The 14th Kibidango Festical （きびだんごまつり）| Kuriyama

Spring has just come to Hokkaido! A lot of festivals have been held in this season.
Today I'll show you "Shinise Festical （老舗まつり）" held in Kuriyama, a small town located 40 minutes away from Sapporo.
Kurihama held two festivals at the same time last weekend; "Kibidango Festical （きびだんごまつり）" and "Sakagura Festival （酒蔵まつり）"!
           
*Shinise means long-established stores.
**Kibidango is a sweet dumpling made of mochi flour, sugar, and maltose.
***Sakagura means sake berwery.

First, we joined the "14th Kibidanbo Festical （きびだんごまつり）".  "Tanita （谷田製菓㈱）" started its business in 1923, one of the long-established sweet makers in this town, serving delicious kibidango dumplings.

A lot of people gathered at the festival site, and bought their delicious kibidango! Actually the dumplings are so traditional that I've eaten them only a few time so far!! This is a good chance to know the traditional sweets!!

Look at the panels!

They are very enjoyable!
Why is there Peach Boy in the pics?
I'll show you "Peach Boy （桃太郎）", a Japanese fairy tale, and explain why their mascot is Peach Boy. This is the story↓

♪♪Once upon a time, an old man and his wife lived in a place.
One day when she was washing clothes in a river, a huge peach was flowing from the upper stream. She brought it to their house, and tried to eat it with his husband.
When he cut the peach, a baby boy came out of the inside. They named the boy "Momotaro（桃太郎）, which means a peach boy, and raised him as their child. The couple were so happy because they hadn't have their children.
When Momotaro grew up, he knew people were suffered from ogres, and decided to go to the Ogres' Island to attack them.
Momotaro got kigidango dumplings from his parents, and went for ogre extermination. On the way to the island, he met three animals; a monkey, a dog, and a pheasant, gave some kigidango dumplings to them, and went to the island together.
Momotaro beat all ogres, and brought a lot of treasures from the island to their home. Momotaro and his parents lived happily ever after!!♪♪

When we come here, we should join the factory tour! I really wanted to see how to make kigidango, a very traditional sweet treat.

First we got kigidango as a present at the gate! How lucky we were!!!

Before the tour, let's learn the ingredients; mochi rice, suger, maltose, and kidney beans. Are you ready??? Shall we start the tour?

Wow! The traditional sweets are produced manually! I thought they used several machine to make it!!!

Kigidango is cut here and

wrap it like this! Wow! Wow! Wow!

At the exit, the boxes of kigidango were piled up like this. Kuriyama is a very peaceful rural town, and it seems they don't have to think somebody may steal the boxes! Hahaha!

They produce several kinds of kigidango.

A local person, a tour participant, voluntarily told us that these three kinds are recommendable; a normal one, a milk-flavored one, and melon-flavored one.

We really enjoyed the "Kigidango Festiva"l!!

Next we moved to the "24th Sakagura or Sake Brewey Festival". One the way to the festival site, there are a lot of stalls along the street, and we enjoyed some local food!

Look at the HUGE bean jam buns, which were bigger than my face!!!

How about fried dough cookies? Looks very traditional and delicious!

I love fried bread and bought it!! What's in the bread???

Voila!!!

Fish sausage was in the bread! Yummy x 2!!!

After coming back home, I tried kigidango!

It had three pieces of normal one, and one piece of melon flavored one.

It tastes like caramel candy!
This was the first time to eat melon kigidango, but it was much much more delicious than I thought! I love it!

I really love local festivals!

After the Kibidango Festival,  we went to the "Sakagura Festival", in which we drank a lot of sake!!! If you are interested in the Sake Brewery Festival, please click here→☆♪

■Where is "Tanita （谷田製菓㈱）"?

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■Tour guide information■

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