blog for people from abroad about Fukui Prefecture in Japan.
July/4/2020
Fukui Railway connects Fukui with Echizen. The interesting thing about this railway is that it has trams, which run in the center of the city of Fukui.
In Japan, there are trams in about 15 prefectures. Since there aren’t many, you’re lucky if you can see them. They run on railways on the road, so you can see trams and other cars at the same time. The scenery of trams running alongside other cars on the road is elegant and fun.
June/6/2020
Habutae Mochi (羽二重餅) is a sweet that originates from Fukui. A lot of travelers buy this as a gift.
In Chihayafuru, a well-known Japanese comic about competitive karuta, Wataya, who was born in Fukui, gives Chihaya the heroine Habutae Mochi as a gift. (If you don’t know about Chihayafuru, see my previous post: What is Chihayafuru? and what is karuta?)
June/4/2020
Throughout history, human beings have experienced a lot of infectious diseases such as the new coronavirus, smallpox, tuberculosis and measles.
Among all infectious diseases, smallpox was the first infectious disease that humans eradicated from the earth.
After overcoming a lot of difficulties, Kasahara Ryosaku was the first to introduce the smallpox vaccine into Fukui. His life was so dramatic that a novel called Snow Flowers (雪の花) was written about him.
March/21/2020
Echizen Soba no Sato(Echizen Soba Village)(越前そばの里) is in the city of Echizen, Fukui. There, you can eat Echizen Soba, buy souvenirs and gifts, see the soba manufacturing process, and experience making it. (If you want to know more about this, see the official English website.)
March/21/2020
Soba, which is a kind of Japanese noodle, is one of the symbols of Japanese cuisine. There are a lot of kinds of soba such as zaru soba, tempura soba, green tea soba, kake soba (soba noodles in broth), and oroshi soba.
Fukui’s oroshi soba is one of the most well-known kinds of soba in Japan. It’s soba noodles served with grated Japanese radish, green onions, and katsuobushi (small shavings of dried bonito) on top.
March/7/2020
If you’re interested in Japanese food, you might know katsudon (カツ丼), which is a bowl of rice with a pork cutlet, egg, and vegetables on top.
However, in Fukui Prefecture “katsudon” refers to a specific variety called sauce katsudon (ソースカツ丼). This is Fukui’s local specialty and is very well known there.
November/9/2019
Tsuruga, which is in the middle of Fukui Prefecture, is often called a railroad and port city.
In 1902 the direct route between Tsuruga and Vladivostok was opened, and in 1912 the railroad between Tsuruga and Tokyo was built. From 1912 to 1941 this route (which went from Tokyo to Tsuruga to Vladivostok to European countries like France, Poland, and Lithuania, and which made use of both Tsuruga Port and the Trans-Siberian Railroad) was the shortest one between Japan and Europe.
November/10/2019
Tsuruga is a city that Polish orphans came to in the 1920s and Jewish refugees in the 1940s. (If you want to know more about these things, read my previous post.(Tsuruga Port,Fumi Matsuzawa: a heroine, and Chiune Sugihara: a hero.)) Because of this, Tsuruga has friendly relationships with Poland, Lithuania, Israel and the Netherlands.
November/9/2019
November/23/2019
I’d like to write about the legend of Echizen washi and Okamoto Shrine . (If you don’t know about Echizen Washi, please visit my previous post.(Echizen Washi has a 1,500-year history and is still evolving))
“This story is from about 1,500 years ago.
There was a village, which is now the city of Echizen, among some mountains. The village didn’t have many rice or vegetable fields, so the people there couldn’t make ends meet.