The other day I got to participate in a relaxing countryside tour in the city of Otsu, next to Kyoto. The tour company, Tour du Lac Biwa (“Lake Biwa Tours”), specializes in unique experiences of things not generally open to the public (even to Japanese) combined with countryside food and hospitality, all presented in English.

この間、面白い事できました。このヴィデオ（NHKより）は簡単に説明します。

When I've gone on tours by them in the past (including this, this, this, and this) it's usually been as a “test foreigner” to give them feedback as they design their tours, and to share my photos with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, where I get to do really fun stuff I'd not normally have access to (unless I paid to go on the tour, of course), and they get my considered opinion and some pictures for their web site.

My blog write-ups about my experiences with them probably sound like advertisements; I think they're really great and the time I had with them was one I want to share. I've been living in Japan on and off for 25 years, yet these tours have let me experience new things most Japanese don't even get to do.

Anyway, this time was a bit different, as they were hosting the mayor of Otsu, the city where most of their tours take place, to show what they as a tour company are doing to promote the area, and to explore how to work together with the local government. I was one of three long-term foreign residents of Japan invited to join the discussion (and the tour) with the mayor.

Otsu is a medium-sized city with a population on par with Honolulu or Anaheim, and in land area with San Jose or New Orleans. Being immediately adjacent to both Kyoto and Japan's largest lake has garnered it a rich part of Japan's history, yet the separation from Kyoto by a small line of mountains has kept much of it free from the urban sprawl that has been crowding out Kyoto's nature more and more over the last 1,200 years.

The Mayor of Otsu for the last several years has been Naomi Koshi, who surprised me both by showing up in jeans and a T-shirt, and by being fluent in English. Her clothes were perfectly appropriate for the activity, but somehow I had a more stuffy pre-conceived image of “The Mayor”. Seeing her this way made me feel immediately comfortable.

It turns out that Naomi is a Harvard-educated lawyer who has practiced law in both New York and Tokyo. She grew up here in Otsu.

The adventure this time was a version of Tour du Lac's “Lake Biwa Electric Bike Tour”, abbreviated in several spots to accommodate the mayor's schedule.

The bikes are electrically assisted, so it's not at all the cycling that I do, but it certainly was a perfect fit for a relaxing tour because we could go up into the hills with absolutely no effort.

The bikes used by NORU tours in Kyoto, which I've written about before, are not electrically assisted, but they don't need to be because of the flat routes they take. On this tour in Shiga, we'd be going way up to a rice field in the hills, so the electric motors were much appreciated. It took a bit of experience to figure out that paradoxically, the less effort you put, the faster you went: the electronic motor would do all the work if you just lightly moved the pedals, but would scale back to leave you in full control of the power if you leaned into it.

So, the entourage of cyclists, TV crews, newspaper reporters, photographers, tour staff and city staff headed out for the day's tour...

Despite being just a few minutes from the station, the area was remarkably serene. Normally the tour would go in to explore the shrine area, but on our abbreviated tour we merely stopped for a photo...

The next stop a short distance away was at the house of local artisan Masao Iwasaki, who specializes in a distinctive type of pottery.

His house is hundreds of years old with a lovely thatched roof, but due to the abbreviated schedule of the day, I didn't get a chance to explore it with my camera as much as I would have liked.

He's turned one of the rooms into a gallery/showroom open to the outside, so you can just walk up to check out his work....

We stole a few moments to go inside...

His style is quite distinctive, and can perhaps be a bit overwhelming when so much is displayed together in one presentation, so I found it better to concentrate on an individual piece at a time.

The little park is one that you literally won't find on the map, but the locals (such as the tour leaders) know it and bring their kids to play in the water, or do yoga in front of the wonderful view. There's nothing particularly special about the place... it's just a quiet, lovely place to relax.

You may recognize this general view as one that appeared often in “Pleasant 105km Bike Ride From Kyoto, Along Lake Biwa, to Takashima’s Shirohige Shrine”. It was, as seems to be the theme for this tour, lovely.

This shrine played a part in Japan's war-torn history 500 years ago, saving some important relics from a powerful warlord trying to obliterate all opposition in the region. But on our abbreviated time table, we didn't do more than stop by the parking lot.

I've written about the rice harvest many times, such as “Stages of the Rice Harvest” and “The Rice Harvest, Old-School”, and many others (including here, here, and here). This tour would be the first time I'd actually get to try it myself.

