Hotel Chalet Takeda Hakuba-mura

... If you dont already know, Hokosai painted the many scenes of mount fuji including the famous Wave picture you will all have seen. So it was quite a busy little place, with quite a few tour buses around. After checking in to the hostel we walked down the road to the museum and were inundated with free samples of various japanese foods, some nice some so very not. The exhibition was great, we were both very impressed by his work which included beautiful landscapes, scenes on ...

Nagano... ici Nagano. Apres la moiteur du sud, c'est un vent frais qui nous accueille dans cette ville de l'est des Alpes Japonaises. A Nagano il y a le temple Zenko-ji et les jeux olympiques d'il y a 11 ans, mais pas grand chose d'autre. Le temple renferme une icone de Bouddha vieille de plus de 1500 ans, mais personne ne l'aurait vue depuis plus de 1000 ...

... story attached to it involved a raccoon that could turn itself human. So it did and wanted to visit Zenkoji, which he loved so much that he wanted to donate a lantern. But he was resting in an inn and decided to bathe in his racoon form. Of course, he was found out and had to flee and never realize his dream of donating the lantern. The head priest, who knew of the racoon's desire, decided to commission one in his honor, not that the raccoon would ever ...

... and snow, but you have ropes either side to help you up onto the trail and also along the path. There is a sudden drop to one side which is covered in trees with lots of things to spot along the way. Naturally I didn't spot anything but i'm sure they're there!!

The monkeys come down into the pool every 2 hours or so when fed and are absolutely hilarious to watch. The actual area stinks of ammonia and you have to be careful not to tred in poo ...

... got the message when we put our port glasses in front of the heater). It now resides on a shelf. Well, what's left of it does, anyway. I suggest you import some next time you go there. Anyway, Hiroshima managed to keep us occupied during the day checking out the monuments & museums dedicated to the goings on of 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, when the American military & pollies decided to kill 150,000 women, children and old men with a single bomb in ...

I am going to keep the chat to a minimum here and let the (many) photos do the talking. I went to Nagano to see the "Snow Monkeys". They were awesome. After a short 2km hike through snowy forested mountains, suddenly there were monkeys running across the path - and they literally came within an inch of my feet! Well worth the visit.

Parie en randonnee tres top ce matin car il n'y a qu'un seul train qui vas vers la station ou la randonnee commence. une fois arriver a la montagne, on doit prendre un gondole et 2 chair lift pour se rendre au point de depart du sentier. De la je me suis rendu au sommet a 2700m en 2 heures puis je suis revenue en 1heure et demi. Le temps de revenir a la gare et faire un peu d'epicerie, il est deja 17h00.

Aujoud'hui, il fait tres beau, pas trop chaud,18 celcius. Je suis partie en randonnee au mont Goryu, la base de la montagne est a 5 min a pied de l'auberge. C'est 6.2 km pour se rendre au sommet de 2007m d'altitude. Apres avoir marcher mes 12.4 km, je suis arriver en bas, ou il y a une piscine pour l'entrainement de saut en ski.

Enfin rendu a destination apres une heures et demi de plus. J'ai donc fait plus de 7 heures de train dans ma journee, pour me rendre ici, a hakuba, pres de nagano, ou les olympiques d'hiver de 1998 ont eu lieux. La temprature est beaucoup plus clemente, environ 18 le jours et 10 la nuits, ca va faire chagement des 25 et plus depuis mon arriver. Il fait noir, alors on ne voir pas grand chose mais les autres residents de l'auberge m'ont dis que le paysage est pas mal beau. On vera ca demain!

... to come by to take us back into town. Eventually one arrived and we walked up to the Zenkoji Temple past a street full of temple residences.

We wandered around the temple complex and gardens and even saw someone ringling the large bell using a wooden log before walking back down to the train station and catching the train back to Tokyo.