Tazawako By Day

If you remember, I posted up some sunset photos of the Lake earlier. If you don't, then check out my post : Sunset In Tazawako.

Lake Tawaza is the Japan's deepest lake with its depth of 423 metres (by comparison, Tokyo Tower is 333metres tall & Tokyo Skytree is 634metres). The lake is 20km in circumference  and has an  almost a perfect circular shape. Its water used to be one of the clearest in Japan, together with Lake Mashu in Hokkaido, but is now slightly polluted since the construction of a dam in 1940.  The appearance of the lake and its sapphire-blue colored water tends to change dramatically with the sunlight and the clouds, creating a rather mysterious atmosphere. This might be the origin of the most famous legend of the area, that of Tatsuko.

According to legend, Tatsuko was a beautiful girl who prayed to retain her beauty forever. She drank the water of the lake and turned into a big dragon and sank to the bottom of the lake.Just google them up if you need to know more about the legend. Or maybe, head over to Tazawako Tourism Association's English blog for more on the legend.

The lake area. The lake can be viewed either by taking the ferry (or by paddling the swan boats, if you chose to), walking or renting a bike to circle the lake.

There's a rest stop near the lake,where one can find places to eat and buy souvenirs. Raimie had a very nice goma ice-cream there, and his Mommy and Daddy went on a free food sampling binge in one of the shops.

 If you do decide to walk or cycle around, the road is quite narrow so beware of approaching cars! But no worries - when we were walking there, we met quite a number of runners doing their evening run and cars were careful of them.

A campsite nearby the lake area. Fancy camping there? I would love to try someday, after I armed myself with plenty of mosquito repellent, that is. :[

Remember the dragon head in the earlier post? Well, the two adults traveling with Raimie just couldn't resist poking our heads into stuff we weren't suppose to!

Anyhoo, anyone interested in Sakura beer or limited edition pink sake - click the link here and here. Don't mope around and be all doom and gloom in the face of adversity (I'm talking about the March 11 earthquake & tsunami) Support local industry and drink some booze, I say.

BTW, Check out Ichigoichielove's Show Me Japan Vol1 Issue 21 this week.