Northern Alps of Japan

We woke up this morning to clearer skies, and this is what the view from the lodge looked like.....



It was settled - we would go up the mountain without delay!

So we shouldered our load and hiked up and up and up ..... boy was it tiring!


OK, just kidding, we took the gondola and three chair lifts to the top of "Happo" mountain. we could see the town far below us.



From the top of the lifts, we started our hike. Before long we were looking at snow!



The scenery was incredible. Amazing peaks all around, also wildflowers galore along with gurgling mountain streams and chirping birds. Hikers were all around too, but it was very orderly and organized, very Japanese. Many people cheerfully said "Konichiwa" or "Herro!" as we passed. Several large school groups and of course many people in dress shoes, slacks, even one guy in a fancy tie and dress shirt. Weird.



The lift ride down was fun. A special treat was a rainbow BELOW us! Our fellow guests at the lodge report that they got rained on while canoeing in the lake. I guess we made a good choice of activity for the day as we felt maybe five raindrops.



Unforgettable. This place is fantastic and very un-crowded. We know that the skiing is great, and now we have been up the hill and I can say it is very high! So, next time in WINTER!

Goodbye City, Hello Country!

Yesterday we wrapped up our short visit to Matsumoto, which is the largest city in the Alps region and is considered the "gateway" to the Japan Alps. The morning was somewhat rushed as we wanted to make a 1pm train, so we had to zoom through downtown to see the Castle. By the time we got there, having missed the shuttle bus and then gotten distracted by "nature day" activities, a little street market, and a wedding at a shrine we had about 20 minutes to tour the amazing castle. For twenty bucks this didn't seem like a good investment, but Benna insisted, so to be practical she and I did the mini-tour while Jana and Aleeza rested in the shade, as it was already about 95 degrees and bright sunny weather.

The Castle has six floors, and you can walk through them all. There are displays with artifacts of all kinds. in twenty minutes, we made it through the first and second levels. Oh well. It was really cool. This picture shows the "moon viewing" room. Scott and David would have enjoyed the large collection of weapons and armor, including lots of muskets and old pistols in very good restored condition. They showed a bunch of parts, too, with diagrams showing how they were manufactured and assembled.



After this short adventure, we hopped the shuttle bus and returned to the station and found our platform. By now we are quite good at this, we know how to read the signs and we know that there is always an escalator or elevator nearby. We also are making good use of the coin lockers to store our many bags!



Despite being an outpost, a number of different machines pass through Matsumoto station. In these pictures we see the Super Azusa that runs to Tokyo, the Shinano that runs to Nagoya, and the local train that cruises the single-track into the hills and out to the west coast.

We rode another train not shown. A cool thing about Matsumoto station, as we sat on the platform eating snacks, as each train arrived a female voice announced "Matsumotoooooooo!" in a singing voice. It was cool, the girls sang along after a while.

Speaking of snacks, here is a picture of a kiosk at the station. There are tons of these in every station, in addition to many other stores that sell low to high end food and gifts. The kiosk food is not too expensive and it is always fresh and delicious. They restock them constantly. You can see chips, sandwiches, rice-balls with all kinds of stuffing, soft drinks and cold beer. No danger of starving or remaining sober!



So we hopped our train and rode into the hills. The scenery transformed from beautiful to breathtaking. It was very hazy, but we could see the snow on the mountain tops within ten minutes. Soon there were no buildings other than small houses at the bases of the mountains. Along the track we could see retaining walls, avalanche barriers, and tall pine trees. As we approached our destination, the train passed the bases of chairlifts.

Hakuba itself reminded me of a swiss village with all the signs in Japanese. The station was swarming with backpackers waiting for the train back down to the cities. (Of course that is the train we just rode up on, the crew was immediately and furiously cleaning it and spinning the seats around for the return trip.) A phone call later, we were on our way to the Powder Lodge.

These pictures show the view from our window. We can see snow in the hills, despite the fact that we are in a heat wave here. These are big mountains! The town itself is at 1,800 meters. To the left, we can see the ski jumps from when the Olympics were here in 1998. Many of the big mountain sides we can see have ski trails. This is bigtime powder country!