(This part of the tour is obviously seasonal, so I suppose other times of the year you might participate in planting, or just visiting.)

As the farmer explained how to harvest rice, he pointed at the blade of the sickle and, well, let me quote him: “It's very sharp, so if you cut your finger, it hurts.”

This is perhaps just the curious geek in me, but I love to listen to experts talk about things I know little about. For example, the Sarah of my recent post “Bridget and Sarah’s Tour-de-Kyoto” is an expert in food preparation on a huge mass-market scale (e.g. preparing 100,000 boxed lunches for an airline or supermarket chain). I'm familiar with the end product but have only a vague imagination for the challenges that go into the design and preparation of that end product, so I find it fascinating when someone can shed real light on it. As I chatted with Sarah, I sensed in her a “this must be really boring and no one ever asks me about this stuff” reaction, but I found it interesting.

So in the same way, I found it interesting as the community elder explained a difference in how they tie the rice bundle now compared to when he was a kid. I didn't even fully grasp what he was saying, but was fascinated by the fact that it was something that anyone gave a thought to. But, of course, they must give it a lot of thought, as it's an important part of the process; if the knot fails or is too tight, rice production suffers. Such detailed thought about such a seemingly-trivial issue illustrates to me how much thought must go behind so many aspects of life that we don't have a personally-detailed understanding about.

I gave it a try as well. The sickle is indeed very sharp and easily cuts through the rice stalks. Four cut handfuls make a bundle to be tied...

The rice we're harvesting is a special rice intended for sake (Japanese rice wine) production. I asked how it was different from normal Japanese white rice, but I didn't fully understand the subtle nuances. I asked in Japanese; I should have asked in English through one of the tour leaders.

In any case, the sake is made at an old brewery in downtown Otsu that one can visit as part of a separate “culinary feast” tour. I did this tour last year and to my shame I haven't written about it yet, but it was really interesting. Public access to the brewery is normally limited to just a modern storefront, but as members of the tour we were ushered through the back door into the bowels of the 100-year-old complex, where we were given a tour (and samples!) by the n^th-generation headmaster brewer running the place.

On the way to the next part of the tour we stopped for just a minute at a mini shrine related to one of the bigger ones we'd stopped at earlier, for another touch-point on the history of the area. I think more interesting to the foreign visitor is how the mini shrine (at the left of the photo above) seems to be on the property of the nearby houses, such as the one being gestured to on the right.

The shrine and its historical significance are a source of pride to the community, and part of that pride is evident in how the line between personal and shared space is more flexible than what we're used to in The West. Having lived here so long I've gotten used to it, but this was the first time it was pointed out to me so clearly. It's one of the many little tidbits that make Japan so “foreign” and interesting to western visitors.

We then visited a couple of houses in the community...

The stove above immediately caught my eye as looking old and interesting, especially with the style of writing on it that says in Japanese “No. 1 Stove” and “Newest Style”, and in English script “Lead Type” (which I suppose is a reference to a kind of metal rather than leadership, but without hearing it pronounced correctly it's up for speculation).

So while I'm writing this article I was surprised to find that this stove is still for sale new for $700. Seems a bit pricey, but perhaps it'll pay for itself because it burns the discarded husks left over after the rice harvest...

There's rice and water in the pot being held above. It's put on the stove and that's it: in 15 minutes the rice is ready to eat.

While the rice was cooking, we moved to the house of one of the farmers, and had a lovely bento lunch made with local produce.

There were two separate TV crews following us around. The national broadcaster (NHK) ran this video that evening.

The lady tending the garden in front of her house had nothing to do with the day's events, but she happened to be nearby and happened to be working on her garden, and since it made a quaint scene, I thought to snap a photo. But just as I was about to take the photo, one of the tour leaders also noticed her and started chatting like the neighbors they were, to which the happy smile was added to the scene.

We said good-by to the Mayor Koshi, who was taken away by car, and to the news crews who then went their separate ways. We then had another pleasant ride back along the lake to the train station where we'd started out....

The lakeshore was lined with flowers, so I had to stop everyone for one last photo op...

So that was my Tuesday. At the risk of overusing the word, it was a lovely day.

One of my favorite photos of the day was one of the first I took, shooting backwards as we rode up a hill to the first shrine. I had hoped the focus would be on the mayor, but her smile was so big that it's clearly evident even out of focus, complimented by Steve's in-focus smile: