The best way to discover little-known sights and make even familiar places feel brand new,

is to go exploring by bicycle.

This time, we're exploring the southern part of Nagano.

Our road will take us up steep mountainsides, with truly spectacular views.

So beautiful.

Here, the bounty of nature can take unique forms.

It's like seawater!

We'll meet artisans passionate about preserving their region's crafts.

If I don't keep it going, this tradition
will die out, and that would be very sad.

That's amazing.

To become good you just have
to keep taking one step after another.

A 400km ride through the mountains of Nagano, and the villages tucked away in these remote valleys.

Two and a half hours from Tokyo by express train has brought us to Shiojiri,

the starting point for our ride.

Good morning! Welcome to Nagano!

Michael Rice is from Colorado.

An athlete who's competed in international triathlons, Michael's main passion these days is hill climbing.

But this area is going to be incredible because you know,

I usually ride more towards the northern side of Nagano

and so the south end is somewhere where I haven't cycled that much.

And so I wonder how the people live here. I want to see their lives.

I want to see how they live with nature in such a powerful place like it is here in southern Nagano, the Minami-Shinshu region.

Okay, ready for an adventure? Let's go!

Southern Nagano is a region surrounded by high mountains.

We'll begin from the Kiso area, riding along the old Nakasendo highway to the farmlands of the Ina Basin.

To reach our final goal, we'll then climb precipitous mountain roads linking tiny remote villages.

So we're starting in Shiojiri. I've never ridden from here before.

First time.

Oh, I like the atmosphere here when you get off the main roads.

Wow, look at that!

Are these cherry blossoms?

Yeah.

Whee! Sakura!

Cherry blossoms.

They just fell, maybe just a week or so ago.

I can tell it's colder up here because, you know,

in Tokyo, the cherry blossoms finished more than a month ago.

We're now on the Nakasendo.

For more than 400 years, this was a major highway connecting Edo and Kyoto, with 69 post stations along its route.

Oh, there goes the train.

Hey, there.

This is Narai-juku, a typical Nakasendo post station.

Oh!

This is cool!

These wooden buildings were once inns and tea houses, serving travelers on the highway.

Today, although the population has fallen to 700, the town looks much as it did in its heyday.

Let's see what they have in here.

Hello!

Wow, look at this!

- Is everything made from wood?
- That's right.

For centuries, travelers have been buying souvenirs like these, made with local wood.

These bento boxes are a local specialty.
They're made from hinoki cypress.

So light!

These are hand-crafted oroku-gushi combs,
made by a local artisan called Shinohara.

I've never seen such a delicately made comb.

Combs come in many varieties, from hair accessories to those for styling and untangling hair.

Oroku-gushi combs are designed for cleaning, so they have incredibly fine teeth:

as many as 90 in a ten centimeter span.

Michael wants to see how these combs are made.

Hello! Are you the comb craftsman?

Yes, that's me.

- I'd love to watch you work, if that's OK.
- Sure, come in!

- Ah, is this your wife?
- Thanks for coming so far to see us.

A fourth generation comb artisan, Shinohara Takeshi runs this workshop with his wife, Sachiko.

You might think these teeth
are too fine for coming hair.

But fine teeth remove all dirt
and keep the hair lustrous.

Oroku-gushi combs have been made here for centuries using Minebari wood, a tree native to the area.

A Minebari tree has to be about 200 years old
before we can use the wood.

In young trees, the grain is too coarse.

Look how strong it is. These teeth won't break.

- Do you work like this every day?
- I do.

- Since when?
- 50 years.

Shinohara demonstrates the skills he's been perfecting for the past half century.

I make my own tools, too.

He uses 10 types of saws, all handmade.

A comb artisan isn't considered qualified until they can make their own tools.

It takes 5 or 6 years to make a saw
that cuts the way I want.

As well as constantly making them sharper,
I keep redesigning them for a better cut.

A special feature of this one is
its smaller second blade.

I'll show you why I added this.

See how it marks a line for the next cut,
so they are always exactly aligned.

This is amazing.

Fifty years ago, when Shinohara began, Oroku-gushi combs were still in great demand.

But once inexpensive plastic combs appeared, sales declined drastically.

This didn't deter Shinohara from continuing his craft,

refining his techniques and improving the quality of his combs.

