Plum blossoms in Toyooka Baien

February 11 is the National Foundation Day. According to the Japanese myth, Japan’s first emperor Jimmu was enthroned on this day in 660 BC. It is a national holiday, and I joined in a walking event organized by Tenryu Hamanako Railroad Co, Ltd. that runs Tenhama Line. I took a train of Nishikajima Line from Shin-Hamamatsu Station, got off the last station Nishikajima, and took a train of Tenhama Line to Shikichi. It was a small station with a post office (with a mark 〒) in it. It was the starting point, and we were going to Tenryu Futamata Station, the third station from there.

At the beginning, it was cold, and I regretted that I hadn’t taken gloves with me. But spring seemed to come soon, as we could see several kinds of flowers and blossoms by the road. These are rape blossoms.

One of the highlights of this walking event was Toyooka Baien. It is a Japanese plum orchard with about 5,000 trees in an area of about 13 hectares.

I don’t know how many kinds of Japanese plum trees are there. These red blossoms near the entrance reminded me of those drawn on New Year’s cards. The combination of red and white Japanese plum blossoms is a popular design, as it is considered to bring luck.

Some pink blossoms resembled peach blossoms in the doll’s festival in March.

White blossoms were also in bloom.

They were as white as snow and looked cute.

And the contrast of colors was beautiful.

It was really a huge orchard.

While taking pictures, I could only hear the buzzing of hard-working bees. The season of plum blossoms has just started, and there weren’t many people in the orchard yet.

Near the entrance, there is a shop selling some foods and local products.

Since I was hungry, I had plum juice and a rice ball with a picked plum. They use plums from this orchard.

The juice tasted like plum wine. It wasn’t too sweet and was very good. The rice ball was an ordinary type wrapped with seaweed but had sesame sprinkled on it. Though it was inexpensive compared with those sold in convenience stores, it may be much healthier, and nice to eat after a long walk. According to the leaflet I got at the entrance, the orchard was made in 1967 to cultivate plum trees for wine, so it was not originally intended for sightseeing. It is opened for public only in Febuary and March when the blossoms are in bloom.

They were also selling pottery,

sweets made from plums, and misoman.

Though plum sweets might be delicious, I was more interested in misoman. As I introduced the other day, this sweet has many variations depending on stores. The ones sold there were from a neighboring town Mori-machi, not from its original area, the north of Lake Hamana. I thought I had to try and bought them home.

I found this one smelled sweet already before unwrapping it and tasted good. Like misoman I ate the other day, it had its uniqueness. In addition to common basic ingredients such as wheat flour, black sugar, and adzuki bean paste, it contained crystal sugar, soy sauce, and starch syrup, etc. Crystal sugar may be the ingredient that creates a flavor different from others.