2010-03

If you are visiting Japan in the springtime, you may be lucky enough to visit during cherry blossom season, the annual and somewhat unofficial symbol of spring. I don’t know the exact reason why, but traditionally, Japanese people go a little crazy around sakura season. We love to see cherry trees, photograph them, have parties under them, buy things that have cherry blossom pictures pasted on them and even take long journeys to discover them.

If you have visited Japan in the springtime or if this spring marks your first visit, you will find a huge array of goods and meals that are packaged in pink, the color that represents the sakura blossoms. We just go crazy about anything and everything related to sakura and if you have been here in the spring before, you know what I mean.
Ise, of course, is no exception. There are many of these annual works of art along the Isuzu River if you are visiting Naiku. Or if you are traveling by car, another wonderful place is along the Miya River near Miyagawa Tsutsumi Park (宮川堤公園). I will post a link to an Ise City map that can help you with specifics and for more detailed information, I recommend a google or yahoo map to really zoom in on where to go.

http://www.ise-kanko.jp/english/html/map/map.html

Many of the shops and restaurants in Ise offer special goods and meals for this season. The Okage-yokocho area near Naiku usually closes down by 5 o’clock in the evening but during this season and, perhaps, until the middle of April depending on the weather, some areas along the Isuzu River are lighted in the evening giving visitors the chance for some beautiful viewing after sundown. The following link is in Japanese, but you can see a few images in order to get a better understanding of what I am writing about!

http://www.okageyokocho.co.jp/html/sakuramaturi.html
Some of cherry blossoms in Ise have already bloomed but we are certainly not at the peak just yet. If you are visiting Japan or hopefully Ise in the next few weeks, please enjoy this beautiful and very “Japanese” season! I hope to post more sakura pictures in the coming days.

If you find yourself looking for a good bowl of Japanese soba (buckwheat noodles) in the Okage-yokocho area near Naiku Shrine, I highly recommend “Saiya” for a great lunchtime or early evening meal. They offer a handful of different soba dishes to choose from but if you are like me, they all will look good. I have many favorites and it is always hard for me to choose when I make the trek for lunch.

Saiya’s menu is only in Japanese but if you like tempura and soba, I recommend, “Tenmori-Seiro” which comes with a seasonal fried fish and cold soba noodles. Or, if you want something a little lighter, I recommend, “Seiro” which is cold soba noodles served with wonderfully rich stock to dip your noodles in.

Of course, if you are traveling with someone with Japanese ability, there are a variety of delicious dishes to choose from and from my own experience, all are good. And I’m not the only one that finds Saiya appealing and because of that, it is usually filled with locals and visitors alike so I recommend getting there as early as possible since they close up shop when they are out of stock.

Saiya is located on Route 23 in Ise City near the Naiku-mae bus stop (please see the map) and is open from 11:00 to 17:00. But please note, they are closed every Wednesday and the last Tuesday of each month.

They do have a website but it’s only in Japanese. However, if you take a look, you could get a better feel of the restaurant.

http://www.amigo2.ne.jp/~saiya/

I hope you enjoy it.