- Today, I'm hopping on the bullet train
and heading north of Kyoto,
to the small town of Otsu in Shiga Prefecture.
Hey guys, how's it going today?
I'm in (chuckles),
I'm in (chuckles) Shiga Prefecture.
I'm visiting Lake Biwa today,
and I'm so excited 'cause I've heard so much about it.
That's a loud train.
So full disclosure, today's video is a collaboration video
with Otsu City, and they have provided electrical bikes
and a English speaking guide for me during my trip.
You can actually rent the bicycles right here,
outside of Shiga station.
They're electric bicycles, and they're $12 for three hours
or $18 dollars for a day,
and you can see they're quite big.
I've never tried an electrical bicycle before.
I guess this is the battery.
Should I turn it on right now?
- [Keiko] Ah, yes.
And usually it's set in the middle one.
- Whoa, that's so cool.
So today I'm traveling around Lake Biwa
with an English guide.
- I'm Keiko, welcome to Shiga.
- Hi, Keiko, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, too. (speaks in foreign language)
- I've never used an electric bicycle before.
- Ah, don't worry about it.
It's very easy.
- Our cycling path takes us along Lake Biwa,
the largest freshwater lake in Japan.
It's almost the same size as Singapore.
Cycling is a great way to explore smaller towns in Japan
because you have the freedom to stop
and go at your own pace.
It's a little bit cloudy today.
It looks like it might rain, but I feel like
that gives the mountains a more mysterious look anyway.
This looks like something out of a movie scene or something.
It's so beautiful.
(multiple camera shutter clicks)
On sunnier days, Lake Biwa is a pretty popular place to be,
with cute open space cafes lining the lakeside
and recreational water sports,
which many Japanese don't easily have access to.
Coming from bigger cities like Osaka and Kyoto,
Lake Biwa is a perfect getaway on a hot summer day.
(relaxing electronic music)
This particular cafe, R Cafe, is dog-friendly, which I love.
Some people describe riding an electric bicycle
like riding on a cloud, and I get it.
This bike rides smooth and comfortably,
and you don't have to worry about getting tired,
which means you can spend an entire day
exploring a small city by bike.
Coming into somebody's home (speaks foreign language).
(speaks foreign language)
- Whaaa,
Look at this beautiful living room.
(woman murmurs)
(relaxing guitar music)
Okay, so after cycling around Lake Biwa,
we are now at a home.
This is part of a tour actually.
If you want to participate in this kind of tour,
you can have this experience yourself.
We are going to make lunch together.
We're having chicken sukiyaki, which is a specialty here,
and it's totally farm to table,
meaning we are using local ingredients
and we are all cooking together,
and we're all gonna eat together, and it's gonna be awesome.
So this rice is rice that they've grown here
on their own rice field.
(speaks foreign language)
Oh, this smells so good.
(speaks in foreign language)
All right, so we're gonna try the chicken.
Mmmmm!
She put in so much kibi, sugarcane sugar,
that with the shoyu, with the soy sauce,
it's kind of like a teriyaki flavor.
So for dessert we have sweet potatoes,
candied sweet potatoes, and shiso juice,
which is kind of interesting.
I don't think I've ever had shiso juice before.
- Oh, lots of vinegar in it too.
(speaks in foreign language)
We're best friends now.
- Thank you so much.
(speaks in foreign language)
So this is Juge Shrine,
and it's right at the top of this hill,
right near where we had lunch.
And what I really like about this shrine
is that it sits at the top of a hill,
so you come all the way to the top of the hill,
and when you turn around, I'll show you in just a second.
Otsu City pays a lot of respect
to their natural resources,
which was also evident in our next stop.
In the afternoon, we visited one
of Japan's most experienced roofers.
Many traditional Japanese shrines and homes
were originally made with plant-based roofs
made of things like straw and wood,
and this artisan workshop specializes in roofing
made almost entirely from natural resources
from cypress bark planks to bamboo nails.
- Visitors to Otsu City can request to drop by
his workshop to learn about this valued profession.
- Oh my god.
(speaks in foreign language)
This is a cool hand-on experience
that makes you really appreciate
just how skilled Japanese craftsmen are in their trades.
All right, you guys, I just checked into my hotel room,
and it's so gorgeous.
I don't know what I did to deserve this.
Look at this room.
I've got two beds.
Maybe I'll sleep on them horizontally just because.
They're so comfortable, and I love the colors.
It's so relaxing, the nice beautiful blue.
And of course there's a giant patio.
We come out here, outside,
and we've got this gorgeous view of Lake Biwa.
Anyway, it's getting to be about seven o'clock at night,
and I'm getting a little bit hungry,
so I'm going to head out for some dinner.
For dinner, I headed over to Matsukiya
for their famous oumigyuu.
This beef is so marbled and tender
that it's said to rival
the world-famous Kobe beef in quality.
A light touch from a human hand is all it takes
for the fat on this block of beef to melt.
Apparently, this indicates good quality.
So teppanyaki is actually a really great experience
to have if you come to Japan.
It's a really cool way to interact with the cooks
and watch them as they work
their magic right in front of you,
and they serve you the food hot, right off the grill.
And it's kind of like,
it feels special.
You feel special like you're kind of like royalty,
having someone cook for you,
and it's a really cool experience.
This looks so good,
and I never get to eat cuts of steak this expensive
and exquisite, so I'm so excited,
and I'm sure it's gonna taste amazing.
Here are the vegetables that he fried up
in front of us as well.
We've got a salad, and then this is interesting.
We have the house sauce,
which is apple and,
- Wine. - Wine.
- Wine and onions,
And here we have yama wasabi.
It's a yellow horseradish from Hokkaido.
Bubble salt, which is a mixture
of kombu dashi salt and gelatin,
so it becomes a very puffy, kind of foam,
but it's very foamy and you put it on the meat,
and it should kind of glide, blend right in with that.
Teppanyaki is seriously such a treat,
and Shiga's oumigyuu literally melts in your mouth,
making this an incredible high-end dining experience.
It's amazing.
It's just like so juicy and soft,
and. (woman chuckles)
We're gonna hop on a train,
and we're heading to Ishiyama Temple,
which hopefully still looks good in the rain.
I don't know, I like it though.
It's not too hot today.
It's still warm, but the rain is kind of nice.
I don't mind it.
(chillout music)
Okay, so we're here at Ishiyama-dera Temple,
and it has started pouring rain.
It's insanely, oh, now it's all over the lens.
This is the temple of Murasaki Shikibu,
a famous Japanese author.
Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long because of the rain,
but the shrine is impressive,
and the fortunes told here are famous
because they're written poetically,
apparently excerpts from Murasaki Shikibu herself.
♫ Girl, feeling all the way
♫ I promise
All right, so it finally stopped raining,
but it's time to go home.
I wish I could have spent more time here.
There's so much to see and do
that I felt like one night, two days just wasn't enough.
But I had a great time,
and I hope that you guys enjoyed what you saw.
I would love to come back to Lake Biwa,
especially on a sunny, more cooperative weather day,
so I think I'll be back.
But I'm so happy I got try tons of delicious food
and see what people like the locals are doing here,
what the industries are like.
One night, two days just didn't feel like
a long enough stay, so I think I'll be back.
Anyway, I gotta go 'cause I gotta catch my Shinkansen,
so talk to you soon, bye.
(relaxing pop music)