Matsuri e Ikimashita

This past weekend the soba festival was held near the train station in our town.  It rained all day Saturday, but was beautiful Sunday when we attended.

 

We walked to the event and arranged to meet our friend Reiko, who rode her bike. It looks like a lot of people rode their bikes.

 

Soba is the Japanese word for buckwheat and is usually used to refer to the thin buckwheat noodles that are popular in Japan.  Buckwheat is mainly produced in Hokkaido, which is probably why there is a festival here.  The whole festival was food and mostly soba.  It was around lunch time when we arrived so the lines were long at almost every place.

This place was selling packets of dried soup.  They gave us a sample to taste, but we didn’t buy any.

We did wait in line and bought zaru soba with tempura.  I think zaru is really the dish that cold soba is served in, but cold soba is called zaru, even when it is served in little plastic take out dishes. It comes with cold dipping sauce, wasabi, and some chopped green onions. The tempura was mostly pumpkin and onions, I think.

 

 

We waited in another long line for dessert.  I had a snow cone, Ted and Reiko had banana-chocolate crepes.

 

The whole thing was about eating, so once we were done with that, we went home. Next weekend, more festivals!