Gerocal Tour

My daughter researched and got into contact with Dai the tour leader from Facebook as we wanted someone who can speak English for the sake tour. The tour was with Tenryo Brewery. We were taken around the brewery by the master brewer who explained the process of sake brewing. Sake is brewed during the winter months from Nov to Mar. The most important ingredient is rice, water and koji. These and several other details of the sake brewing process were explained to us in detail. We were also shown the various machinery involved in sake brewing such as the tanks sake is fermented in, the steamer for the rice, the pressing machine, the maturation tank and the bottling process. The master brewer painstakingly explained every step in detail and Dai did a good job in translating it for us to understand. Overall, it was a great experience and we would recommend Dai to anyone who would like an English guide for the Tenryo sake brewery tour.

Our family of four booked at a stay at a ryokan in Maze, the next valley over from Gero, Hida-Takayama, and the Hida train line to Toyama. Our host set us up with tour leader Dai, a super smart, thoughtful, and creative college grad who relocated from Tokyo last year to promote eco-tourism in the area. He took my wife, my two adolescent sons, and I on a great tour of the valley on e-bikes (all Japanese, he said proudly) that took us to mountain views, shrines, a great lunch with an impromptu classical Japanese music concert, and the highlight, coffee on a beach on a secluded bend of the Maze river. Dai speaks excellent English and had really interesting things to say about the area, the people, his own life, and Japan itself. I learned a lot and so did the rest of my family. He runs these tours from any of the nearby train stations in Takayama or Gero, and was super open to requests and connections to friends handling other activities in the area. He made some great suggestions about visiting Furukawa to see some of the venues depicted in the movie Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name), which my kids (and I) love and serves as a great primer to understand the teen mind and life in Japan today. Overall I would highly recommend Dai’s approach to creating meaningful experiences in this underappreciated part of rural Japan.

My boyfriend and I ended up doing a walking tour of Hagiwara (we actually wanted to do a bike tour but due to weather conditions we did the walking tour instead), and we were not disappointed! Daisuke was very knowledgable (and spoke perfect English) about Japanese history, culture and society, and we learned a great deal on the tour. We visited a shrine, an antique store/museum, a local bakery and a sake brewery (so much fun!). I would definitely recommend this tour to people who are visiting this part of Japan, and who want to learn more about Japanese history and culture. Our experience was that privat tours such as this one were good value and such a great experience since you get to talk to local Japanese people who are knowledgeable and really hospitable.
Would definitely recommend!

My husband and I stayed at Maruhachi Ryokan and decided to do the e-bike tour around the small village Maze in which we were staying. Daisuke was an excellent guide, he was very welcoming and informative. He came to meet us at the ryokan in the morning and we went out for 4.5 hours on his new electric bikes including lunch before returning back to the ryokan. The scenery was beautiful and we had an amazing day cycling through the valley of Maze. We learnt a lot about the rural farming community before eating a fantastic lunch with local produce, siting at a lovely location overlooking the valley. In the afternoon we cycled to the southern end of the village and enjoyed some tasty freshly ground coffee sat next to the river. I would highly recommend this tour to experience rural Japan away from the all crowds.