine. It is a magnificent shrine built in 1893 by the Qing government and people of Chinese heritage in Japan. In front of the main building, there are stone statues of the 72 sages standing in a line on both sides. They were spectacular especially at night. Also In this shrine, we could see beautiful lanterns and get some food. I had corn soup to warm me up. They had a concert that attracted much audience.

Finally, we returned to the hotel, but we had still one place to go. Before we went to see Dejima and the lantern festival, we reserved a free bus ride and bought ropeway tickets at the front desk to go to the summit of Inasayama. It is a mountain with a height of 333m and located near the center of the city. The night view from there is one of the must-see views in Nagasaki. 

At 20:38, we got on the bus. It was convenient because the bus picked up passengers in front of major hotels in Nagasaki. Though it was the last bus of the day, there were still many passengers. It took less than 20 minutes to get to Inasayama from the hotel ANA Crowne Plaza and only 5 minutes to get to the summit by ropeway.It was cold, but air was clear. The night view was very beautiful with lights of countless buildings and the dark sea. 

We returned to the hotel around 22:40. Our long day was over.

Trip to Nagasaki (1) - Long way to go

Last week-end, my mother and I went to see Nagasaki Lantern Festival. It was a 2-day trip. First, we took Shinkansen Kodama that left Hamamatsu at 7:49. After arriving at Nagoya at 8:39, we changed to Shinkansen Nozomi. In the train, my mother had a box lunch she bought there, and I ate some bagels I took from Hamamatsu. We arrived at Hakata in Kyushu, the island nearest to Asian mainland, at 12:07. Hakata is a district of Fukuoka. It’s a big city with a population of more than 158 million. From there, you can go to Busan in South Korea by ferry, which takes only about 3 hours! Since the next train would leave at 12:55, we walked around in the station building, seeing souvenir shops. Hakata is famous for its traditional clay dolls called Hakata ningyo.

Because Doll’s Day on March 3 was approaching, there were also dolls for the festival.

My mother already bought her first souvenir there. After that, we went to take the local train to Nagasaki. The seats in the train were comfortable. When we arrived at Nagasaki, it was 14:50. So it took 7 hours from Hamamatsu. Beside the station building, there was a big object of the lantern festival. Later, I heard that it was used as a lantern on the festival site three years ago.

At the tourist information center in the station, we bought a one-day ticket for tram, and went to the hotel we would stay. It was ANA Crowne Plaza Nagasaki Gloverhill near Oura Cathedral. After leaving our baggage there, we took the tram again to go to Dejima, one of the historical spots in the town.

In 1633, the shogunate began to close the country to foreigners. Dejima is a small artificial island made in 1636 to accommodate Portuguese who lived in Nagasaki to prevent spread of Christianity and strictly control the trade. Next year, the Shimabara Rebellion occurred, with a young Christian Amakusa Shiro as a leader. In 1939, it was prohibited for Portuguese ships to come to Japan. After that the Dutch trading house was moved to Dejima. During the national isolation period that lasted for more than 200 years, only Holland and China were permitted to have trade with Japan. Dejima was the only place for trade between Japan and Europe, and many kinds of goods including sugar, spice, and vegetables, as well as Western culture and science were introduced to Japan through this island. After the national isolation policy ended, other ports were opened in Japan, and the center of the trade in Nagasaki was also moved to foreign settlement around the present Glover Garden. In 1951, Nagasaki started a plan to restore Dejima, and sixteen buildings have been rebuilt until now.

My mother and I got on the tram at Oura Cathedral and got off at Shinchi Chinatown. It was only a few minutes to Dejima. Its area is about 1.5ha, and you can see its miniature there.

In Dejima, you can see people in old costumes.

This is a room from Chief Factor’s Residence.

I didn’t take any more pictures in Dejima because we didn’t have much time. But warehouses were also interesting to see. One of the most memorable things was a big balance scale to weigh sugar. From Dejima in Nagasaki, sugar imported from abroad was transported all over Japan.

Hot sweet potato snacks on cold days

It has been cold recently. The other day, when I visited my relative’s house, my aunt set out a snack for me. It was dried sweet potatoes warmed up in the microwave oven. They had a beautiful color and looked fine.

