Hotel Asahikan Shiojiri

... mountain views during the train ride.

After about a three hour ride, we arrive in Matsumoto. A fairly suburban area with the main road leading to the castle. It was here where I started noticing the decorative manhole covers. My guidebook mentioned about these elaborate sewer covers. What country does this?! I actually saw one near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo but this one was colorful (see photo below). So starts my collection ...

... estruendo... Volví a intentarlo con precaución pensando que había podido ser una alucinación por el picante que todavía corría por mis venas... pero esta vez até cabos y entendí que al acercarte, automáticamente se ponen en marcha melodías como sonidos ambientales (en este caso una cascada) para enmascarar el posible concierto que se iba a orquestar en tu patio trasero...

Settling in in Matsumoto. Spent about 4 1/2 hours on trains today, slow one from Nikko to Utsunomiya, a shinkansen to Omiya, another shinkansen to Nagano, then another slow train to Matsumoto. Signs of civilization at the Matsumoto station - a Starbucks!

Hoping that I can find the castle tomorrow. The ryokan has bicycles to lend, so I'm going to try and ...

... angekommen, ein ziemlich v**lassenes Schloss - mit Horrorfilmpotential das ganze!!! Wied** niemand da - hauptsache ein klo gabs - klasse jetzt brauchte ich es auch nicht mehr (wobei da wär ich eh nicht reingegangen - nach d** letzten Bahnhofstoilette in d** Einöde - TIPP dafür - NIEMALS DEN BLICK NACH OBEN RICHTEN!!! - the spid**man is having me for dinn** tonight) Die Aussicht war natürlich echt nicht von schlechten Elt**n - blöd**weise ist d** akku ...

... face, give face, dont loose face... says nowhere dont break promises or dont lie...
Anyway, after she repeated her invitation 3 times i said ok, they paid my beer, i paid my food.
NIce...what annoyed me was that she was inching closer and closer to me sexual harassment from a over 50 years old japanese lady?
whowww....
She then wanted to sing karaoke, so up we went, after some time i got a bill over 1700 yen, 17 dollar, went down and off she went without even saiing ...

... in the onsen and up the verges in their group, and there were lots of cute little babies. We stayed for a while taking photos, but soon got drenched by the rain so took shelter in an onsen lodge just across a bridge on the other side of the valley. There we had lunch- by then we hadnt eaten all day as we had the money fiasco to deal with in the morning, and had rushed to get our train and bus- so we ...

... they are willing to share information, it just takes time. The ride back was filled with American and Japanese chatter, as we had all become good friends at this point. Bonding over questions and beer is never a bad thing :) We will be meeting up with a bunch of the students this thursday and most of them are coming to Boston this summer, which is really nice. We will be able to show them our home, as they have graciously shown us theirs.

... a day of asking about Japanese culture, we decided to teach them some American drinking games. Beer Pong became an instant hit, with three tables going at once. My parter, Nanami and I ended up winning every game we played. While playing, we were able to find out a lot about each other. We ended up talking until almost 5 in the morning, learning a ...

... when I first got there except of the bathroom which has a really strange set up. Anyway, Saito starts explaining all this stuff we are going to be doing the next couple of days and then she goes and knocks on the neighbors doors and yells at David and Mario to come and meet me and help me figure out how to work my shower. Yeah, like I really wanted to be meeting people when I had been traveling for twenty hours straight, and it was 11:00 at night. 6 ...

... We had been told by Tomi that it was difficult to find, which I guess was right since it didn't actually exist, but since I've become known as MapMan, I was able to get us on the right track. It turned out that the path leading up to the lake was all uphill, and we tried our best but wimped out and ended up pushing our bikes uphill until we got to any flat or downhill sections where we ...