The 3rd Azure Travelers Meetup: The Yamagata Trip and Five Days in Yamagata

On June 22, 2024, we held our third Azure Travelers meetup, the “Yamagata Trip,” at ASAHI Accounting Robot Research Institute.

I arrived in Yamagata three days before the meetup. I worked during the week while making time for meals and nighttime photography in Zao. The day after the meetup, we went cherry picking, the very activity that had inspired us to choose these dates. Here is my recap of the five days I spent on my first visit to Yamagata, from June 19 to 23.

Table of Contents

• The Meetup
  • Event Overview
  • The First Destination We Chose Without Rolling the Die
  • Scenes from the Day
  • Next Stop: Okinawa
• The Trip
  • June 19: My First Visit to Yamagata
  • June 20: Work, Yamagata Noodles, and Zao at Night
  • June 21: Morning Ramen and the Pre-Event Gathering
  • June 22: The Meetup and a Night of Yakiniku
  • June 23: Cherry Picking and Hot Springs
• Wrapping Up

The Meetup

Event Overview

Azure Travelers is a community built around a simple idea: travel to different parts of Japan and hold enjoyable meetups together with the local community. After Sapporo in January 2024 and Kobe in April, Yamagata became our third destination.

3rd Azure Travelers Meetup: Yamagata Trip with ASAHI Accounting Robot Research Institute

• Date and time: Saturday, June 22, 2024, 11:00-18:00
• Venue: ASAHI Accounting Robot Research Institute (2-1-27 Higashihara-machi, Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture)
• Admission: Free
• Topics: Microsoft Azure, Power Platform, and more
• Hashtag: #AzureTravelers
• Event page: connpass

Posts from attendees are collected in this Posfie recap. It covers everything from attendees arriving in Yamagata to the meetup, the social gathering, and cherry picking the next day.

The First Destination We Chose Without Rolling the Die

Azure Travelers has a tradition of rolling a large die at the venue to choose our next destination. The Yamagata meetup, however, was the first one we decided to hold without rolling it.

Tsucchi, one of the organizers, is from Yamagata. When he told us that June was the best time for cherry picking, that was how we settled on the date. Azure Travelers is about more than the meetup itself; enjoying each destination together is part of the experience. We set the event for June 22 so we could visit Yamagata at the ideal time for something distinctly local.

Scenes from the Day

ASAHI Accounting Robot Research Institute, which provided the venue, supports development with Power Automate, Power Apps, and related technologies. The program was not limited to Azure, and talks about Power Platform were welcome too.

Schedule

The schedule ranged from cherries and Yamagata to GitHub Copilot, an AI for meeting minutes, Power Platform, .NET Aspire, and Azure Chaos Studio. It was a mix of technology and topics rooted in our destination.

At snack time, attendees set out local treats they had brought from around Japan. This had already become a tradition in Sapporo and Kobe, and by Yamagata it felt unmistakably like an Azure Travelers scene.

Because meeting people in each destination is central to Azure Travelers, we streamed only two sessions online: the community introduction and the panel discussion. The recording is available in the YouTube archive.

Next Stop: Okinawa

During the closing session, we rolled our customary large die. Yamagata itself had been chosen without a roll, but that day’s result made Okinawa one of our next destinations.

The moment a new destination is chosen in the middle of a trip never fails to excite the room. The Okinawa trip selected that day would become our fifth meetup in February 2025.

The Trip

As on our previous journeys, I combined the meetup with a workation and arrived a few days early. It was my first time in Yamagata. Here is how each day unfolded from June 19 to 23.

June 19: My First Visit to Yamagata

I traveled to Yamagata by Shinkansen. It was my first time there.

After checking into my hotel, I went to Yamagata Gojuban Hanten (Tabelog) for dinner. I chose mapo rice for my first meal in Yamagata. After the Shinkansen ride, that piping-hot, flavorful Chinese meal hit the spot.

June 20: Work, Yamagata Noodles, and Zao at Night

I spent most of the day working. For lunch, I visited Sobadokoro Mitsuya Dewaji-an (Tabelog) for my first bowl of soba in Yamagata.

