Daio Wasabi Farm

I realize that while here in Japan I have taken very few days completely off and just had fun and acted like a tourist.  However, now that all the fieldwork is done, that is precisely what I plan to try and do the next few days between preparing for my return journey to the US.

So what did I do on this day off?  I went to a farm, a wasabi farm to be precise.  Daio Wasabi Farm is the largest Wasabi farm in Japan.  It is a bit of a tourist trap, but nice none the less. 

I must admit I had no clue how wasabi grew, but figured in was in some kind of soil? Wrong.  Wasabi naturally probably grew in the river beds in the valleys below the Japanese Alps.  And I guess it still sort of does, however, the stream beds are farms.  Wasabi Close up

Wasabi plants themselves grow on the highly manicured artificial stream beds, where rows of rocks are made into mounds, like soil would be for most other crops.  Between the rows of rock is a constant stream of fresh clear water that comes down from the mountains and out of the ground.  On each mound two wasabi plants are planted one on each side closest to the water.  I read somewhere that the water is kept at 13oC year round, but I have no clue how that is possible when the water appears to be diverted from the river.  Above the plants about 1.5m high is black shad cloth.  I do not know if this is to keep the sun off the plants or to keep birds away.  

Wasabi rows

Wasabi Cover

Little rhyme I came up with while walking around.

Amanda, Amanda, quite aweary,
How does wasabi grow?
With river stones, and spring snows,
And pretty rocky rows.

Wasabi and Me

I mentioned that Daio is a bit of a tourist trap, it is sort of a mini amusement park like atmosphere, but with no rides.  The farm it’s self is free to visit, probably because they expect you will buy stuff there, which is true.  There was wasabi everything and I don’t even know what everything I tried was.  Some of the larger items I ate were a wasabi burger, which was no burger at all but a potato/wasabi croquette in a pita with shredded cabbage and a leaf of lettuce on this wasabi mayonnaise is squeezed.  It was tasty, not what I was expecting, but delicious.  And it was hot, but not wasabi hot, but freshly fried greasy hot.

Wasabi Ice Cream

I had to try the wasabi ice cream while I was at the farm, it sounded horrible, wasabi ice cream.  Turns out it was not horrible, but not exactly good either.  At first I rather enjoyed my ice cream.  For one it was cold while the day was hot.  Secondly, it was nothing like I expected.  It tasted lightly sweet with a plant like flavor.  After awhile however, the cone stopped being delicious and more of a chore to finish.  The wasabi flavor was becoming stronger the more I ate and while it was not a hot, nasal passage clearing wasabi taste, it also did not belong in ice cream.  The last completely unique item I had was a wasabi beer, yeap, wasabi beer.  It was a Kirin beer, dyed green probably not by the wasabi but by food colouring, with little shreads of wasabi in it.  So how did it taste? Like every other Kirin beer I have had, except for the filiments of wasabi and the color I would not have known anything was different.    I at least had a cup though to go get water out of the spring to drink with though, so that was nice and I had to try it. 

Wasabi Beer

There are a number of stores at the farm selling wasabi everything and most of them you could taste. Some were delicious, some hot, but most of all they were all unrecognizable to me and I have no clue what I tasted for the most part. 

After buying some souviners, I headed back into the town of Hotaka.  Where I learned there are lots of wasabi stores, I am not really sure what they were selling, but I went in one and it smelled great, and appeard to be a higher quality than that at the farm.  I am no wasabi conosour and I don’t know if this is true.  It seemed like maybe the wasabi farm was the cheap wine of wasabi and the wasabi in the storese in town were fancy high class wines.  However, if you don’t know anything about wine, wine is wine and wasabi is wasabi. 

I headed back to Matsumoto after a delicious soba dinner and decided to take a scenic dusk walk back towards my room.  I went through the park around Matsumoto castle, when I got close I saw there there was a big dance stage, like the one that has been next to my house, but maybe 5 times larger set up near the castle.  On the stage there were drums and children wearing Yukata hitting the drums.  Since there were no crowds I figured that what ever had been going on had finished and the drummer just let the children hit the drums for fun.  I continued on my way, as I passed the stage however, I saw the sign saying that the dance would start in 20 minutes.  The previous two nights I had gone to my community dance and it was great fun so I wanted to see what a large dance at the castle would be.  In the mean time I walked around and got some great pictures of Matsumoto Castle at dusk. 

Matsumoto Castle Night

When the music began I headed back over to the stage.  The first dance had the words Matsumoto Bon Bon in it but it was not the Matsumoto Bon Bon that I had learned, so I watched.  The second song, had a complicated dance and it too I didn’t know.  However, the third song, I heard the title and knew I knew it so I jumped up and joined the circle.  For you dance in a circle slowly moving forward in one direction or another.  It felt great, there were lots of people, I knew the steps.  The next two songs I also knew however it had started raining so the drums had to be covered up.  Dancing continued though for the record player, yes record player not ipod, CD player or tape deck, but record player was covered as were the speakers.  However, when the rain did not let up and the song ended, the dance was over for the night.  

Dance

I don’t know the meaning of the dances, but it is fun to be involved with a large group of people doing something.  Much of my time in Japan has been me doing things by myself so the social aspect of it is really nice is nice.