Though I like dried sweet potatoes, I usually eat them straight out of the pack. So, this may have been my first time to eat warmed ones. They were soft, sweet, and suitable to eat on a cold day! Since they had a viscous texture, I thought that they were surely Annoimo, a kind of sweet potatoes known for its sweetness and viscosity. Later, I heard that they were Beniharuka, which is also a popular kind of sweet potatoes with a rich taste.

After that I felt like eating some more sweet potatoes. So, I bought annoimo today in the basement of May One in the station building. Annoimo are unique sweet potatoes originally grown in  Tanegashima Island of Kagoshima Prefecture. They have become popular in recent years, but not every supermarket has them at this time of year. So, I had a luck.

It is easy to distinguish Annoimo from other kinds of sweet potatoes without any label. Here you see a potato, Annoimo, and common sweet potato. Annoimo is bigger than a potato but much smaller and paler than other kinds of sweet potatoes.

It is said that the best way to eat Annoimo is to bake and they become even sweeter when baked. But it takes time to bake at home, so I cut them with an apple and cooked them together in a pot with a pinch of salt added. Finally, I sprinkled chai masala on top.

Maybe I cooked them too long because the apple slices fell apart. But Annoimo were sweet and warmed me up.

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (4)

The museum has also an excellent collection of Japanese keyboard instruments, many of which were made by Yamaha. The company was named after the surname of its founder Torakusu Yamaha.

Torakusu Yamaha was born in 1851 in Wakayama Prefecture. His father was an astronomer, and Torakusu got interested in machines as a child. Later, he learned watchmaking in Nagasaki and worked at a medical instrument store in Osaka. Then, He moved to Hamamatsu and worked as a medical instrument technician, doing some other work such as repair of watches.

In 1887, Torakusu Yamaha was asked to repair a broken reed organ of an elementary school. At that time, reed organs were very precious and expensive musical instruments because they were imported from abroad. The one in the elementary school in Hamamatsu was made in America, and no one knew how to repair it. Torakusu Yamaha found that it was easy to repair, because it was just two springs that were broken. But he took time and sketched the mechanism of the reed organ so that he could make one by himself. He expected that all the elementary schools in Japan would purchase reed organs for their music class in the future and wanted to provide Japanese reed organs at a much lower price compared with foreign ones.

With help of Kisaburo Kawai, a metallic ornament artisan, Torakusu Yamaha made his first reed organ. They carried it to an organization in Tokyo (present Tokyo University of the Arts) by themselves to have it checked, walking all the way there (about 250 km). It proved to be a failure because it was not tuned. Then, Torakusu Yamaha learned musical theory and succeeded to make a full-fledged reed organ in 1888. Next year, he established a company to manufacture reed organs. Though it was dissolved, he established Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. in 1897 which was renamed as Yamaha Corporation in 1987. In the museum, I could see some of their old reed organs and pianos. This reed organ was made in 1909. It was well preserved.

Until now, Yamaha has been manufacturing many kinds of musical instruments. I admire the founder's strong will and efforts. Their music school is popular here, and I used to go there as a child. The museum has also a collection of modern musical instruments including synthesizers and electric guitars.

Finally, I went to the Hands-on Room to see if I could play any musical instrument. There were children and their parents playing the piano, hand bells, morin khuur from Mongolia, drums, and many other interesting musical instruments whose names I didn’t know. I tried this drum. It is klong ae from Thailand and has a deep nice sound.

Hand bells seemed to be popular in this room. Above them, there was a score of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I thought the sound of the hand bells matches this song.

I stayed at the museum for more than two hours. If you are a music lover, I strongly recommend to visit there.

Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments
Address: 3-9-1 Chuo, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-451-1128
Admission fee: Adults  800 yen
                         High school students  400 yen
                         Elementary school and junior high school students, persons over 70 years old,
                         disabled persons  Free
Open hours: 9:30 - 17:00
Closed: Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday (except in August), Cleaning Day, December 29 to January 3
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (3)

From 14:00, there was a guided tour for European musical instruments. First, we went to see the keyboard instruments. This is a clavichord.

The guide played it to let us hear the sound. It was elegant though quieter than that of the piano. After that she explained the mechanism to create the sound. But the most interesting thing I heard was that Mozart, the famous composer, used to carry his clavichord in a horse-drawn carriage. I wondered how because the clavichord in the museum was big and seemed to be heavy.