It's like climbing a mountain. Rush at it, and you
run out of breath and never reach the top.

To become good you just have to keep taking
one step after another.

Recently, Oroku-gushi combs have made an unexpected return to popularity.

I'm getting a lot of orders from overseas now.

I just sent a package of 50 to England.

They want the quality that comes from tradition.

It's a real trend.

People are turning away from plastic
and appreciating the feel of wood again.

A proud local craft, now gaining worldwide recognition.

We're following the Nakasendo as it runs beside the Kiso River.

The road follows a narrow route the river has carved through the mountains.

That's a cool bridge.

Beautiful river.

Oh, look at the color of that blue!

That river is beautiful.

Oh, it's like crystal.

Michael has left the Kiso River to follow one of its tributaries, the Adera.

These waters are famous for their color and clarity.

Really, an amazing river.

Amazing.

Ooh, woah! That blue!

Oh.

I can't believe this color. It's...

It doesn't look like a real color.

The color of this river is so clear, so clean, so pure.

It's...

Oh, it's really beyond words.

I hope you can see through the camera what I'm seeing here because it's unimaginable.

So beautiful.

We've now turned off the Nakasendo and are in the village of Achi, population - 6,000.

Oh, it says "tofu!"

Yeah, that's what I need to warm up after this ride.

Let's see if they have some tofu here.

- Hello! Do you make your own tofu here?
- Yes, it's all ours.

What do you recommend?

Try the yose-dofu, made with local soybeans.
We only sell it on Fridays and weekends.

That looks great! I'll take this.

- Do you want to eat it here?
- Oh yes, please.

Here you are.

- It looks so green.
- I use a special type of very green soybean.

I've never seen this green color of tofu before.

Usually tofu is a pure white color.

I can really taste the soy beans.

It's very silky and smooth.

This is really unique.

This is really a unique tofu.

- I guess you use local water?
- Of course. From quite nearby.

Tofu's flavor depends on how well the beans
and water complement each other.

At weekends, many customers come specially to buy this green tofu.

- You like it?
- Of course.

- How can you eat so much, though?
- This is for my grandchildren.

They love it!

The store has been making tofu for 80 years,

but it was Koike who first had the idea of making tofu from green soybeans.

Tomorrow, he'll show us how it's made.

The work of making tofu starts well before dawn.

It's a delicate process.

The amount of water and soaking time needed can vary greatly according to the type of beans.

After soaking overnight, they swell up like this.

You can check if it's absorbed enough water
by breaking it open.

The time it takes to soften is completely
different between summer and winter.

Tofu handmade with local water used to be what everyone ate.

But, after distribution networks expanded to cover the country,

cheap mass-produced tofu swamped the market.

Koike, needing to recover lost sales, had the idea of using green soybeans, a novelty at the time.

In the first year, we could only get 100 kg
of these special soybeans.

That had to last a whole year, so we could only
make this green tofu once a month.

- You were gambling it would sell?
- I was staking my future on it.

Nigari is a salt solution, essential for coagulating tofu.

It took much trial and error to find the amount that would preserve the sweetness of green soybeans.

Then more farmers decided to cooperate, and Koike was able to get two tons of green soybeans a year.

The taste of this new style of tofu soon captivated local consumers.

Green soy milk.

I think it should be about ready.

Freshly made.

Incredible.

This is such hard work.
Don't you ever think of giving up?

No.

I guess because so many people come here
specially to buy our tofu.

The best thing for me is postcards from
customers saying they enjoyed the tofu.

That really makes it all worthwhile.

It's true. If I hadn't got such a great response,
I would have quit.

Being able to serve so many people
makes me very happy.

A new taste for an ancient food, born from one man's passion.

We've now left the mountains, and are riding across a stretch of open plain.

This is the Ina Basin.

You can look down on all the rice fields there.

Wow, this feels nice.

Although the complex terrain in southern Nagano made irrigation difficult at first,

rice is now widely cultivated in this area.

The mountain reflected in the rice fields.

A unique craft developed here as a by-product of rice cultivation.

Ah, here's the place.

I was wanting to meet him.

- Hello!
- Hello! Come in!

- I'm Michael. Are you Sakai san?
- Yes. Pleased to meet you.

Sakai Yuji is a craftsman who works with rice straw.