The lodge is nice, and the kids are in heaven. There is a gameroom with foosball and Wii. There is a bigscreen TV room with a huge selection of movies, including many kids titles. There is a yard with a kiddie pool and some toys, and in the picture you can see the garden. There is a communal kitchen, lots of couches and tables for playing cards or socializing. It did not take long for us to fall into conversation with the other folks, who consist of the owners and their three kids (4yrs and twins 2yrs), an American couple who teach at an international school in Tokyo and their two boys (5yrs and 7yrs) and a Greek couple who are friends of the owners. We watched a movie together and shared food and beer and conversation until bedtime. It is especially nice for the kids to be free without getting "Shusshed." Our kids are actually the least noisy so far - the owners kids are screeching and crying all over the place. The wife apologized this morning and I explained that it is actually a relief to feel free to let our own kids be kids!



Not sure what we will do today. We all need some down-time. Perhaps a simple agenda of going to the river to splash around! In the coming days I hope to ride one of the many summer gondolas to the top, where we are told there are a number of activities for kids and adults, including hikes and mountain bike rentals. The town is very cute, and we would like to shop a bit. We already spent an hour at the supermarket yesterday while the kids "relaxed" (watched a video!)

Having fun - wish you were here!

Festival!

Last night we experienced our first Shrine Festival. It was a feast for the senses! There were a lot of people packed into a small area. Many booths with food, games and souvenirs.


There were parades on and off through the day. Most featured elaborately decorated floats. These were parked on the grounds of the shrine we visited. They were incredible. People were climbing on them, but we couldn't tell how to get into the line.



In the middle of the chaos there was this music and dance thing going on. It was quite solemn and traditional, which made the contrast with the surroundings quite vivid.



There were many food booths. Too bad we had just filled ourselves with scrumptious ramen at a local restaurant!



Many of the locals were dressed in beautiful robes - I think that these are called "Yukata" but most of us would call them Kimono. I am not sure of the difference. Anyway there were women and men, and children in festive colorful robes, walking around buying cheap electronic toys and eating street food!


Of course, we allowed the kids to save dessert for the festival! Aleeza found a crepe booth and she had a banana and chocolate crepe. Benna enjoyed her first ever candy apple! It was pretty good but it led to a feud that lasted for about half an hour.



We had some trouble finding our way home, and wound up hiking to the main bus terminal to get our bearings, only to find that the bus drove right through the sestival area. Oh well - more exercise, just what we needed! We were treated to views of fireworks from the bus windows as we drove back to the Ryokan.

We enjoyed Matsumoto!

Matsumoto!

Another day, another town!
We survived the crush of Tokyo Station at rush hour and six-plus hours of train to get here. We broke the day up with a visit to the Ghibli museum in Tokyo. That was a great time, but no pictures, so if you are into Hayao Miyazaki go to the website!

Anyway the sprawl quickly faded as our Azusa express train climbed into the rugged mountains and the scenery became fantastic and storybook-like.
This shot is an attempt to capture the grandeur of these mountains. It is hazy and cloudy but hopefully you can appreciate the fact that these peaks are nicknamed the Japan Alps for a reason.

We got a ride from the innkeeper (which saved us much grief!) to this amazing park that I had heard about on you-tube, but it is not listed in ANY of the tourist guidebooks I looked at. It is called Matsumoto Alps Park, and we were rewarded with an honest to goodness PLAYGROUND FOR CHILDREN! It was a really good one, too!

Can you see the girls at the top of this climbing hill? Check out the slides!
There was also a little Alpine Slide, called the "dream coaster" that was fun until Benna crashed and was in tears for a while. There was also a "roller slide" that had to be seen to be believed. I will put pictures of it on the girls` blogs soon.

After several hours playing, eating, visiting the small zoo, and eating some more, we began our hike back to the Ryokan. It was a long walk down the hill, past sweet houses with beautiful little gardens. The mountains hung over us as the city shimmered below in the stifling heat.

About half way home we had planned a stop at the municipal pool. It cost us 200 yen for adults and half that for kids, so about $2.50 for adults and half that for the kids. Perhaps the best seven dollars we ever spent.

Unfortunately, we were only half way home, and the second half was flat but the whining got lounder as our patience got shorter. Jana is now resting in the air conditioned room. Soon we will try again to satisfy ourselves with Ramen, then head downtown to the festival.

