Central Japan Day 4 - Daiō Wasabi Farm



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03 June 2008

Travelling along the countryside, we were headed towards the direction of Mt Fuji. But before that we will first visit a local winery and then, a wasabi farm in Nagano.

The countryside with the sky completely overcast with clouds


Seems like rice has changed to some other crop


Reflection of clouds on the water


We made short stop at the local winery, here they're bottling apple juice


Wine sampling, from the left-overs, most of the grape wine is actually quite bad. However their apple and pear wines are nice.

The Daiō Wasabi Farm (大王わさび農場, Daiō Wasabi Nōjō) is established in 1915CE. It is one of the largest wasabi farms in Japan and contains within much scenery, water, and shrines. Also, there's a host of wasabi infused products like wasabi beer, ice-cream, and croquet.

Arriving at the farm


A restaurant


Huge stone wasabi


The farm stretches for 15 hectares, note the stream below


There are a few of these statues. Now where do they fit in for a farm?


An entrance to one of the many shrines here


Giant straw slippers. I think the owners come here to pray for a big harvest.


Our guide says that this smaller shrine behind the previous on is actually the more important one


Further in the farm, there are two shrines in two caves


A small stone piece in one of them, looks like the 7 deities in a boat


The other shrine in the cave looks more solemn


Above the caves is this odd stack of rocks that seems to be also a shrine. Some people where piling up some pebbles on it so I decided to pile a large one on top.


A beautiful pond, the provided cups seem to indicate it's some sort of holy water


Time for some food, now the beer's not cheap


Wasabi Beer! Actually it is just Kirin Beer with wasabi added. I originally thought it was an in house brewed beer


Yummy potato croquet, you can add some wasabi mayonnaise on it


Fresh wasabi for sale. To grate, one has to buy one of those shark skin tablets (in the middle) and rub the root on it in circular fashion


Four roots for about ¥1000, now that's quite pricey

I learnt a few interesting things on this farm visit. First of all, freshly grated wasabi actually does not have a stinging sensation. To increase that effect, sugar is actually added to it. I wanted to get some wasabi for my dad and started looking for wasabi powder. To my horror, the entire farm does not have wasabi powder. ``Oh, we don't use that, over here everyone grates fresh wasabi. The powder is only used for those going on a long trip overseas", explains my guide. Buying four wasabi roots and the shark skin tablet would cost ¥2300. Being unable to keep them fresh, I was better off buying the powder from a department store.
After finishing our food we headed off towards Lake Kawaguchi in vicinity of Mt Fuji where we would be spending the night in our last hotel with onsen.

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