These are rice bales.

Try picking a bale up.

- So this is for transporting rice?
- Yes, a kind of container.

And these are zori straw sandals.

Travelers wore them in the old days.

- Reminds me of samurai movies.
- This was regular footwear back then.

Sakai is one of the very few artisans still working in straw like this.

He is in great demand for specialized traditional items such as those used to make sumo rings.

Sumo was originally a ritual dedicated to the gods,

and rice straw is an important element in the construction of the ring.

What's the appeal of straw?

You can process and use it so many ways.
And then there's the sacred aspect too.

I think it's very appealing, the way it brings this
sense of the divine into our everyday lives.

Sakai shows Michael the special straw reserved for ritual use.

This is green straw.

It might seem wasteful to cut it before the rice ripens.

But in one sense, it's the most valuable part of
the harvest since it's dedicated to the gods.

Ripe stalks are easily blown over into the dirt,
but green stalks stand firm in the wind.

So green straw symbolizes the invincible
strength of the sumo wrestler.

These are "shimenawa," ropes made of rice straw.

Such sacred ropes are used to mark the boundary between this world and the realm of the gods.

Sakai has made shimenawa for 70 shrines, both inside and outside Nagano.

Sakai belonged to a town revitalization organization.

They planned an event to celebrate the local history of rice cultivation.

It was to be a marathon, with runners carrying rice bales.

But they couldn't find any local farmers still making these bales.

So Sakai apprenticed himself to a master craftsman and learned how to make them himself.

The experience gave Sakai an insight into the depth and importance of this craft.

Straw crafts are an incredibly ancient tradition
going back to mythological times.

If I don't keep doing this work,
a whole tradition could just die out.

That would be a terrible loss for our culture.

Sakai decided to quit his old job and devote himself full time

to mastering the rice straw crafts and promoting them to the wider world.

These are some of my students.
I'm training the straw artisans of the future.

His dream is to eventually train 2,000 new artisans.

Over there is a student from England.

I'm Michael too.

OK, so we're both Michael.

Nice to meet you.

Michael King came to live in Nagano three years ago.

Fascinated by the area's straw craft, he decided to become one of Sakai's apprentices.

What kind of teacher is he for you?

He's great, he's great!

He's a very interesting man, a bit of a wild man.

He's the kind of person that...

He'll have an idea and everyone will be telling him,

"That's a ridiculous idea," "That's a crazy idea", "That'll never work," "You'll never...," you know.

Not many people can go from doing something else to learning a craft, it not being in the family.

So, I've got a lot of respect for him.

What kind of student is he?

Very enthusiastic. My most skilled student
from overseas, a real specialist.

I hope he'll go on to play a big role
in introducing this craft to the world.

Enthusiasts promoting an ancient craft.

Today, Michael will go back into the mountains, heading for the village of Oshika.

Look at all the stone Buddhas there.

Wow, those are cool.

I love cycling in Japan.

You find cool things like these.

From the 17th century, local stonemasons erected many such Buddhist statues and road markers.

I love the smell of the forest.

That's fresh air.

So much fun!

Wow, beautiful.

Ah, look at the smoke there.

They're making something.

Smoking something?

There's a smoke stack there as well.

Hello! What are you making here?

Salt.

I make it by boiling the water from a hot spring.

Really? You can get salt from hot springs?

Hirase Nagayasu's family has operated a ryokan in this area for many generations.

Come over here.

- This is different to the river water?
- Oh yes.

- Can you drink it?
- Give it a try.

- It's like seawater.
- Even saltier.

It's like licking the ocean.

And Nagano is about as far from the sea
as you can get in Japan.

If you drill down about 10m you get
this mineral water gushing up.

In here I boil the water from the hot spring.
As the water evaporates, it leaves salt behind.

Careful, it's hot.

Hot salt.

Okay, I'm going to taste it.

It's salt. It's very salty but it's not harsh salt.

It's kind of a mild salt.

The salt crystals form in a special shape.

Like little pyramids.

I was inspired to do this after my grandfather
told me about these beautiful crystals.

In the late 19th century, salt was a precious commodity,

and Hirase's grandfather was part of a group that planned to make it at these hot springs.

However, the imposition of a government monopoly on salt put a stop to their plans.

