Sansuikan Yugawaso Matsumoto

... onsen”) and all piled out of the van and went in. Before Toshi and I could get in the door and to our wallets, they had paid for our entire party’s admission to the onsen. We were all a little hungry so we decided on dinner first, onsen later. We had miso soup, pizza (sort of), ramen and Korean barbeque. It was all very wonderful! The Korean barbeque is cooked at the table over a gas burner. Cabbage, and bean sprouts cooked along side this delicious beef served with a ...

... numbers in Japan made no sense. After a while we found the small restaurant that had a small sheet of paper identifying itself. And small was an understatement. The restaurant had only three tables! Luckily a party was just leaving so we didn't have to wait long. We were served the cold soba in a wicker basket with accompanying spices and a mushroom and seaweed appetizer. We basically looked at the other tables to see how to eat ...

... when cooked a unique melty experience. Yes i am raving but i'm serious, it was that good and if anything, i've never tasted anything like it. Go gastro-tourism!

The next day was our day of hardcore sightseeing which included going to see the traditional folk village which has reconstructions of various traditional houses, and examples of traditional art such as exceptional woodcutting, in a beautiful country setting. Also on the list were: the old style ...

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 ...

... en anglais. Donc, j'ai fait un peu de repassage, refait mes valises et lu un peu.

Takayama est dans les montagnes. C'est un petit village ou il y a beaucoup d'agriculture et ou les gens travaillent le bois. Ils sont memes reputes pour leur travail. Il y a de tres beaux bols en bois lacques qui coutent, vous vous en doutez, une fortune. C'est une petite ville et tout ferme a 4h30-5h. Et quand je dis tout, j ...

... piece of salmon, salad, “+3” (this time the miso had okra in it!), scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, and a hot dog on a stick! Nippon desu.

Our super-friendly innkeeper drove us and our luggage to the train station after breakfast. We stuck our bags in the coin lockers and shopped for souvenirs in San-machi again. Back at the train station, we got some bento boxes for lunch and waited on the train.

... br>lol...but i have also a lot of experiences in the other way...here examples...

hitchhiking...quite easy, even as japanese never do it...funny thing is they invite you to food or give you money...almost always... i refuse always three times, and then i take what they want to get rid of...funny behavior, theoretically it schould be possible to earn money that way.

Otherwise japan is nice, very clean, not as ultramodern as you might think, also it seems that ...

So sorry that you havent received any news from us....from Mt.Fuji on, we didnt have any access....We stayed at the World Heritag Cultural Site in Gokayama, which was like staying at a camp.Basically, we have been in a mountainous area...the students have been writing a journal every day - One student writes about our day and at the end of the trip these pages will be copied by the leaders and a booklet will be made for ...

couldn't get to the computer last nite. only have a minute this morning.
took a train here yesterday. it's up in the "mountains", which are like big hills. it's really such a neat town. their specialty here is making sake and woodworking. i think i'll get a few real pretty bowls.
tim said yesterday on the train "show me the pictures of sedona", he was really missing her and he continues to narrate. as of ...

... picked this awesome restaurant. It was some Edo time period setup with the fire place in the middle of the room. The Lunch was $35.00 or excuse me 3,500 Yen a piece but for the 5 course meal it was well worth it. After lunch Saito drove Mario and I around town and took us to our schools to show us where they were and to meet the principle. I was so tired basically the whole adventure was a wash. I didn't remember one persons name or where the schools were. Lets just say ...