Hotel Usuikan Nagano

... 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 ...

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 ...

... dowry, Matsumoto castle is strictly defense minded--the lord doesn't live in the castle and every room has vantage points, stone drops and arrow and musket holes. Surprisingly, guns came to Japan in the 1600s, way earlier than I thought. Spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering the attached park and Matsumoto city museum and climbing the steep (according to the plaques somewhere between 45 and 62 degrees) stairs. But soon, Nagano was calling, as I had ...

After Spencer sleeping all day in the TV room nursing a hangover and then me booking a hotel in the completely wrong area of Japan (although very very luxourious resulted in a 7.15am wake up call to get to Nagano) we made our way to the snow monkeys!

After getting our bus to literally the middle of nowhere, we then walked for 40 minutes along a beautiful snowy trail to where the monkey sanctuary is hidden in the snow. The path is covere din ...

... Japanese punk rocker, HAI!!! Somehow managed to stay in the seediest part of Osaka where we managed to find a cubicle hotel. It's just after the second love hotel on the right, before the "adult souvenir shop" and opposite the beer vending machine. Japan's probably one of the few countries where you'd be completely safe stumbling around drunk in the seedy quarter with a wad of cash hanging out of your pocket, so it was all fine, except that the capsules are ...

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.

... but worried about it getting dark (which happens around 6:30pm) before we got all the way to the bottom, because it was a pretty rough track. And I got to have a wonderfully relaxing (but communal) bath when we got back to the campsite, but Bill had to wash under a cold tap because men`s bathtime was 5-6pm. Ha ha! Speaking of stupid time rules, our curfew tonight is 9pm! Yes, by 9pm we have to be back at our hostel! Not impressed. You can`t do anything before 9pm! Sigh. It`s 8:30 ...

... 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.