Roving Japan

We had a great time riding around the city today. We used a tourist map that we got at the train station yesterday and we planned a rough route around town that included stops at the castle, then one of Japans original middle schools and finally a miso factory. We figured that we would be able to find plenty of interesting things in between. As a bonus, the weather was perfect!

Matsumoto castle was awesome. We got there in the morning and enjoyed a leisurely climb to the top floor. The views of the city from the top were really nice. Matsumoto is surrounded by the Japanese Alps, and the weather today gave us a great view. As with most castles, the interior of Matsumoto castle is displaying some old artifacts, but this was the first time we’ve seen old canons on display. They also had an old rocket and a few other unique weapons like a dagger/pistol.

Next to the castle there is a little museum showing historical objects from Matsumotos history. I don’t know why, but my favorite thing was the wooden sandal ice skates. There was also a display about a local festival that involves carrying wooden penis around and throwing them into peoples houses. I guess it’s good luck.

The old Japanese middle school we went to was interesting. It was one of the first middle schools built in Japan during Meiji.

From the school we just biked around, not really going anywhere in particular, just enjoying the nice day and taking in our surroundings.

Around noon when we were getting hungry, we started looking for a good place to eat. At first we biked past the usual suspects: Udon, Soba, Ramen, etc… But after a little while I saw it. Like a beacon of hope beckoning me to come closer. I saw the “U2 Burgers Cafe”.

I immediately slammed on the breaks and slid into a bike parking spot. “Risa! I found lunch!”

Inside we found a very nice little restaurant that takes pride in making authentic burgers. And for the low low price of $10 I actually got a real burger. Sure it wasn’t giant, but it was good and there was some real meat between the buns. It also came with a decent number of fries. Thank you Matsumoto! You’re officially my favorite city in Japan!

After lunch we meandered our way to a little miso factory and tasted some miso soup. Then we biked over to the main river running through town and took some photos of the green grass with the mountains in the background. We also came across a high school baseball game, so we stopped and watched that for a while.

A curious aspect of Matsumoto are the fresh water wells spread around town. Every few blocks there are little wells that spew an endless supply of fresh mountain snow melt. The locals come by with dozens of empty plastic water bottles and fill up. We drank some of the water and it was certainly crisp and clean. Not a bad little benefit for those who live here!

I think this city is my favorite city in Japan. Free bicycles, fresh water wells, hamburgers, thai curry, an awesome castle, beautiful mountains, and interesting architecture make this one heck of a cool place. I’m really glad we decided to come here.

Tomorrow we’re back on the road!

[Editors note: 7 days left! I will hopefully finish soon!]

Day 85 Photoset

Mr. Itoh told us that we should look for chopsticks in this part of Japan. The wood from this valley is some of the best in Japan, so one of the local specialties is Chopsticks and wooden hair combs. His advice was to look for the pairs in the $10 - $20 range. Anything cheaper than $10 wouldn’t be nice enough, and anything more than $20 was too expensive.

So this morning we spent a good amount of time wandering around Narai, poking our heads into the houses-turned-museums, and browsing the many fancy chopsticks and combs.

These goods have been sold here for hundreds of years, since most travelers passing through couldn’t carry much more than small trinkets like combs and chopsticks. Everything is hand made and really nice.

We probably spent an hour or so looking for the perfect set, but we just couldn’t settle on one that we were willing to pay that kind of money for. $10 is a lot for 1 pair of chopsticks. We decided to move on and see if we could find chopsticks along the way.

Outside of Narai, we found a lacquer ware shop selling top quality Japanese dishes, boxes, and anything else you might make out of wood and lacquer. We are in Nagano prefecture now, so you might remember the Nagano Olympic medals were black on one side. That was a tip of the cap to the local lacquer industry.

Everything in the store was super expensive, so we didn’t stay long. We looked at the bowls that seemed identical to our bowls we bought for $1 each, only these are the real deal and therefore cost like $100 each. They also had chopsticks, but nothing caught our eye, so we moved on.

For lunch we stopped at a big roadside rest area that had a big shop/museum filled with more chopsticks and lacquer ware, and a restaurant owned by a woman from Finland. We thought it might be a nice change of pace to eat some western food, so we ordered the closest thing we could find which was a spaghetti / salad thing. It was pretty good, but the highlight of the place was a funny little book talking about the great things you can do in Finland. The one that stood out to me was the wife carrying competition! Maybe Risa and I should compete!

Again, none of the chopsticks seemed right for us. We didn’t want to pay $10 on just anything, so we needed THE PERFECT PAIR. But we couldn’t find one. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. From the rest area, we continued down the highway until we reached the small town of Niekawa.

