Hotel Wakasato Nagano

... Before we exited the grounds, we visited a gift shop. I was going to save my souvenir money for Hiemji Castle which I was really looking forward to. My brother started his souvenir key chain collection. To our delight, we discovered Japanese Kit-Kats! They came in different flavors - apple, blueberry cheesecake, and hot pepper. That's right, hot pepper! We didn't try hot pepper but we got blueberry which was pretty delicious. Why ...

... Roku" con la celebre escultura de la araña "Maman" de Louis Bourgeois.

En metro hasta "AKIHABARA"... pero aquí me gustaría hacer un inciso sobre el "Metro" de Tokyo. No voy a extenderme con su fecha de construcción ni datos numéricos... sino con la experiencia de entrar en uno de los medios de trasporte que raya casi la perfección... por detalles como estos:

• La limpieza y el ...
  Japan, Japan sultanaviajes

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 ...

Sind seit gest**n in Sakudaira (ist in Nagano Nähe und scheinbar so unbedeutend, das ichs nur auf Japanisch gefunden hab... ), ab** die leute hi** haben einen riesige Einkaufsmall - JUSCO Hurra...
Gest**n haben wir uns wied** mit Futt** aufs Zimm** v**zogen, vorh** eben in Einkaufsmall Leck**eien eingekauft. Da gabs viel Zeugs zum Probi**en unt** and**em Maguro Sashimi... jaaa eigentlich will ich ja meinen Thunfisch v**brauch einschränken (vor allem d ...

... reminds me, last night i spend in a former ninja training vilage high in the mountains...
when i went to the next city, 3 kms sout, i met a nice family, wich sat down with me and eventually the maybe 50 year old woman invited me to stay in her house...and this more than once...after my experiences in china i said nothing binding, because they dont give a **** there about promises, concept of hounour unknown...they have the face-concept, something slightly different.
dont ...

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 ...

... togeth 1000yen (7 quid) for dinner- 2 bowls of noodles, and then went to sleep broke and dreading that we would be stuck there forever. In the morning we arose early to try and get money but no-one could speak any english, nightmare! In the end there was one man from the bank who came and showed us where there was a 3rd atm, that we were unaware of, and sure enough it ejected those lovely yen notes for us :). We were very relieved, and went back to get our bags then left!

... ours - guess pregnant women and women with young children CAN travel and see these amazing places!

We rushed back to catch the bus back to the train station where we walked around the town of Nagano for a few hours. It's well worth a look to see one of the oldest shrines in Japan - apparently there is an underground room where you can walk underneath the shrine and discover the secrets of life - but apparently this secret can only be ...

... one at 10:42 and one at 11:00. And my ticket didn't say which I'd purchased. I basically figured I could take either one, since I'd bought a round trip good for two days. I had figured that much at least. I went down the stairs to the platform and got on the 10:42 train. Found myself a seat and waited for my first trip on my own to begin. I kept thinking to myself that possibly I was on the wrong train, but I had confidence that I was ...

We took the Shinkansen to Nagano using our rail pass and after arriving found out which bus to catch out to M-Wave, the ice skating rink used in the winter Olympics. We had never been ice skating so were willing to give it a try.

Took an old wooden floored bus out to M-Wave and walked past a sign in Japanese then paid for our ticket to the ...