Visited 13.10.2015 (Tue)
Debut. Autumn is my favourite season to visit Japan. Apart from being able to admire the mesmerising autumn foliage, it is also the time for agricultural harvest. Yamagata Prefecture, affectionately known as a "fruits kingdom", is blessed by abundant fruit harvest almost all year round. Hired a sightseeing taxi to cover some less accessible places of interest in Yamagata Prefecture and decided to include a fruit picking activity into the itinerary. After completing a physically tiring descend of Hagurosan, our taxi driver brought us to Kaminoyama Fruit Farm (Yamagata Cherry Land), one of many fruit orchards in Kaminoyama city that allows visitors to experience picking their own fruits. Recalled weather was not at its best on Day 5; encountered a heavy downpour while on a boat ride along Mogami River and experienced intermittent rain at Hagurosan. Fortunately, the rain ceased when we reached the orchard in the afternoon and we could proceed with fruit picking in the outdoor as per plan.
A look at the fruit calendar in Yamagata Prefecture:
- Cherries otherwise known as sakuranbo さくらんぼ: from early Jun to early Jul
- Melon: from mid Jun to early Aug
- Watermelon: from mid Jul to late Aug
- Peach: from mid Jul to late Sep
- Grapes: from early Aug to mid Oct
- Persimmon: from early Oct to early Nov
- Western pear: from mid Oct to late Dec
- Strawberries: from mid Dec to early Jun
Grapes. At Kaminoyama Fruits Park, there are various fruit picking courses to choose from, which is also dependent on the fruit that is in season. On the day of our visit, we chose the autumn fruit picking course 秋のフルコース (1,200 yen / increase to 1,300 yen) which included unlimited grapes and apples picking and all picked fruits need to be consumed on the spot, a glass of fruit juice and a La France pear to bring home to. We were each given a cutter for detaching the fruit from the plant/tree and a small pail to spit the seeds (and skin) into. Followed the owner to their Kyoho grape vineyard where he showed us how to cut the hanging fruits from the canopy. In the vineyard, there was a bountiful supply of juicy and delicious looking grapes hanging from the trellis which the grapevine trained on. For city dwellers like us, this was quite a spectacular sight to behold. We strolled around the vineyard to choose a bunch of grapes with the most fruits. While I supported the bunch of grapes from below, my parents helped to cut the fruit from its stalk. Each of us held on to a bunch of grapes and we sat down on one of the benches in the vineyard to enjoy our harvest. Each fruit is jam packed with goodness and the sweet juice "exploded" from its firm skin when my teeth gently sank into the fruit; a mind blowing sensation which I had never encountered with grapes previously. Originally, we thought each of us could handle more than one bunch of grapes. However, the fruit was much larger than the usual ones we had and our stomach was unexpectedly full up after consuming one bunch each.
Apples. After savouring the grapes, we made our way to the apple orchard to continue our fruit feast. Apple has always been one of my all time favourite fruit and I finally came up face to face with an apple tree. We were treated to yet another amazing sight of trees covered with big, red, juicy looking apples, all ready to be harvested. Apart from the famous Fuji apples, Kaminoyama Fruits Park also cultivates other species such as Kogyoku 紅玉 (Jonathan), a medium sized type of apple with strong acidity taste, and Sekaiichi 世界一, which was advertised as the largest apple in the world when it was first introduced in 1930. Learning from the earlier experience at the vineyard, we decided to pluck only two big apples to share among the three of us. It felt extremely satisfying to bite into the freshly plucked and crunchy apple, right in the orchard!
Debut. Autumn is my favourite season to visit Japan. Apart from being able to admire the mesmerising autumn foliage, it is also the time for agricultural harvest. Yamagata Prefecture, affectionately known as a "fruits kingdom", is blessed by abundant fruit harvest almost all year round. Hired a sightseeing taxi to cover some less accessible places of interest in Yamagata Prefecture and decided to include a fruit picking activity into the itinerary. After completing a physically tiring descend of Hagurosan, our taxi driver brought us to Kaminoyama Fruit Farm (Yamagata Cherry Land), one of many fruit orchards in Kaminoyama city that allows visitors to experience picking their own fruits. Recalled weather was not at its best on Day 5; encountered a heavy downpour while on a boat ride along Mogami River and experienced intermittent rain at Hagurosan. Fortunately, the rain ceased when we reached the orchard in the afternoon and we could proceed with fruit picking in the outdoor as per plan.