Niekawa is home to the second major checkpoint on the Nakasendo trail. We figured that since we didn’t tour the checkpoint in Kisofukushima, we should tour this one.

The checkpoint building was pretty cool, with lots of old artifacts from the Nakasendo days.

We learned about how everyone passing through here had to be inspected to make sure they weren’t carrying any wood from kiso valley. They also checked every woman, and every man who looked like he might be a woman to make sure they weren’t royalty. Apparently, back in the old days, the shogun had kidnapped the wives of many of the local feudal lords and held them captive in Edo. The checkpoints had to make sure none of them were trying to escape by checking everyone who passed through.

We also got a good look at some of the old passports and documents used back then. It was a lot of fun.

After the checkpoint it was about 4:30pm so we made the executive decision to take a train from Niekawa to the city of Matsumoto. Originally I had wanted to walk to Shiojiri, but we spent a lot of time shopping for chopsticks, so we didn’t have the time. We also wanted to see Matsumoto since it is famous for one of the most beautiful castles in Japan. So on the train we went!

It was a little sad, because the train spends a lot of time in a tunnel, so we missed the final few kilometers of beautiful Kiso valley scenery before popping out in the main valley near Shiojiri.

Matsumoto is an interesting place. As soon as we got to the train station, we knew we were in a unique location. It seemed like everyone had big hiking backpacks like us. This is the main hub for people who go hiking in the Japanese Alps, so risa and I didn’t stand out at all.

We went straight for the information center and grabbed a bunch of maps, then walked to the hotel we reserved last night.

As we walked through the city, the vibe we got was totally different from most places. Matsumoto is definitely NOT “Any City In Japan”. It’s got a lot of character. Modern architecture, nice big sidewalks and lots of foreign food!

In our room I brought up google earth and found a Thai curry place with good ratings, so we checked out a couple free bicycles from the hotel and rode down there to experience an AMAZING dinner. $12 got you all you can eat curry, and you could choose between 10 different flavors! The common strategy seemed to involve making an X with the rice, and pouring 4 flavors into the divided areas. It was delicious.

After dinner we rode to the famous Matsumoto castle and took some really cool photos. This castle is awesome. One of the best looking we’ve seen. We can’t wait to come back tomorrow. I guess the bicycles at the hotel are free to use, and you can also pick up free bikes at museums and the train station. I think we’re going to get some good use out of those bikes tomorrow.

Day 84 Photoset

Great day today. We woke up bright and early from our camp behind the rest station and started heading up the 19 towards the post town of Narai. I knew from reading the blog of another guy who walked this route that Narai is on the other side of the Torii Toge Pass. I guess that back in the day, this pass was one of the more difficult passes, but that it’s not too bad now. Just a couple of hours or so to walk over. So with that intelligence in hand, we started out our day knowing that around noon we would be going over a mountain, but then we could relax and camp in Narai.

On the way to the pass, we walked through more beautiful scenery. Kiso valley really is amazing. I really like it here.

We passed a place that is famous for a samurai who was raised there. We walked to the museum and took some photos, but we didn’t have time to go in if we wanted to get over the pass in a timely manner.

The entrance to the Torii Toge Pass begins in the town of Yabuhara. We were super hungry when we got there, so we wanted to grab some lunch before heading into the woods. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of options. We ended up being sent to a little soba noodle restaurant at the edge of town. This place was FANCY. It was really nice inside, but it was also really expensive. The Soba was like $10, and while it might have been high quality, it wasn’t nearly enough to get us full. We also ordered some “fried miso” because we had never heard of such a thing. It was a little too artsy for us. We were HUNGRY and the “fried miso” was $3 for about 1 bites worth. I recommend this place if you’re sightseeing, but not if you’re trying to get energy for a mountain pass. The chef and staff were really nice to us though. They gave us some candies and maps as we left.

The Torii Toge Pass itself is really cool. This stretch of the nakasendo is preserved, so we got to hike on the old stones almost the entire way over.

I just wish the weather had cooperated with us. As we started up the road, the clouds started to move in and it began to rain. The higher we got, the harder it rained. We were lucky that this path was well maintained and wasn’t too steep or hazardous. Hiking while carrying an umbrella is kind of a pain, but its way too hot to put on rain gear.

At the top of the pass, I let out a little fan fare, “Da da-da da, da, DA!!!!!”, then *BOOM* the thunder hit.

We had made it to the top of the mountain right as the thunderstorm hit the mountain. Great!