After work, I went to Kacho Fugetsu’s Yamagata Minami location (Tabelog) for wonton ramen. The wontons were much more than a garnish; each one was substantial enough to stand on its own. I’d always associated Yamagata with soba, but this was when I began to realize how many excellent ramen shops the area has too.

That night, Tsucchi and I went to Zao to take photos. At Okama Crater, the landscape felt worlds away from the city. The crater lake and mountain slopes under the moonlight had a power you don’t get from daytime sightseeing photos.

June 21: Morning Ramen and the Pre-Event Gathering

I started the day at Ramen Do・Ni・Bo, said to be where morning ramen originated. That meant ramen for breakfast the day before the meetup.

The bowl wasn’t too heavy for breakfast, and its bold, salty flavor hit the spot. I went to work afterward, while the others who had joined me for ramen headed to Tohoku Epson Aquarium “Kamosui”. Work was work, but I was still a little jealous.

For the pre-event gathering that evening, we went to Umakamon’s Yamagata location. While we were looking for somewhere to eat, I happened to be in the mood for horse meat. We’d come all the way to Yamagata, yet somehow chose a restaurant that wasn’t especially local to Yamagata.

Still, the horse sashimi platter let us compare several different cuts, and it was delicious. It made for a fun evening before the meetup.

After the gathering, we returned to Yamagata Gojuban Hanten and ended the night with Yamagata’s famous chilled ramen. Just two days after starting the trip there with mapo rice, I was back at the same restaurant for one last bowl.

June 22: The Meetup and a Night of Yakiniku

The meetup started in the morning. Once setup, the livestream, the sessions, snack time, and the dice roll were all finished, we headed straight to the social gathering.

Our first stop was Yakiniku Kuroge (Tabelog). The Yamagata beef was outstanding, exactly the kind of satisfying meal I wanted after wrapping up the meetup.

For the after-party, we moved on to Yakiniku Sakaba Kyosen. Yes, we followed yakiniku with more yakiniku. In hindsight, it was a fairly impulsive choice, but the restaurant had a broad selection of sake to enjoy with the meat.

We made one more stop at Izakaya Omoya (Tabelog), where we drank more sake and finished the night with soba. On meetup day, I may have spent as much time enjoying Yamagata’s meat and sake as I did talking about technology.

June 23: Cherry Picking and Hot Springs

The day after the meetup, we went cherry picking, another first for me. I don’t usually eat many cherries, but Yamagata cherries eaten straight from the tree were genuinely delicious.

We did more than eat. Before long, a cherry-pit-spitting contest had broken out. A group of adults giving it their all felt perfectly in character for this trip.

After cherry picking, we went to Cherryland Sagae to shop for souvenirs and have some gelato.

For lunch, we visited Mendatsu, where I tried Yamagata’s tori chuka for the first time. From the name, I’d imagined Chinese noodles in a soba-style broth, but Mendatsu’s version seemed much closer to ramen. It was a substantial bowl piled high with shredded green onion and chashu.

After lunch, we went to the Zao Onsen Grand Open-Air Bath. The water had a slight tingle to it, and the bath felt wonderful. It also left both my body and my clothes smelling distinctly of sulfur. That’s part of what makes the hot spring so memorable, although it can be awkward when the day isn’t over yet.

The sulfur smell lingered so strongly that we moved on to Yuyu no Sato Yusa & Ofuro Cafe yusa for a second bath. It wasn’t just a place to bathe; we could also relax and spend time inside. It was comfortable enough that I could easily have stayed all day.

Back at Yamagata Station, we ended the trip at Hirata Bokujo’s Hotel Metropolitan Yamagata location (Tabelog). Tonkatsu and beer brought our five days in Yamagata to a close.

Wrapping Up

My first visit to Yamagata became a trip where I worked between bowls of noodles, photographed Zao at night, helped run a meetup, and spent the following day cherry picking and visiting hot springs.

Yamagata was the first Azure Travelers destination chosen without rolling the die. We picked the date for a reason unique to the place: we wanted to eat seasonal cherries together. That decision made the time before and after the meetup every bit as memorable as the event itself.

Thank you to everyone at ASAHI Accounting Robot Research Institute for providing the venue, to all the speakers and attendees, and to Tsucchi for showing us around Yamagata.

See you in the next city.