On June 21st , we had our first trial run of the Nokogiriyama walking tour.
It was a day tour starting from 10 am which ended around 4 pm. We started our tour at Nokogiriyama museum where the director guided to us through the extensive stone cutting history of Nokogiriyama. He shared interesting facts such as women in the old days used to carry stones up to 80 kg from top of the mountain to the bottom! The stones were shipped to important sites such as the Imperial palace and the Daiba fortress and used to built it. These are the history even the local people aren’t aware of.
Then we hiked Nokogiriyama. After learning the extensive history of the mountain, the difference of the mountain between the past and now caught us all by the surprise. 670 steps were a good exercise of a hike, and we climbed down. For lunch, we visited a local traditional Sushi restaurant that serves only natural fish.
In the afternoon, we visited “Oyama Senmaida” the closest terraced rice paddies to Tokyo. Members of the preservation association told us how things were managed to maintain the rice paddies. It was very difficult to manage the paddies this year because of the-COVID 19 situations since the trust owners could not come from Tokyo, so the association members did the planting on their behalf. The unique feature of this place that it is the ONLY paddy field in Japan where watering is solely sourced by the rainwater. This is only possible because of the nature of the soil, which mainly consists of clay.
Our final destination was Kameda Shuzo brewery, where we had the factory tour. Their Sake “Jyumangame” has been awarded by the Monde Selection for five years in a row. It was also interesting to learn about the current trend of Sake consumption. You could have a Sake tasting at the shop!
We would like to thank the participants for participating and for the constructive and extensive feedback they all contributed to. Reflecting on those feedbacks, we will improve our itinerary and officially launch the tour shortly!
【On this occasion, we would also like to inform how we cope with the COVID-19 situation】
– We will accept participants who can join with their own car. We will not use public transportation during our tours
– We will deliver mask/gloves and encourage the participants to put them on when necessary. We will always have alcohol hand gels and sanitizers at all time during our tour
