Hi! Hello! 👋
January's almost over but let me share with you what I did on new year's day 2024.
For a while now, I have been enjoying tours and travels with friends in different areas and destinations in Japan. Last year, I also joined an overnight tour with a few friends for the new year. In this year's trip however, I went with @joanne1221 (my colleague at work) for a day trip tour.
There are so many travel agencies here in Japan that offer different tours, local or international, food and drinks, etc. For this trip we used HIS travel agency to book for a day trip bus tour. We like to eat crabs so we chose one that included all-you-can-eat crabs. You can check this link for the actual tour that we joined.
We departed from Shinjuku station exactly on time at 9:20am.
Strawberry Picking
First stop was strawberry picking. We arrived in the strawberry farm almost 12 noon. I did not eat breakfast on this day because I was really looking forward to the crabs. So I told myself I wont eat a lot. Well we all know everything doesn't go as planned. We had 30mins to pick and eat strawberries and they looked really delicious so I ate a lot 🤣 When we were on the way out, we kept stalling and say "this is the last one I will eat", this kept on going until we reached the door 😆
There were two varieties of strawberries, one small and one large. I only remembered the name yayoihime variety but not sure which one it was. Both varieties were sweet and juicy. Please enjoy these pictures of the strawberries. Craving for it now while writing this blog 😭
All-You-Can-Eat Crabs
A couple of minutes of travel after that, we finally get to eat the craaaabs. At first I was bit disappointed because the setup on the table only has a few crab legs per person. But a lady then explained that we can get refills if we want more. I forgot how many times a went for refill but I'm pretty sure it was a lot. We were seated across a couple and they were really good at cracking the shell they were able to get refills so fast. I was amazed.
You may think that we only get to eat boiled crabs. Let me tell that the soup and rice has crabs as well. Bot only that there are other crab dishes too.
There were desserts as well, it was not crab though but delicious as well. I tasted the ones with strawberry each.
Everything was really delicious. If you know how big crabs are in Japan, you would know how full I was that day. I never have left over food because I feel guilty and it's such as waste. But this time I couldn't even finish my rice which was unexpected. But anyway I really enjoyed it. It was the sole reason I wanted to join this type of tour 😆
Yubasukui
I forgot about this part of the tour since I only cared for the crabs 😆 Our next stop was at a raw tofu skin place. Yuba is tofu skin. I wasn't expecting much but I was surprised by how good it was. Scooping fresh yuba was really fun. I felt like having all-you-can-eat yuba but I was already so full. There were other dishes we can try to pair with the yuba.
As mentioned, tofu skin may be paired with some other dishes. These were the available during that time.
I was intrigued by the fried tofu skin snack so I bought some. The staff said it's famous on tiktok.
道の駅まえばし赤城
We had a bit of time to rest at 道の駅まえばし赤城. I am not sure but it looks like a stop over service kind of place but with a fancy market vibe. We didn't do much here but take a look at some of the products. It was very quiet and not crowded at all. Some small shops were closed as well, maybe because it was the first day of the year. While looking around we were able to find some interesting stuff. The market shop has so many cheap products but it was too inconvenient for me to buy some, pity.
Ashikaga Flower Park Illumination
After a bit of rest, we arrived at Ashikaga Flower Park. According to the tour guide, it's the 3rd largest illumination. I've been to this place a few time already, but this is my first time visiting during night time. I didn't think I'd enjoy the illumination as my main goal was just to eat 😆. But anyway it was fun. We only had a limited time to roam the place but it's a very large area so we weren't able to go around everything.
I'll be sharing a separate blog about this place with more details, not just about illumination. But for now, these are what we were able to capture.
Of course we decided to get some food there as well. We bought some light food from the outdoor shop. I wanted to eat churros and try the hot ruby chocolate since it's cold outside. I was really looking forward to drinking the ruby chocolate, but honestly, it was really disappointing. It was too sweet that it's too difficult to even swallow a sip. In the end we only had a taste of it. I even dipped the churro just so I won't waste it but it didn't work. The churros were okay though.
We head on to our bus right after having a taste of our not-very-appetizing drink. This was the last part of the tour and the bus took us back to Shinjuku station.
If you are ever in Japan, I would really recommend trying out a bus tour. Caveat though, some may not have tour guides who can speak english. So far in my experience, HIS tours are in Japanese.
Thank you for reading and see you on my next blog.
Eating-Apple,
Apple
PS: All photos are mine unless stated otherwise.