Views of Hokkaido:
Savouring the Delicacies at Lake Akan
July 2008
Arriving at the ryokan at Lake Akan...
...we were first of all impressed by the view from our room, overlooking the lake.
Spying...? - No, just hoping to see some bears...
...didn't see any bears, but all kind of other eatable animals, like living crabs in the hotel pool...
...and dead crabs in the hotel room. This huge one was the absolute hightlight, served on our last evening. The taste was quite different from its smaller brothers and sisters, quite strong but by no means "fishy", and it got tastier from the tip of the legs towards the centre, the best parts being the meaty bits in the main body.
Crab was clearly the main topic of our dinners at the Tsuruga. We got it as sashimi...
...the legs cooked with crab caviar and dip...
...parts of the body in miso soup (what a taste!)...
...and even as a drink in warm sake (quite an acquired taste, but I actually liked it).
Wheras we had opted for Western-style buffet breakfast, we had booked for Japanese-style dinner, which was always served at the low table in our room, all lovingly decorated with an enormous attention to detail. Other than crabs, we also had a vast variety of very elaborate vegetable and meat based dishes, and different kinds of shabu-shabu (Japanese style fondue), either with meat or with seafood, every evening.
Lake Akan (or Akanko in Japanese) itself is famous for a particular species of algae, "marimo", which look like green plush balls. Particularly here in Japan, where people just love anything that's cute ("kawaii"), these things of course make wonderful souveniers, and you stumble over them everywhere - here in an acquarium...
...here in "captivity" to be sold individually...
...or as any other kind of souvenir (well, no further comment to this one).
They can also be eaten, and we actually had some little ones in our miso soup one evening. As a matter of fact they don't have much of an own flavour - they mainly tasted of the soup they were swimming in. Marimos are also contained in all kind of local wagashi (Japanese sweets), such as this marimo-green ball, which was however first of all sweet and again did not have any particular taste. I much prefered another kind of wagashi (which I have no picture of), the "marimo-maccha-mochi", a little rice dough dumpling filled with bean paste, covered with maccha (the slightly bitterish Japanese powdered green tea) and apparently also Marimo extract on the outside. Again, the Marimo had no chance against the taste of the maccha. So to sum it up, in my opinion marimos are rather something to look at than to eat...
It is very common in Japan to buy souvenirs ("omiyage"), mostly local sweets, from whereever you go on holidays, on a weekend trip or even on business travel for work colleagues, family and friends. So you can buy plenty of them, beautifully packaged, at every corner. At our ryokan some were even home-made, and you could sample many of them at the souvenir shop, which we happily did. This is another one I really liked: a (sweet) potato filled rice-dough steam cake with black sesame.
Ryokans are a wonderful place to enjoy good food, the hot tubs, and just to relax. It is common to get out of your clothes when you arrive and to wear a yukata, a light cotton kimono provided by the ryokan, for the time of your stay. If you want to go for a walk outside, the ryokan also provides for the matching shoes. They were admittedly not the most comfortable for us...
...but just fine for a little tour through the little village.
