AKAFUKU

AKAFUKU
Originally uploaded by shoko.

So long, I promised to visit my friend in Nagoya-area, the third largest metropolitan area in Japan, but just recently I could make it for the first time in two years. One of my colleague works at factory in Mie, and another friend who's been working nere her, so I made them friends, and ask them to be together during the weekend trip. As I was born and grown up in northern half of Japan, I have only few time to go middle-southern area of the land. So, this was the first time to eat "Matsuzaka-meat", the best brand of Japanese meat, and also first time to visit famous "ISE" shrine,the most sacrosanct shrine which is like "Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano" in original Japanese religion. What is interesting, they rebuild shrine in every 20 years to keep sanctity, so there's always enough space to be able to build same size structure next to the existing shrine. It also become nice way to hand down traditional architectural techniques for long time, On the approach of the shrine, many food shop stand in a row. Of course we stop by, have some tea with tasty sweets. (this is famous sweets named "AKAFUKU" ~ red fortune~ made from red bean & rice cake)