One-Day Trip to Kaminoyama and Zao

The best season has come for cherry-picking.This year’s place for that was Kaminoyama in south Yamagata prefecture. This is a hot spring area accessible from Sendai, so FGL students and professors took a day trip there by bus.The place where we went is called “Takahashi Fruits Land”. There were several types of cherries there such as Satonishiki, Benishuhou and Napoleon. All of them were very sweet and delicious, but their textures were all different from each other. Some cherries had a very dark color like purple red. 

Students enjoyed picking and eating as much as they wanted by reaching the higher parts of the trees using a stepladder. Some of them competed with each other to see who could spit the pits the farthest.
We were supposed to visit a crater lake named Okama, which is part of a complex volcano on the border between Miyagi and Yamagata, but gave up because of bad weather. Students, however, were not too sad, as we visited the Zao Cheese Factory instead. It is in Zao-machi, the town at the foot of Zao Mountain in Miyagi prefecture. At this place, everyone could try a variety of cream cheese, so students tasted all of kinds for free. They ate ice cream and drank fresh milk even after that! While they were on the way back to Sendai, there was no need for any more food that day.

The next trip will be in autumn this year. By that time, new students will arrive and it is already very exciting to think about the next place to go!