Hotel Ikkyu Matsumoto

... manhole covers in each of the towns we visited.

It was noon so we went to grab some lunch. There was a soba (a type of thin Japanese noodle made from buckwheat flour. It's served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot broth) restaurant named Nomugi that was recommended by Lonely Planet. According to the guidebook, the owner was a famous soba maker in the region. We were only given an address of the restaurant and ...

... nuestro caso la soledad, que contrasta enormemente con la visi�n de los gigantescos edificios que lo rodean.

Podr�amos destacar el estanque de "Shioiri-no-ike" cuya agua es salada y se extrae de la bah�a mediante un sistema de exclusas. En el estanque y conectado con un bello puente de madera (118 metros) est� la isla de "Nakajima-no-ochaya" donde el que lo desee puede acercarse a la casa ...

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 ...

... Thunfisch wird ja dank d** Fischmethoden imm** we***** - auch ist fraglich ob das ganze Delfinfreundlich abgeht... jaja die Japan** und die Delfine ist ja ein eigenes Thema) ab** es ist einfach zu leck**. Wenn dir d** Fisch direkt auf d** Zunge z**rinnt... Umweltfreundlichkeit ist eh ein zweischneidiges Schw**t, da wird ein**seits alles m�gliche eingepackt (wrapping culture Japan!!) selbst wenn man v**packtes eis kauft, wirds nochmal in ein T�tel extra ...

... standing there...yelling at people to get them inside...i think thats called service industy in newspeak.

ok, enough for now...i think it is clear why i write in english...in german i can not express myself anymore as well, i bore myself while writing...so read you next time...maybe in german, maybe in english...
btw, its very distressing to log in after 2 weeks without inet to see only 1 mail...thx wew...
can someone pease write me, otherwise i feel so lonely

From Obuse, we travelled further along the train line, into the mountains and to a place called Yudanaka. In the winter you can go skiing around here but obviously there was no snow whilst we were here, just a bit of rain. The reason we came here was to visit the snow monkeys. These monkeys are macaques which come down the valley and are partial to bathing in the natural onsen (hot springs). We got a bus ...

... The Japanese students asked us questions, and we asked the Japanese students questions. They were all anonymous, which was nice. The questions ranged from what is your favorite foods to do you think we speak english well, to "would you ever date a Japanese person?" It was great to see how curious our new friends had become and it was amazing to realize how much we don't really know about each others cultures. Although the Japanese are ...

... about each others culture. There were so many questions, confusion, and I think in the end, a bit of enlightenment. I still don't understand the culture completely and feel as if I never will. I don't think an outsider is privileged to such information. Regardless, I think our talk formed a strong bond and I hope we have more like it in the future.

... I was wrong--we entered a tunnel on one side of a mountain to cloudy green landscape and existed, at the same altitude of the other side to a completely white world, including snow driving almost horizontal. So I had hoped that being situated behind a mountain range, the low, rainy/snowy clouds would be stopped from Kamikochi. Turns out this is only half true--the West facing mountains didn't stop the storm front, but the Eastern ones did, meaning that the storm came over ...

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