The next musical instrument was the harpsichord. While I was taking a note, a staff member of the museum came to me and said that you can’t use a pen in the exhibition rooms. She recommended me to borrow a pencil in the entrance, and I had to go upstairs to do so. It was a pity that I missed the most of the guide’s explanation of the harpsichord. This one is made in France in 1765, the age of Marie Antoinette.

 

Then, the guide took us to see the collection of wind instruments. She explained the origin of the trombone and played the sackbut (old type of the trombone) and the trombone. I was surprised that she could play both keyboard instruments and the brass instruments very well. According to her, the museum will have a concert with the suckbut and other musical instruments on March 17.

The guided tour was very interesting. On Sundays, they have two guided tours that start 11:00 and 14:00 respectively. Unfortunately, there is no guided tour in English, but self-guided audio headsets are available.

Modern European musicals instruments are familiar to Japanese people, but old instruments were exotic and very interesting to see. I liked this black harp lute made around 1825 in London. The dital harp beside it was also beautiful.

Near the harpsichords, there were old pianos. This piano made around 1860 had candlestands. I imagined how it looked great when it was played in a dark room in old days with candles lit.

 

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (2)

The museum has exhibition rooms also in the basement. Immediately beside the stairs, there is a big wooden object, which I had mistaken as just a sculpture. Actually, it is a tam tam slit drum from Vanuatu. It is one of the largest ones in the world and was used for rituals. The space in front of it is called “Tenku (sky) Hall” where concerts are held sometimes. The birds near the drum are sound reflecting boards to improve the acoustic of the hall. They are herons respected by people in New Guinea as a spirit or god.

In the exhibition of African musical instruments, there are many drums. The big brown drum is a Nigerian dimkedim made of two big gourds. It is no longer produced.

These are talkative drums used for communication. They can send messages with different rhythms of drums. There were also talkative flutes above them. I wanted to see how they were used. These drums and flutes were one of the most interesting items in this museum.

I saw another interesting musical instrument from Africa: a marimba from Tanzania.

I asked one of the museum staff members if the marimba originated from Africa. According to her, the marimba was spread from Africa to South America with the slave trade, and after that, the marimba was developed to become one of the musical instruments used in orchestras. As she explained, I could see marimbas from South America.

I wondered what kind of musical instruments they had in North America. I remembered an American folksong “Oh Susanna” and the banjo. According to the description in the museum, the banjo also originated from Africa. Behind the banjos displayed, there was mirrors so that we could see the beautiful design on the backside.

The America section had other interesting items such as quenas and maracas. There were so many things to see in the museum. I thought it might be interesting to learn the world history through musical instruments. If you study the background of each musical instrument, you may be able to learn quite a lot.

Visit to Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments (1)

Since long time ago, Hamamatsu has been known as a city of musical instruments because headquarters of leading musical instrument manufacturers such as Yamaha, Kawai, and Roland are located here. In 1995, the city opened Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments as a part of “Development of City of Music” policies. It is the only public museum of this kind in Japan. The museum has a collection of about 1500 items from all over the world. As I had nothing to do last Sunday, I spent some time there in the afternoon. 

As I entered the museum, I saw a gorgeous musical instrument from Myanmar. It was a hsaing waing used for Buddhist rituals, dance, and drama. 

On the right of the floor, there is a set of gamelan from Java. I think it is one of the most well-known and eye-catching musical instruments in the museum. Though musical instruments in the exhibition rooms are untouchable, you can hear the sound of many items from videos or headphones. As with the hsaing waing, I could see how it was played.

There were also some musical instruments from Korea. These are a kayagum and other similar musical instruments. They reminded me of Korean historical dramas I like. In one of such dramas, I have heard a famous folksong “Arirang” played with a kayagum. It was very impressive.

I like also some Chinese songs. Every time I visit this museum, I hear a part of “Zai Na Yaoyuan De Difang (草原情歌)” played with an erhu from the headphone. This song is widely known in Japan. While listening to the music, I took a picture of an erhu hung on the wall with its bow.

  

According to their website, this museum exhibits almost all kinds of Japanese musical instruments. These are used for gagaku or ancient court music.  

In a corner, you can try to play a Japanese song “Sakura Sakura (cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms)” with a koto, a stringed instrument. I saw some children playing it with their parents.

In addition to exhibition, the museum has often events such as concerts and workshops. Last Sunday, they had a workshop for children to make a little shakuhachi or Japanese flute. I’m not a child, but it may have been interesting to join it.