After the eel I had soba in mind, but not many places are open on weekends. So I went back to Hazumiya.
You can’t have a soba place without sake. I ordered atsukan (hot sake), and this is how they served it.
The place oozes old-fashioned atmosphere. They give you fried soba crackers as a snack with your drink, and they were tastier than I expected.
Kamo nanban soba
Same as yesterday..
Daikon oroshi made from grated red radish.
It was a bit spicier than regular daikon. It’s delicious stirred into the soba tsuyu.
Ohagi
A rice cake with sweet red bean paste on the outside and rice inside. It’s a style you don’t find in Korea. I think it’d make a nice snack, too.
Sobagaki
Buckwheat flour worked into a kind of dumpling; great with a drink. People say it lacks buckwheat aroma, and I guess that’s fair. I should have hunted down a more serious soba specialist, but I suppose my laziness is to blame. We ordered a bunch of other things too, but I have no photos -_- No idea where my head was..
After a good meal we headed to Izumo Taisha. Before that we stopped at Yunokawa Onsen, one of Japan’s famous “beauty hot springs”, to enjoy the open-air bath, and dropped by Shimane Winery for a bit.. Everyone was disappointed with Shimane Winery. Local wineries are all like that, I suppose..
A spring near Izumo Taisha
There were even fish living in it. Nature is well preserved here. Or maybe it’s just that there’s nobody around to pollute it. I’ve been to Izumo Taisha so many times that I didn’t bother taking any photos. The cold weather played a part too.
We had time to kill, so we went into the museum as well (the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo).
Not much to see, but apparently lots of Bronze Age artifacts have been found here. I guess it’s because this was a center of ancient Japanese history. Soon it was time, so we moved on to the next restaurant.