Making mochi rice and fishing on the Japan Sea coast. The ride to get there is a bit challenging, but the reward is worth it.

Our assistant Yukari is especially excited about the fish she managed to catch, which were prepared by our inn-keepers that night after they hosted our sticky rice mochi pounding party.

When the rice fields look like this below, it is not good.

Well, not good for me if I have to weed it alone, but good for random strangers I find riding by on their bike.

He looked tired so I offered him a place to crash for a few nights. Little did he know he would be paying for it with his labor.

In the end, I think he enjoyed it. As do I.

All that green you see there is NOT GOOD. it should look like rows, but there are so many weeds it is almost impossible to tell them apart.

This was just a quick overnight into the remote mountain valley and back out, with the best weather imaginable – cool and enough clouds to make it beautiful, but no rain.

I might have overdone it on the distances and hills (mouse over the images to see satellite images, and click to see the interactive route map), but when planning the trip I tried to keep in mind that he is a triathlete, and I was actually worried that the course I had planned was too short and easy. I guess if I have to err, I am happier to err on the side of too long, as the bath always feels better and the bear-stew always tastes better when your tired. Here are the maps of the route we took. Highly recommended, and also possible to shorten if needed.

These are just a photos from the weekend. The route was a really straightforward ride up into the Akiyamago Valley, and back out into Tsunan. From there we loaded the bikes in the van and drove to Yutaki Onsen in Iiyama. Yutaki is the perfect place for loops, with plenty of beautiful rural scenery, small city conveniences, and optional challenging hills all within reach, ending at one of the best baths in the area. When I get around to it, I am planning to ask them to cooperate with me to offer short day bike trips to be advertised on their website.

If anyone happens to be in the area, give me a call. Even if I am not free to guide, I have maps, bikes, and plenty of recommendations. There are also bikes available for rent at Iiyama Station.

As I mentioned the other day, business is starting to come back. This is good and bad.

The good part is, obviously, that I'll be smiling when I finally get my hands on that long-awaited income.

The bad part is that - depending on the client - I feel like I have less to offer. The earthquake closed off several of my favorite easier routes, displaced a few of our star attractions (the wooden shoe maker, the dairy farmer), and led to the demolition of many of the old, character-rich houses in the area. They'll no doubt be replaced with new, more modern slightly cookie-cutter homes. Not exactly the quaint Japanese countryside views we moved here for, but the people are the same.

On the other hand, we've learned a lot more about this area in the four years since we started, and we've built far more local relationships. So we're able to make up for the loss of the low-hanging fruit with deeper connections and insight into the local way of life.

Still, it looks like this year will be best for travelers who are willing to push themselves up the long hills into the more remote areas - the real countryside.

I just took a ride up one of the medium-hard hills the other day. As you can see from the photos, it's right in the middle of rice season. In about a month, these green fields will start turning gold, and the rice harvest will begin.

The rice fields in the photos below? Those are ours - and our neighbors'.

In an effort to get back into the habit of taking photos of something other than Mona, I made a real effort today to capture a few scenes from the natural world around me.

Mona only stuck her head in once - when she wanted to see the adult dragonfly emerging from its nymph stage.

We see a lot of this kind of thing here in the rice paddies and streams behind the house: frogs, dragonflies, damselflies, spiders, and other small reminders of how active and alive rural Japan is in early summer. It's easy to overlook if you're not paying attention.

I've been trying to make a few personal improvements these past few weeks - reading more, getting back into photography, slowly working down the to-do list. I've even been doing yoga almost every other-other-other day. And I've done a lot of thinking about exercising. Also a lot more staring at the home improvement projects I haven't finished yet.

Yes sir, my productivity meter has started to twitch.

Finally found a bunch of excuses to get out of the house!

We went hiking today up at the top of Nozawa ski area. It was actually really beautiful, and oh so wonderfully cool. Really, any of you poor city folk (I was in Tokyo a few days ago for just a few hours - oh, you poor poor people!) need to get out. Give me a call.

It's hot during the day where I live, but nothing like Tokyo, and nights are generally quite cool. Even still, I was loving the chill at 1,700 meters.

Excuse #1: The Kid's Camp
At the end of July, I'm helping organize a kid's camp that will be held up there, so I had to go check out the area and kill any snakes or bears I came across - just to put the parents at ease.

I've been near the campground before, but for some reason never visited it. Can't believe we've missed this for the past four years.

I highly recommend the Sutakako Camp area. While it will certainly be more crowded in August when summer vacation starts, it's still pretty off the beaten path - so it won't be as packed as some of the more famous spots or anything closer to the heat zones. There are plenty of easy walks through nice forests, a steeper hike to the top of a mountain, lots of mallet golf courses, and best of all: no buses allowed on the road heading in.

Excuse #2: The Cancelled Photo Contest
Apparently the photo contest the village was holding - and the one I've been pulling all-nighters for this week to get the website and social media stuff online - was cancelled... quite a while ago.

No one bothered to tell me. Despite me being on the board. Even after I specifically called the guy in charge (post-quake) to confirm that I'd be reimbursed for any expenses.

Now I'm down a hundred bucks for some WordPress templates. But the thing that ticks me off the most is that I didn't find out until after I got home today. So I wasted some potentially good moments worrying about work I wasn't doing, instead of enjoying the beauty around me.

Excuse #3: The High-Tech Hiking Upgrade
After receiving four Docomo phones from various blog readers (thank you all), and breaking or struggling with reception on each one, I finally broke down and got a brand-new phone.

As it turns out, the cheapest phone at the shop (about $15) was an Android smartphone. Today was my first time experiencing the joys of high-tech hiking.

Instead of watching boring nature around me, I was glued to my screen watching my altitude chart update in real-time via GPS.

Can't believe I didn't get one of these earlier. (Note: that was 2011)