Ago

Ago means tobiuo (flying fish) in the regional dialect. It is one of the local specialities in Hirado (Nagasaki).

At the very end of our dinner (Kaiseki-ryouri), we had Ago dashi soup. The soup was richer than bonito dashi and was very pleasant! I bought Ago soup for my souvenir :D


Another Ago we had was broiled Ago. It was served at our breakfast buffet! Broiled Ago is pretty hard but if you chew it well, you can be smart ;)




Ago is also used for soy sauce product! It uses less salt and has sweet & mild taste. It is perfect for sashimi or hidden flavor of your cooking!





Then last but not least, I found Ago cookies!!! They contain Ago powder! You can enjoy slight taste of Ago flavor. Interesting indeed!!!




There are many other Ago souvenirs in Hirado.
I hope you get a chance to visit there and find them!

It is finally sunny today but all the cherry blossoms were blown away by the spring storm...
Hopefully I will upload my hula video tomorrow! I just converted MP4 to AVI!

This is all for today ;)

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Weekend Trip to Hirado (Nagasaki)

On the weekend, my darling and I visited Hirado city in Nagasaki prefecture. 4/4 was my darling's 35th birthday, so we celebrated his birthday there, too! We stayed at the hotel called 旗松亭 (Kishoutei), which was the prize for the Dutch food contest!

We left home at 5:00AM, took a plane from Tokyo to Fukuoka for about 2 hours, took a bus from Hakata to Hirado for about 2.5 hours, and arrived at Hirado at 1:30PM! It was well worth the long distance, we enjoyed local dishes in Hirado!

The top left image is 懐石料理 (Kaiseki-ryouri: variety of dishes). After having a relaxing dip in outdoor hot spring bath, we had those for dinner in our room at the hotel. Raw flatfish on the boat was gorgeous and super delicious! The soy sauce in Kyushu area is not that salty but sweet as compared to soy sauce in Tokyo, so you can eat a lot of sashimi without white rice!

Besides foods, we enjoyed sightseeing! We walked to 平戸城 (Hirado Castle) which dominates the hill that rises above the town and the harbour. 平戸教会 (St. Francis Xavier Memorial Church) raises high behind temples and it has a very interesting view with both temples and a church from the distance.

BTW, we couldn't rent a car since there was no car available during our stay, so we rented bicycles! We headed to 千里ヶ浜 (Senrigahama Beach) where is Hirado's largest sandy beach. It was 7km (4.5miles) away from the city! My muscles are sore now... The sea was blue and beautiful, so I took a video of my hula there! That was my objective to ride there actually. He-he ;)

Our return bus was at 1:30PM as well, so we had exactly 24 hours in Hirado. The time there was like a dream. Now I'm back to work... Busy Monday! I will hopefully upload my hula video tomorrow!

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Calorie Hunter

Last night, I attended the new class called "Calorie Hunter" after the regular hula dancing class at the gym. You dance Latin, hip-hop, house, and whatever dance for non-stop 45 minutes! People at the gym say you just simply follow an instructor, but for no joke, I am not a dance person, so I couldn't follow the instructor at all X( I think I burned my calories in a cold sweat... I'm not sure weather to attend it again (try out new a new thing) or not.

Anyway, the new hula dancing song is Kaimana Hila! I can't wait to complete it :D

This weekend, my darling and I are going to fly to Nagasaki and take a bus (2.5hrs!!!) to visit Hirado city. We are using the hotel vouchers which I won at the Dutch food contest! Then I am thinking of renting a car to do sightseeing in Ikitsuki (very northern part of Nagasaki). I haven't driven a car for ages in Japan, so I hope I can make it back alive!

I am planning to take the video of the previous hula this weekend there. So, hopefully, I'll post it at YouTube by next week!

Stay tuned!!!

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