Kaki (Persimmon) Festival

Kaki is an amazing fruit. It is one of my favorite fruits. So when Zack asked me to go to a small town Kaki festival, I was immediately excited. This past Wednesday we were off because of another national holiday. It was Labour Thanksgiving Day. In honor of this day a small mountain town named Shigo had the Kaki Festival. Zack teaches at the elementary school in this town. He has only 11 students, so I knew that the festival was going to have a hometown feel and that's nice to have sometimes.

This town is basically a farming town, with one of their main products being kaki. I assume that since there is a pleathera of kaki and they don't want it to go to waste, they dry it. They decorate the town with strings of kaki drying. The dried kaki in my opinion is as equally delicious as regular kaki.

I promised my grandmother that I would try a Kansai favorite, takoyaki. It's octopus battered in egg and flour and then grilled. She has never had it before. So here I am trying it. It was OK, but I was told that this batch was a little mushier than it's suppose to be. Some big wig Wakayama congressman gave each of us a bag of it. We then had to pose for a picture with him. (Also we were the only gaijin at the festival, so great photo-op for him).

Here's Zack walking towards the festival. The town was decorated with these streamers of international flags. It was pretty amusing. Click here to see the entire album; photos of taiko, a small temple, and a jumbo weiner sushi roll.