Tents, which are selling hot foods & sweets, are indispensable parts of the scenery when it comes to the temple festivals of Japan.
And it was no exception that colourful canopies of street food vendors lined along the lower promenade of Zenkō-ji and the main street of Daimon during New Year’s holiday.
The worshippers, who finished their annual visit to Hondō, u-turned and headed back to downtown…
Even though it was cold, the day was windless and the streets were filled with the smell of freshly cooked food…
Japanese-style savoury pancake, Okonomiyaki…
Small savoury pancake balls with chopped octopus pieces, Takoyaki…
Various parts of meat barbecued on skewers, Kushiyaki..
Fried chicken, Karaage…
Fried noodle, Yakisoba…
And for anyone with sweet-tooth, bananas dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with coloured sugar…
Toffee coated fruit pieces on skewers, Frutsu Ame…
My favourite, Obanyaki cakes, came in different flavours, such as yoghurt, coffee, chocolate, cheese, custard, pumpkin, green tea, Azuki red bean, etc…
The vendor was busy flipping and turning rows of small pancakes in front of him…
This stall was selling bags of boiled sweet…
Assorted candies were roughly broken into pieces and stuffed in the bags…
Amongst cheery families and couples, a lone monk stood in the cold motionlessly…
Apart from chiming some instrument in his left hand time to time, the monk uttered no word and his gaze was fixed to the ground a few meter ahead of him. And most of the passers by acted as if he wasn’t even there. They ignored his existence completely. As the traffic light nearby turned to green, they simply walked on towards the temple. Still, the monk stood there like a statue in the cold afternoon sunshine unflinchingly…
I love Okonomiyaki! Yum wish they had it here.
Excuse my ignorance but what was the monk doing– was he greeting people at the temple? Seems strange that he was ignoring everyone and they were ignoring him?
According to my mum, he is a travelling monk and doesn’t belong to Zenkoji. He is training himself to be a good monk by living frugally on the road…
I love Okonomiyaki too! It was a shame that I had lunch at home already 😂 x
Takoyaki! Yum! I’ve never tried Okonomiyaki. The ones here aren’t really as large as the ones in your photo. 😦
Are those frozen bananas? I’m going to look for Frutzu Ame here.
BTW, I don’t remember if we told you that we watched Lost in Translation already and we found it to be a very enjoyable movie. We were laughing hard on the first part and found the developing love story very interesting. Beautifully directed, no confusing scenes. And, it was not a girly movie. Hehehe. Thanks for the recommendation! 🙂
Okonomiyaki is as tasty as takoyaki! They are like a half pancake and half omelet. It can be layered on too of yakisoba fried noodle and topped with sauce & mayonnaise.
About Choco Bananas, they aren’t frozen. The winter in Nagano is so cold, they are probably near-frozen anyway 😱
I am glad that you liked “Lost in Translation”. The movie well depicted the landscape of Tokyo, physically & metaphorically. 😉
That food looked amazing! I could almost smell it out of my screen! xxx
They were so tempting! I wished if I didn’t eat lunch at home 😭 xxxxxx
I just love the food stalls in Japan, M always gets excited when he sees takoyaki or corn being sold at them. I never knew the imagawayaki cakes were also called obanyaki. I would totally go for a chocolate or custard one! I’m so enjoying reading all your Japan posts. I’m so happy to see you having such a wonderful time on your vacation. I’ve been so busy that I’ve hardly had time to log in to WordPress as of late, I’ve missed reading your posts!
I wished if I visited there with an empty stomach! I just had lunch and was not even remotely hungry. So just took photos and walked away. Yes, those cake are also called Imagawa-Yaki too!
I have more posts to update in due course. So please watch this space 😊