In my previous post, I wrote how I spent a wonderful afternoon making tofu in japan with an 80-year-old farmer's wife. This post is about the rest of the visit, the experience that would normally be part of a tour one can take on a day trip out of Kyoto.

The tofu/meal part of the tour takes place in the hamlet of Hata (畑, literally “field”) tucked in the mountains of north-western Shiga prefecture. The terraced rice paddies, tended by hand for generations, can be quite photogenic, though my visit, two or three weeks before the planting, found them at perhaps their least photogenic.

Still, I was there, so I took some photos amidst a drizzle. The president of the tour company was my photography assistant. 🙂

At the end of the tofu story I mentioned that the left over “soy pulp” is normally discarded because it has such a short shelf life, but that we made a dessert with it. Doughnuts!

The main dish for lunch was going to be tenpura, an assortment of light batter-fried veggies. The tour-company staff asked whether such-and-such a vegetable would be included, and the answer was essentially "wasn't planning on it, but there's plenty growing outside anywhere you look... go grab some". So we did.

Much farther up the hill than the outside shots I'd taken before, I took the opportunity for more pictures...

In preparation for early-May planting, the paddies are slowly being flooded. It appears that water is diverted from mountain streams to fill the top paddy in any section; when it overflows, it starts to fill the one below, and so on.

Back inside, the veggies we brought in were washed...

I loved how she made more space in her tiny kitchen. She put a glass pot lid upside down over a gas-stove burner... it fit perfectly. On top of that a metal rack, and on top of that whatever had just come out of the fryer to drip and cool.

As I mentioned before, I was asked to join on this adventure to take photos for the tour company, but in the past I'd been on a variety of other tours with the same company as a “test customer”, to provide feedback on how to make their tours a better experience for their target audience (English-speaking tourists looking for something more than the popular tourist spots). For example, as part of one tour I visited this gargoyle-tile workshop. I've had some amazing experiences with them.

Anyway, along the lines of offering feedback, I suggested that the foreign tourist might want the option to sample some saké with such a fine meal, and somehow this lead to the lady bringing out some of her home-made spirits for us to sample.

These kind of things are fairly simple to make... you fill a jar with something to provide flavor, say, plums, then top it off with some kind of spirit... perhaps vodka, shochu, or wine. Then wait enough years for the flavor to transfer, and voilà, you've got “plum wine” or the like.

Based on how one goes about doing it, the results can vary wildly. It's always fun to order “plum wine” at a restaurant without knowing the specific maker because the flavor can range from as sweet as Kool-Aid to as bitter as orange juice just after brushing your teeth, and the alcoholic strength can range from “essentially water” to “this will not only grow hair on your chest, but will simultaneously burn it off”.

It turns out that this was at the extreme end of both, and it was too strong/bitter for me to enjoy. I have photos of the two tour-company ladies giving it a try, with their face scrunched up in an “oh my gosh this is horrible” anguished cringe. They looked like shar pei dogs. I will hold these photos for possible blackmail at a later date. 🙂

As a side note, I've (finally) discovered a way to get better photos when asking random folks to take a photo of me with my camera. Most folks are intimidated by a big SLR, and are not used to a viewfinder (they're used to looking at the back of their phone). In the past I'd set everything up, pre-set the focus point to some easy-to-notice location in the scene such as my eye, then tell them to place the little red square on my eye and press the button. Results have been very mixed, with most photos completely out of focus.

This time I had the bright idea to put my camera in live-view mode (a mode that I personally don't care for... I can't see the screen that close without my glasses) and focus in face-recognition mode. Then all they have to do is point and press, and hopefully it works out. It seems to have in the photo above.

To say that lunch was filling would be quit the understatement, so it was with some dread that we realized we'd still not had the doughnuts.

At least in my case, hot coffee does wonders to settle a full tummy...

The doughnuts were slightly sweet, but not overly so, so Americans used to really sweet stuff would likely want to have these with honey, powered sugar, or perhaps marmalade. Personally, I liked them just as they were.

All in all it was a wonderful experience, just as all those I've had the pleasure to enjoy with Tour du Lac Biwa. On this photo-taking visit there was no one to translate (which is fine, since I can speak Japanese well enough), but on the full tour, English-speaking staff is there to explain and translate. Highly recommended.