{"id":11,"date":"2010-05-21T14:14:58","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T05:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=11"},"modified":"2011-04-27T15:26:14","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T06:26:14","slug":"toyooka-crab-county-where-the-crab-is-plenty-and-the-people-are-genki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2010\/05\/toyooka-crab-county-where-the-crab-is-plenty-and-the-people-are-genki\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyooka, Crab County, Where the Crab is Plenty and the People Are Genki"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>They came from far and wide to witness the grand display of the freshest, biggest and most delicious crab in all of Hyogo at the 19th Toyooka Tuiyama Port Crab Festival. Held by the Toyooka piers along the scenic Maruyama river, this popular winter festival attracted all types of people,\u00c2\u00a0including families, young students,senior citizens and yours truly\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddespite the early Sunday morning start (8:30 AM), the out-of-the-way location and the cold winter weather (5\u00e3\u201a\u0153C). \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was way too early for a matsuri,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kenny Wu, Toyooka City JHS ALT who has attended about six festivals since arriving in Japan last July. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153However, I enjoyed it a lot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The day began with the Opening Ceremony which included Heike Suigun Taiko (Drum) performance and free warm sake served in a crab shell. Bowls of hot crab leg soup were sold for 300 yen,\u00c2\u00a0and about 50 local fresh fish and seafood vendors had their best quality products on sale for exceptionally low prices. It was truly paradise for any serious seafood lover.\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was lots of crab, for cheap!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Wu.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only was the crab cheap, there was octopus, squid, salmon, etc. You name it,\u00c2\u00a0they had it and for cheap! They even offered crab sake. After being offered several hefty samples by the generous vendors we discovered that crab sake is very tasty and bought several bottles.<\/p>\n

The fast-talking host with\u00c2\u00a0the million-yen smile, the showcasing of enormous crab on stage, the pushing, shoving and hollering of low prices from the crowd below were all part of the exciting\u00c2\u00a0amateur fresh delicacy auction. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That auction was crazy. Crates of live crab worth hundreds of dollars selling for like $10?!?!,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Alvin Tran, Kinosaki JHS ALT who recently arrived in Japan and was happy to attend\u00c2\u00a0his first Japanese festival. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[The festival]\u00c2\u00a0was really cool and lots of fun.\u00c2\u00a0It was a great mini-introduction to Japanese-culture.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAs if all this activity was\u00c2\u00a0not enough\u00c2\u00a0to satisfy anyone before 10 AM,\u00c2\u00a0they then held\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0Tsuiyama crab raffle which Kenny Wu won! The grand prize was a night stay at a fancy and authentic\u00c2\u00a0ryokan<\/em>,\u00c2\u00a0including a\u00c2\u00a0special and highly reputed Tsuiyama crab dinner course for two. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was surprised when I won the raffle! Grand prize! Booyah!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d exclaimed Wu. For Chinyere Okoli, Toyooka City SHS ALT, who was expecting more for her first festival in Japan, the festival was not as exciting. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I expected lots of people, lots of decorations and a bigger arena like in the town itself,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Okoli. She was surprised to see people selling whole fish and crabs. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It seemed more like a Day market,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she added.<\/p>\n

Okoli did enjoy seeing and taking a photo with the official festival mascot,\u00c2\u00a0Genbudo-san, a giant Rock man(because all Japanese festivals must have mascots).\u00c2\u00a0Accompanied by\u00c2\u00a0two assistants who were local models,\u00c2\u00a0Gen-san\u00c2\u00a0(for short)\u00c2\u00a0also came with his own rice-cake (mochi<\/em>) wooden mallet (kine<\/em>). This was convenient for all the\u00c2\u00a0mochi <\/em>making that went on next in the schedule.<\/p>\n

It was quite a sight to see a bit of\u00c2\u00a0m<\/em>ochitsuki, <\/em>the traditional mochi-pounding ceremony in Japan.\u00c2\u00a0The cooked rice was pounded with the large mallets in a traditional mortar (usu<\/em>). In a\u00c2\u00a0m<\/em>ochitsuk<\/em>i<\/em>,\u00c2\u00a0two people alternate the work, one pounding and the other turning and wetting the\u00c2\u00a0mochi<\/em>. They must keep a steady rhythm or they may accidentally injure one another with the heavy\u00c2\u00a0kine<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The most fun was when that lady slapped thatmochi<\/em>!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Wu. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It made a good sound.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

As the day wore on and the chill in the air became stronger, the 100-yen bowl of hot porridge made fromcrab, rice and vegetables\u00c2\u00a0being served to all the festival attendees was a delicious (and cheap) relief. Wu, Tran and Okoli plan on returning and strongly recommend everyone to attend next year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crab festival in Toyooka. According to Wu, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everyone\u00c2\u00a0should be able to enjoy cheap crab once in their life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They came from far and wide to witness the grand display of the freshest, biggest and most delicious crab in all of Hyogo at the 19th Toyooka Tuiyama Port Crab Festival. Held by the Toyooka piers along the scenic Maruyama river, this popular winter festival attracted all types of people, including families, young students,senior citizens and yours truly\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddespite the early Sunday morning start (8:30 AM), the out-of-the-way location and the cold winter weather (5\u00e3\u201a\u0153C). \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was way too early for a matsuri,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kenny Wu, Toyooka City JHS ALT…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[15,5,16],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/crab.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}