After it was finally lifted in 1997,

Hirase decided to pursue his grandfather's dream of producing beautiful salt crystals from these waters.

I made a lot of mistakes trying to reproduce
the old method before I finally got it right.

The right heat level depends on the
temperature that day. It's hard to get right.

I succeed once, then I try to do the
exact same things again but it's no good.

I just have to keep trying.

How did you feel when you finally
managed to make those crystals?

I couldn't stop smiling. At last I did it!

Men in my family have always had strange
obsessions, causing trouble for their wives.

They say our men are dreamers,
but dreams don't put food on the table.

It was the hard work of our women
that made those dreams come true.

Salt is my dream, and I plan to keep
at it as long as I have my strength.

After a wait of a century, a dream is realized.

Michael begins his final day in a valley shrouded in morning mist rising from the river.

It feels so nice to be riding through the clouds.

Beautiful mountains.

And the village down below in the valley.

This is awesome.

Oh, look at those tea fields.

Can I see the tea fields from here?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, look at those.

Wow.

What Michael has spotted is a hillside entirely covered in tea plants.

Nothing arouses the passion of our hill climbing enthusiast like an incline going straight up for 365 meters.

That's steep.

Okay, I'm going to go higher.

Woah, beautiful tea fields.

Hello! Can I come up?

- Sure.
- I want to see this up close.

What a view!

Are all your fields as steep as this?

Yes. The incline here is about 25 degrees.

- How is the tea in this area?
- It's excellent. Very sweet and fragrant.

Nakaisamurai, at the southern edge of Nagano, is full of tea plantations.

The combination of good sunlight and frequent mists from the river make this area ideal for growing tea.

Hello!

- It must be hard working on this slope.
- It's dangerous until you get used to it.

Despite her youth, Maeda Misa manages many of the tea plantations in this valley.

Michael decides to lend a hand with the picking.

Just snap the leaves off at the stem like this.

If you didn't know this was tea,
you'd think it was leaves for making salad.

I was surprised when I first came here.
I'd never seen tea plants before.

Originally an office worker, Maeda dreamed of the farming life.

After trying a couple of places, she finally moved to this area five years ago.

People who live in the mountains
seem to have a special zest for life.

I moved here because I wanted to experience
that myself. No deeper reasons, really.

So you casually moved to one of
the harder places to live?

Yes, I was just curious, I guess.

The average age of farmers here is over 70,

and as they approached retirement, they worried about the future of these tea fields.

They welcomed Maeda, and started entrusting her with the management of their plantations.

Time for a break.

Entire families and their friends gather to help with the tea harvest in May, so the atmosphere today is lively.

Try this.

It's so good!

Even after we get too old to work ourselves,
we want to keep this tea plantation going.

We're lucky so many people enjoy helping us.

We all have to die someday, but until then
we'll be out working in the fields.

And after that, Misa will keep things going.

I'll try.

What's the biggest difference between
working on a computer and your life here?

It's just wonderful to feel that I'm needed.

I used to wonder what was the purpose of
my work, what was the point of my life.

But working in the tea fields, I never worry about
such things any more. I feel alive and accepted.

Everyone around here takes the presence of
tea in their lives for granted. I like that.

Even if the tea plantations continue to shrink,
I'm sure we'll keep on enjoying this life.

There's something special about tea.

The joys of growing tea, a plant that quietly provides so much happiness.

Michael is now on the last leg of his journey.

A good climb.

Wow.

This is like a wall.

Wow! What a climb.

What a ride.

I love Nagano. This feels so good.

From the commanding heights of the Gokuraku Pass,

Michael looks back over the Ina Basin and the surrounding Japan Alps.

He's come to the end of his trip.

What a trip.

What a trip. You know.

The people here in the south part of Nagano, I found that they're just doing the simple things in life.

You know, just, they just want a simple, happy, relaxed life.

So the people who I met working here and the artisans, they weren't trying to show off.

They weren't trying to make something spectacular to show at a museum.

They are just doing the simple things they need to do to live

but they're doing it in the greatest way possible, you know.

They're not holding back, they're not trying to do as little as possible and make the best things they can.

You just need to know what you want to do with your life and then do the best you possibly can.

It's really taught me a lot being here in Nagano.

Far above the world, in these hidden valleys,

people still understand that true happiness is found in the simple things of life.