Our last stop was the Yotsuya Senmaida rice terraces, which have been selected as one of Japan’s 100 best rice terraces.
We also visited Mt. Horaiji, a sacred mountain with an old temple and the vermilion Horaisan Toshogu Shrine in the forest. The birdsong there was lovely.
It was rice-planting season. The terraces climb the valley in hundreds of small paddies, each held up by old stone walls. The flooded fields reflected the sky and the green mountains, and water from the mountain stream flowed down from one terrace to the next.
