Kashi Besso Royal Hakuba-mura

... If you dont already know, Hokosai painted the many scenes of mount fuji including the famous Wave picture you will all have seen. So it was quite a busy little place, with quite a few tour buses around. After checking in to the hostel we walked down the road to the museum and were inundated with free samples of various japanese foods, some nice some so very not. The exhibition was great, we were both very impressed by his work which included beautiful landscapes, scenes on ...

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 ...

Busy day today because all my sightseeing has been put off by the weather. But today is sunny, sunny and sunny. Started way early, and was actually the 2nd tourist inside Matsumoto castle today. The castle is very different than Himeji (which looks more majestic but it's apples v. oranges here); not only in color but it's set up as a completely wartime castle. While Himeji is peacefully situated on park land and had living quarters and extra room to give away ...

... 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.

We also met an Australian family with a 8 month old baby on a similar trip ...

... the biggest ninja there is. She's still going through Ninja pre pre school. I'm so Ninja, I could kill you with a thought, should I be so inclined. I could probably also kill you with my breath after eating Japanese for 10 days). Jobs done. Oh, and we saw a Geisha. Geisha = chick dolled up with pure white mascara who spends time with bored rich Japanese blokes in a clean, no touching, let me get a drink for you and light your cigar kinda way. Think beer ...

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.

Enfin rendu a destination apres une heures et demi de plus. J'ai donc fait plus de 7 heures de train dans ma journee, pour me rendre ici, a hakuba, pres de nagano, ou les olympiques d'hiver de 1998 ont eu lieux. La temprature est beaucoup plus clemente, environ 18 le jours et 10 la nuits, ca va faire chagement des 25 et plus depuis mon arriver. Il fait noir, alors on ne voir pas grand chose mais les autres residents de l'auberge m'ont dis que le paysage est pas mal beau. On vera ca demain!

... 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.