A look at the fruit calendar in Yamagata Prefecture:
- Cherries otherwise known as sakuranbo さくらんぼ: from early Jun to early Jul
- Melon: from mid Jun to early Aug
- Watermelon: from mid Jul to late Aug
- Peach: from mid Jul to late Sep
- Grapes: from early Aug to mid Oct
- Persimmon: from early Oct to early Nov
- Western pear: from mid Oct to late Dec
- Strawberries: from mid Dec to early Jun
Grapes. At Kaminoyama Fruits Park, there are various fruit picking courses to choose from, which is also dependent on the fruit that is in season. On the day of our visit, we chose the autumn fruit picking course 秋のフルコース (1,200 yen / increase to 1,300 yen) which included unlimited grapes and apples picking and all picked fruits need to be consumed on the spot, a glass of fruit juice and a La France pear to bring home to. We were each given a cutter for detaching the fruit from the plant/tree and a small pail to spit the seeds (and skin) into. Followed the owner to their Kyoho grape vineyard where he showed us how to cut the hanging fruits from the canopy. In the vineyard, there was a bountiful supply of juicy and delicious looking grapes hanging from the trellis which the grapevine trained on. For city dwellers like us, this was quite a spectacular sight to behold. We strolled around the vineyard to choose a bunch of grapes with the most fruits. While I supported the bunch of grapes from below, my parents helped to cut the fruit from its stalk. Each of us held on to a bunch of grapes and we sat down on one of the benches in the vineyard to enjoy our harvest. Each fruit is jam packed with goodness and the sweet juice "exploded" from its firm skin when my teeth gently sank into the fruit; a mind blowing sensation which I had never encountered with grapes previously. Originally, we thought each of us could handle more than one bunch of grapes. However, the fruit was much larger than the usual ones we had and our stomach was unexpectedly full up after consuming one bunch each.
Apples. After savouring the grapes, we made our way to the apple orchard to continue our fruit feast. Apple has always been one of my all time favourite fruit and I finally came up face to face with an apple tree. We were treated to yet another amazing sight of trees covered with big, red, juicy looking apples, all ready to be harvested. Apart from the famous Fuji apples, Kaminoyama Fruits Park also cultivates other species such as Kogyoku 紅玉 (Jonathan), a medium sized type of apple with strong acidity taste, and Sekaiichi 世界一, which was advertised as the largest apple in the world when it was first introduced in 1930. Learning from the earlier experience at the vineyard, we decided to pluck only two big apples to share among the three of us. It felt extremely satisfying to bite into the freshly plucked and crunchy apple, right in the orchard!
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| La France pears. |
At the end of the fruit picking course, our stomachs were bloated despite eating only three bunches of grapes and two apples in total. Concluded that for more substantial or larger fruits such as apples, it is difficult to go for quantity and the amount of time spent on fruit picking is actually very little (a large part of time was actually spent on eating the same bunch of grapes). In my opinion, smaller sized fruits such as strawberries and cherries are more suitable for fruit picking activity. All in all, we still enjoyed ourselves during the entire course of activity and I will recommend all to give it a try during your stay in Japan!
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Kaminoyama Fruits Park (Yamagata Cherry Land) 上山フルーツ園 (山形チェリーランド)
山形県上山市三上1241-47
Operating hours: 0800 - 1630 hrs
https://www.k-fruit.jp/
Kaminoyama Fruits Park (Yamagata Cherry Land) 上山フルーツ園 (山形チェリーランド)
山形県上山市三上1241-47
Operating hours: 0800 - 1630 hrs
https://www.k-fruit.jp/
How to get there?
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