The other Sunday, I spent the afternoon at a festival in the nearby town of Hitachitaga. The event is called Daidogei, and aims to feature street performances from around the world to promote internationalization. Even though the streets were narrow and it was a pretty small festival, it was very crowded because it must have been the only event going on that weekend.
On the way there, I had a bit of time to kill before my train arrived so I wandered into the little train station art gallery to see what was on exhibit this week. The elderly man behind the desk was super friendly, and turned out to be the artist behind the biggest painting on display. We talked for a few minutes and he rushed off to a nearby convenience store to buy us each a can of coffee! That was so unexpectedly nice of him!
After a short chat, I caught the train and headed off to Hitachitaga. There were the usual food stalls selling all the typical festival foods like yakisoba noodles and snow cones of various flavours. One very cool find, though, was lotus root chips! This was the first time I’ve come across these. There was also a very popular booth where a man was slicing up fresh sweet potatoes and deep frying them to make these massive, fluffy sweet potato fries. It was a simple little festival, but a nice way of unwinding and enjoying a laid back afternoon before heading back to work on Monday.
Elle's Travels and Eats 
Looks great
Thanks! 🙂
Oh the lotus root chips sound like they could be delicious!
Yeah I love lotus root so I was pretty stoked to see these!
Waw, thanks for this lovely post & beautiful captivating colorful photos! xxx
Aw thanks Sophie! I’m glad you like them!!
You have an incredible blog.
Keep up the good work dear Elle.
Thank you so much! That’s so nice of you. I had fun looking through your site. You have so many unique and amazing looking recipes! I look forward to learning more from you.
So is the case with your blog. A huge variety from all the walks of life.
And we all are learning from one another. You too have so many amazing to teach.
You seems to be a beautiful person by heart. I wish more power to you. Thank you dear.
Renton chips are super popular in Australia 🇦🇺 we love them ❤️❤️
Really! That’s interesting! I’ve never seen them outside of Japan. I wish I could get them back home as well…
They are so easy to make, Elle. I make them at school with 10 year old kids 😉 if you have a mandolin, I just thinly slice them and you can either cook them in the oven, or shallow fry in rice bran oil. They taste better fried, you get that nice, caramelised chewiness ☺️
Ah, of course! I can’t believe I never thought of making my own chips before. This could be a fun weekend project. Maybe I’ll also throw in some slices of sweet potato hehe. Thanks for the awesome idea! (Btw, have you ever tried gobo chips or taro chips? I had those recently, and they’re also incredible.)
Taro chips ☺️❤️ yum