Hotel Sunroute Nagano Higashiguchi

... especial aquel paraje natural donde lo bueno es perderse, buscar los miradores elevados, admirar los cerezos y fotografiarlos junto al enorme contraste del intenso amarillo de un campo de flores. A la hora de comer... o mejor dicho... cuando tuvimos hambre, entramos en "COCO ICHIBANYA Curry House". <br><br>¿Qué comimos? ¡Arroz al curry! Pero no pienses que es tan fácil... El plato es tan sencillo ...

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

... das ganze. <br>Die Maki v**kaufen sie hi** im Sup**markt in ganzen Rollen.. .sozusagen zum selbstzuschneiden. <br><br>Heute haben wir uns** Bento gepackt und sind auf den **stbesten B**g (es ist d** Omine-yama gewesen) in Nagano gestiegen. So welchen Weg nehmen wir, als sich d** Weg teilte - die 1.3km od** die 1.8km ?? Andi entschied die 1.3 km - nicht ganz so hoch, weil mir ja sonst die puste ausgeht... jaja. D** Weg war sup**steil und eh** v ...

so i am in matsumoto, out of the last 7 nights i spend 6 on parkbenches, the last time i took public transport was 8 days ago and suddenly i have a lot to write about...<br>First, a night in a youthhostel in JP sets you back around 35 to 40 dollar per night...nothing included, except the privilege to check in after 4 pm and leave before nine...ah...and at 9 pm they lock you in...thanks, then i prefer to sleep in my sleepingbag in a park,more fun, mmore adventure, more cheap....<br><br ...

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 ...

... and pictures of japanese ladies. We spent the afternoon exploring the town and Mark had a chestnut icecream- the place is also reknowned for its chestnut confectionary. By this point we had spent all of the cash we had on us and were directed to 2 atms nearby, however neither would accept our cards (all visa) even though they had the visa logo on them. These were the only places to get money out in the whole town and we had no other way of getting any, arggh! So we ...

Alright, so I ended up getting roughly an hour of sleep, but I think it was less since I kept waking up. I let one of the Japanese kids sleep in my room since he was locked out and ended up on the couch and then trying to sleep in one of the classrooms. After Nanami and I stayed up talking all night, I really didn't want to sleep that much. It was a lot to digest, but it was a lot of fun. Breakfast came and went and then we had a final Q&amp;A ...

... you can get really close to the monkeys and watching the mums with the baby monkeys is lovely. Unfortunately the monkeys only come down when they are fed so luckily we timed it perfectly and managed to get some brilliant shots. But wait around if there aren't any there once you get there they will soon turn up when the keeps start throwing the pellets on the ground.<br><br>We also met an Australian family with a 8 month old baby on a similar trip ...

... and ice-skating rink. We went through the rather disappointing museum and through to the ice skating rink to find the lights off and half the ice melted. It was then that we realised that the sign out the front in Japanese probably said the rink was closed due to maintenance.<br><br>We left M-Wave, had lunch and then had to wait ages for another ...

... giapponese all'aperto...) e' stata provvidenziale. Superato l'imbarazzo di essere in mezzo ad una trentina di uomini giapponesi nudi il rilassamento a 45 gradi centigradi e' stato totale! Ammirare il panorama sotto la neve mentre si e' nudi in una pozza d'acqua calda e' fenomenale. Nei paraggi c'era una vallata di nome Togakushi dove e' nata l'arte dei Ninja. Il museo ahime era chiuso, e di ninja non ne abbiamo visti.... ma forse proprio perche' erano ninja....