The hills of Biei roll in long slow curves — wheat fields giving way to potato fields giving way to sunflower fields, the geometry of large-scale Hokkaido agriculture rendered as landscape. Cycling through this on a clear summer day, with the Tokachidake range visible to the east, produces a feeling that tourism brochures describe but cannot fully prepare you for. The scale is simply larger than the photographs suggest. Biei is usually visited in combination with Furano's lavender fields, which are famous and worth seeing. But the argument for Biei on its own terms is the patchwork of the hills — the way the different crops create a changing pattern of colors that shifts as the season progresses, from the pale green of early summer to the gold of wheat harvest to the late-season browns. The landscape is agricultural, which means it is also functional, which means the beauty is incidental to the purpose. This is not a designed landscape. It is a working one. The best way to see it is by bicycle, which forces a speed appropriate to the scale. The roads between the fields are quiet. The distances between notable trees and farmhouses are longer than they appear on maps. Getting slightly lost is not a problem; it is a method.