Konbu-Kan

Day 1 of our vacation ~ Our first stop in Hokkaido was at the Konbu-Kan.  Konbu refers to seaweed in Japanese.  

As you can observe from the photo below, the konbu are harvested from the sea (picture on the right) and laid out on the beaches to dry under the sun (picture on the left).  

Did you know, previously the konbu was regarded as a rare dish that was served only to the royal family?  Subsequently, revered priests and generals / soldiers who have fought and won in battles are also allowed to enjoy konbu in their meals.  Nowadays, konbu is included in shabu shabu, konbu tea and konbu ice cream.

We viewed the history of konbu in a theatre that is similar to the Omni-Max theatre in the Singapore Science Centre, except that the seats were extremely comfortable.  Just imagine lying in chairs like those you find at the dentist and watching a movie on a gigantic screen!  Shiok~~  Haha it was so comfortable that some even fell asleep!

Aside from eating Konbu, it can also be used as a material for making dresses and the skin of amplifiers.

Lastly, we stopped at the souvenir shop where there were different konbu sweets on sale as well as konbu ice cream.  However, we noted that the konbu is quite tasteless, so konbu wine sweets for example will usually just taste of the wine, but not the konbu.