Tomorrow we visit the famous Castle, then hop back on the train for a ride into the heart of the alps, to Hakuba, a small town with about five huge ski resorts and numerous "Rotenburo" which means outdoor hot-spring baths.

One more week of travelling, then we settle down for three weeks in Kyoto!

Morioka

A little bit about Morioka. A neat small city in Northern Japan, capitol of Iwate prefecture.


Our room is cozy and after some fiddling we got the Air Conditioning to work - a big deal as it is really hot! One of the best features is the cute doggie - "Gon Chan." Benna and Aleeza have to take turns loving him. The other night, a friend of the barkeeper came by with her puppy - it was a dog-love-fest. Understand that it is like a house, so the barkeeper (a young woman) and the chef (a young man) are here much of the day, they eat here and hang out here and in the evening the restaurant/bar is hopping with soft music and smoking and drinking, but it feels like you are in the living room of a house, and the guest rooms are just through a door and down the hall.

Yesterday we had an amazing day at an indoor waterpark. No pictures, but suffice it to say there were maybe one hundred guests at this place, which could easily have accommodated two or three thousand. Six hours flew by before we had to catch the (free!) bus back to town
That night we decided to follow the guidebook recommendation and sample a local dish - Morioka Reimen. Not the same as Ramen, we quickly discovered, after trying to order it at a little Ramen shop. The chef shooed us out the door and pointed us down the street to a place that was able to deal with foreigners! So, Reimen is cold and the soup is kimchee-based. Spicy and gooey. The noodles are much chewier than typical Ramen. It was...interesting. We tried it. Next.....

Morioka has interesting streets. I wish I had more time to just walk around. A major feature is the castle park, which is centrally located. Actually it was not nearly as nice as the guidebooks made it sound, but it was interesting enough to keep the kids entertained for about half an hour. The Japanese idea of a playground, it turns out, is a bleak open flat field with nothing in it. (We have been burned by this twice now!)



So today, Aleeza and Jana went to the "Morioka Handiworks Square" and hopefully they will return soon with great stories to tell and some crafts that they made themselves.
Benna and I went to the Morioka Zoo. Getting there was an adventure. We missed the bus and had to take a taxi. No biggie, but a bit expensive, so I was relieved when the admission was five bucks for the two of us! The place was absolutely deserted. I was actually afraid it was closed when we got there. We were able to explore it at our own pace, and before long I heard screeching voices and I thought "Aahhhh, children, they are the same in every country and their squeals of joy are the same in any language. I could almost convince myself that they were screaming in English. As we approached, it became clear that it was a dream - this group was from the nearby air force base, they were American kids screaming in English!

Benna liked the food - it was the Zoo plate. Hopefully it was not Zoo meat! I liked the Monkeys.

The bus ride home was OK, but Benna thought it was boring.

Food in Japan

We have been eating like kings and queens and princesses here. The food is delicious (with the possible exceptipon of the grilled octopus!), so fresh, and usually it is also very carefully presented. Amazingly we are not gaining weight, perhaps because the main source of carbs is rice, which is eaten often but in fairly small quantities.

Time is short and my battery is almost dead (as usual!) so I will throw a bunch of food shots up here, please ask any questions on the comment section and I'll respond. More soon. Enjoy!

Our Sendai Hosts

We were so fortunate to have been introduced to Yori and Nori Kimura. They are both semi-retired teachers. He is now the principal of a small private kindergarten, and she is a graduate student and Emily Dickinson scholar. They are Christian, and interesting to me was the fact that they can trace their faith back multiple generations, which is unusual because for many centuries Christianity was banned in Japan. However, up north where I am now I see a fair number of Christian institutions, mainly schools, at least in the cities (Morioka and Sendai to be specific.) They had many questions for us and they engaged us in frank and open conversations about family life and faith. It was quite unusual from what I can tell. It was amazing to think that we were welcomed as if we were grandchildren, even though we had never met, and our only prior contact was through email! Aleeza told us yesterday that she intends to come to visit them (along with some of her close friends) for her 16th birthday. (Of course, what she really wants is to bring her friends here to Morioka to return to Kenji World, the outrageous water park we spent the day at yesterday, but that's another post!)
Here are a bunch of photos of us with our Sendai hosts. We love you, Yori and Nori!