Tea fields below a village on the Makinohara Plateau

Fourteen Days in Japan · Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Day 9: Kikugawa

The next day, our plan was to take it easy, drive back to Nagoya and go out to dinner with Jutaro and Rie at a fun pizzeria near their place. On our way back, while traveling through the western part of Shizuoka Prefecture, we got off the expressway to take a detour through the Makinohara Plateau, the largest tea-growing area in Japan, near the city of Kikugawa.

Dry hydrangea flowers in front of terraced tea fields

Rows of tea bushes and frost fans on the hillside

Curving rows of tea bushes along a narrow path

I had never seen a tea plantation before, so I knew very little about what one actually looked like. I wasn't expecting these long bushes, and I was especially surprised to see that, all over the rows of tea plants, the farmers had installed tall poles with fans on top. Apparently, they are needed in wintertime to make sure the plants are not damaged by frost.

Rounded rows of tea bushes at the edge of the woods

A pink blossoming tree beside the tea fields

Dried lotus leaves and seed pods in a pond

A river and houses on the edge of Kikugawa

Signs and traffic on the road back to Nagoya

For dinner, we met Jutaro and Rie at Pizzeria Marino, one of their favorite pizza places in town. The pizza tasted really good, though some of the toppings were a bit unusual. The pasta was also very tasty, prepared at the table inside a hollow half-wheel of parmesan cheese.

After dinner, we went to a local drugstore to do some shopping...