Iris|Lake Tazawa — The Akita Water They Chose After Hokkaido Said No

The first scenes of Iris were not shot in Seoul. On 10 March 2009 the company landed in Akita. Lee Byung-hun's Japanese fans met the plane. For three weeks the crew worked more than twenty locations across the prefecture: Nyuto Onsenkyo, Lake Tazawa, the Oga Peninsula, the city itself.

Hokkaido had been the first choice for snow. A hundred people needed beds for three weeks, and Hokkaido would not make the deal. Akita would, because the prefecture wanted tourists. After the series aired, Korean travelers followed the map. Interpark reported a jump in Akita onsen bookings in the first two weeks of November 2009. Tazawako Station put up an Iris display. The lake — Japan's deepest crater lake, a hard blue bowl under the Towada-Hachimantai park — became the postcard.

Stand on the shore at Tazawa and the water does the work the drama needed. It is too still and too large for a city. Hyun-jun and Seung-hee are on leave here before Budapest pulls them back. The onsen villages up the road, Tsurunoyu first among them, still take day bathers when the inns are open. The lake itself asks nothing but the walk from the station bus.

Bring a coat. Akita in the season they filmed is not a backdrop. It is weather. That is why the Korean tours kept coming after the last episode.