World Heritage Sites
& World-Class Mochi
About a 10-minute walk from there, you will find the famous soratobu dango, or, “flying dumplings.” When you arrive at this gorge, also named Genbikei, the view is breathtaking.
So they say that dumplings can fly through the sky here above this gorge where you can hear the babbling stream?
A pretty large crowd was gathered at a small square gazebo there.
Were the dumplings all of these people were ordering really coming from across the gorge, flying through the sky?!
We decided to order up some dumplings, too. You just drop ¥400 in the round basket, and clap the board to send a signal!
The old dumpling maker heard the signal from all the way across the gorge, pulled the basket in as fast as he could, and signaled back to us.
What a novel idea in this wonderful town!
The dumplings flew through the sky on the rope! I witnessed it for myself.
The dumplings came back to us in the round basket.
Beneath the dumplings were three cups of ice cold green tea in paper cups.
Can you believe since there are three types of dumplings, there are three types of green tea too?!
These Flying Dumplings are some thoroughly amusing treats. Ichinoseki is undeniably the center of the mochi world.
Once my eyes and soul were satisfied at the World Heritage Site, I got to eat some delicious mochi and experience a whole new mochi culture.
I have a feeling that traveling this course would be even more unique and moving during the fall when the leaves are changing.
Writer Kim Yanghyeon
Born in Korea but living in Saitama, Yanghyeon married a Japanese man in 2001, and started a blog in 2004 about life in Japan, travel, food, and culture etc. (http://miuki73.blog.me/ ) Elected four years in a row (2008-2012) for Naver blog’s foreign living category power blogger, this blog has amassed over 7,000 followers as of October 2017.
