久しぶりの uni

Today I ate uni for the first time this year at Sasaki Shokudo ささ木食堂[English 日本語] in Minmaya! The uni was so sweet and delicious, words can't describe how happy I was.
We were going to just get the uni-don, but we ended up getting the kaisen-don.  やっぱりin the end, I wanted to eat more uni, so I should've just gotten the uni-don... but next time!

Afterward, we took a drive down Ajisai Road あじさいロード[日本語], but unfortunately the ajisai (hydrangea) haven't bloomed yet.  Minmaya is super up north, so they probably won't bloom until July. But we saw monkeys instead! They're so cute.

After we took various roads down the coast of the Japan Sea, we saw places like Nanatsu-daki Waterfall 七つ滝 [English 日本語] and Lion Bay Bridge ライオンベイブリッジ [日本語].  The lion bridge had all these lion statues and a weird sphinx statue, and we were so confused as to why everything was lion themed, but I only realized now that it's because the tip of the rock that you can see from the bridge is vaguely shaped like a lion head...　

Before heading back home, we stopped by a Michi-no-Eki, which is basically like a rest stop area.  We got some soft cream and bought some omiyage.  I bought a type of Jagariko that's only sold at Michi-no-Eki's on the Japan Sea coast.

my botan flower from yesterday bloomed overnight!

牡丹（ぼたん）botan

tree peony

we are holding it like a baby

munching monkeys

a lot of bikers pass through here

it was so windy! 

the mountain is so dense with trees

such a weird statue

the tip of this rock apparently looks like a lion 

the tongue!

this was honestly so good

this is the first time seeing fresh sansho (Japanese pepper)
the dried powder is what you usually sprinkle on unagi

these french fry chips were scallop flavored (very lightly, though...)

yum yum

cows!