The Soothing Japanese Countryside

While Tokyo is generally headache-free (minus rush hour on the subway), it’s the rural parts of Japan where the country’s calm demeanor and sense of order really shines.

Omachi, a small city located in the Japanese Alps between Matsumoto and Nagano, was a great place to get out of the megalopolis of Tokyo for a couple of nights. It certainly helped that the weather was perfect, though a bit warmer than expected.

Mountains stretched in every direction from the valley, and hiking is obviously a major draw for the region. My partner isn’t as outdoorsy as me though, so we elected to take a less strenuous half-day walk through a couple of nearby towns.

One stretch of this walk provided a rather unexpected sound — repeated gunshots, which we found out later were speakers playing sounds to keep pests out of farms.

What was most striking about the area around Omachi, besides the stunning mountain scenery, was its orderliness: perfectly manicured gardens; tidy houses; courteous drivers. Nothing was out of place, and everything had a function.

I was also impressed by the amenities available even here, though perhaps that’s just because I’m used to the relative lack of options in Vietnam’s countryside. The new Family Mart in Omachi had a MUJI section — we don’t even have that store in Saigon, yet tiny Japanese cities have it.

After lunch at a fantastic soba restaurant in a village where the noodles are produced (and an elderly Japanese woman had a laugh trying to pronounce my English script on the waiting list) we walked down to Lake Kizaki, a stunning body of water that wouldn’t look of place in the Swiss Alps.

The water, like all of the rivers and streams we had seen thus far, was crystal-clear. Bundles of wheat dried in the sun in nearby fields.

We walked along the lakeshore, basking in the alpine sun and enjoying the fresh air.

As we eventually re-entered the Omachi valley, clouds and the smoke from farmers burning their fallow fields created incredible light interplay on the mountains.

Tokyo is a remarkable city, but visiting Japan’s rural areas is an absolute must.