This trip is a perfect opportunity to experience the life of a traditional Japanese farmer. Tozawa village is located deep in the mountains of the Mogami area of the Yamagata prefecture. It is also a well-known spot for river cruises.
While Tozawa village is better known as a river cruise station, if you really want to experience an authentic Japanese countryside lifestyle, then staying with and experiencing the daily life of one of the local farmers is the best way to do this.
I stayed at Yosoemon inn, which is famous for their soba noodles which are also available as a lunch if you are passing through. It is located in the middle of the village and looks exactly like a typical traditional Japanese house. The rooms are very spacious and the house reminded me a lot of my own Grandparents house in the countryside.
I stayed overnight and enjoyed a lovely dinner of tempura, which was all made with freshly picked mountain vegetables and home-cooked by the farmer’s Mother. The mountain vegetables are also sometimes pickled and are delicious! They are all seasonal and I had never heard of most of them before as they are all local to this area.
At the time I visited cherries were also in season, so I got to eat lots of locally picked cherries. The farmer’s Mother explained to me that while the cherries from this area of Japan are usually expensive when sold in supermarkets, the farmers always give the ones that are not sold to their friends as presents for free.
The main course of dinner was homemade soba noodles, made by the farmers Father.
It is amazing and very special opportunity to see exactly where your dinner has come from and who has made it!
After dinner, I slept very well in my room and checked out the next morning.
My whole experience in Tozawa was very interesting, especially being looked after by the local farmer’s Mother and Father, and enjoying the delicious food they prepared for me.
The website for yosoemon (in Japanese) is http://shinjo-mogami-soba.info/yosoemon
and the Tozawa village Tourist Information website is http://www.hankoh.vill.tozawa.yamagata.jp/