Over the weekend, I took Japan's famous shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Aomori prefecture. The distance from Tokyo to Aomori is about the same from Los Angeles to San Francisco. So we're talkin a 7 hour drive or about an hour flight, but on the shinkansen it's a smooth 3 hours.
The reason for the trip was to again meet up with my friend Jessica, as well as enjoy the town of Takko's annual garlic festival.
Here is some background info...
The town of Takko Machi is the sister city of Gilroy, California, Jessica's hometown. The two cities have a strong relationship, frequently sending groups of middle school students both ways across the Pacific. Both towns are major garlic growing hubs. As a result, both towns have annual garlic festivals, and both have a garlic queen to represent their festival. The queens get the honor of going across the sea to their sister city's garlic festival. Which means, when I went up this weekend to visit with Jess and everyone else in Takko, I also got to see her little sister, Julia, as Julia is the 2012 Gilroy Garlic Queen!
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| garlic and beef festival. |
Here are a few pictures from the weekend, it was quite a special visit.
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| kate and julia the garlic queen. we are standing in front of a cow on a spit. yes, a whole cow. |
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| BBQs everywhere. |
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| we paid per lunch set, which consisted of beef, lots of veggies and of course, garlic. |
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| garlic queen of gilroy and garlic lady of takko. julia & kanako. |
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| this year takko added another sister city from korea. south korea sent 12 representatives. |
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| traditional takko dance. |
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| favorite shot. |
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| ni-ni-ku. |
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| garlic tofu. |
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| garlic mochi. |
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| braided garlic. |
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| patrick, jessica's fiance, went up against some kids in a janken, or rock, paper, scissors contest. he lost. |
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| kate, jessica and julia watching our friend mieko dance. |
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| kate and patrick with a garlic guy. |
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| lunch. |
No Vampires Here,
Kate
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Accomplishment: An awesome weekend!
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