With thunder and lighting happening in the clouds around us, we took shelter under the awning of the shrine that is at the summit of the pass. We tried to get inside the building, but all the doors were locked.

Cell service wasn’t good, but I managed to get a weak 3g signal that let me google some basic thunderstorm safety as a refresher. I guess you are ok if you’re in an area with lots of trees of uniform height, but it’s not good to be at the top of mountains. We decided that when we hadn’t heard the thunder for a few minutes, we should just head down quickly, so we did.

Once on our way down, the rain turned into a drizzle and the thunder stopped. We could finally enjoy the scenery a little more.

The nakasendo descends directly into the main street of Narai, and it was really cool. Narai is very well preserved, but unlike Tsumago or Magome, Narai is still a working city with quite a few residents and a train station.

While at the summit we ate almost all our snacks, so our first order of business was getting some food. We found a little place and ordered whatever had the most volume. We got an awesome clay pot filled with veggies, meat and rice. It was delicious and we were finally full! The nice owner also hooked us up with some coffee. We talked with him a bit about our trip and that we just went over the pass. He gave us some coupons for Narai that included free admission to one of the houses/museums and a free pass to the local Onsen! Woohoo! A bath!

He also told us that we could camp in the park next to the river. With our camping location nailed down, we took off to explore the town and to grab our free bath.

The Narai onsen is also a hotel, and today it was host to a girls junior highschool table tennis camp. So while I got to enjoy the mens bath in peace. Risa was thrown into the middle of a teenage soap opera.

In Japan, the “Sempai” system is incredibly important. If someone is older than you they are your sempai, you have to show them the proper respect. If you are someones sempai, you can generally assume a superior attitude. So imagine this system in the hands of girls between the ages of 13-15. Girls set up complicated social systems on their own, the sempai system just adds fuel to the fire.

When she first entered the bath, Risa was alone. But as she got dressed and prepared to leave, she got to witness a bizaar social drama that began when two 2nd year girls came in to quickly grab a hair drier and leave. Shortly after the 2nd years had left, three 1st years came in and started undressing for the bath. This, of course, set them off on how embarrassed they were to be getting undressed in front of eachother. They didn’t seem to care about Risa.

One of the 1st years remembered that she left something in her room, so she got dressed and left to grab it. As soon as she left, the two 2nd years, who are “sempai” to the 1st years, returned with the hair drier. The two 1st years were still getting undressed and were horrified that these two sempai had walked in to see them naked! When their friend returned, they told her all about the shocking experience of the sempai walking in on them. Meanwhile, Risa is still right there, getting dressed. I guess it’s only embarrassing if they know you.

The 3 1st years finally got in the bath, and were soon joined by another group of 3 1st years. This left Risa alone to dry her hair in peace. It wasn’t long, however, before group of 5 sempai showed up looking for a friends face wash. They searched in the dressing room at first, but then they made the decision to search the bathing area while fully clothed. The 1st years were HORRIFIED to have five sempai, fully clothed, walk in on them. These poor girls had to suffer the humiliation of having a pack of sempai roam around looking for the face wash while they sat naked in the bath, trying to keep their dignity. The five sempai eventually found the face wash and left, but as they left a new group of 1st years showed up and announced that it was time for the girls in the bath to get out. The shell shocked 1st years in the bath had barely enough time to clean themselves between the groups of sempai walking in on them. Risa felt bad, but also relieved that her hair was finally dry and she could escape.

After the onsen, we walked through Narai and enjoyed the sight of the city at night with the lights turned on. We had a lot of fun walking the empty streets before finally heading to the park to set up camp.

We’re now in the corner of the park, camping under a tree. Risa took a nice photo of the bridge that crosses the river next to the park.

Day 83 Photoset

So if you didn’t know already, Risa hates bugs. HATES bugs. This is especially true if said bug comes towards her, or worse yet, lands on her. It doesn’t matter if the bug is a black widow spider or a butterfly. She will scream and dodge/run/jump whatever. She does this with some kind of super strength that lets her move 2x faster than normal even though she has a 30lb backpack on.

Today, while walking along a particularly narrow stretch of sidewalk along the highway, we ran into Risa’s worst nightmare. For about 300 meters, the sidewalk was covered in grasshoppers. Jumping, flying, land on your leg and jump off grasshoppers.

Risa FREAKED. OUT.

I tried to calm her down, telling her that grasshoppers are harmless, but the fact that these guys were jumping on her was like something out of a horror movie.

Keep in mind that this episode is happening while just a few feet from oncoming semi-trucks going 55mph.

I started getting a little angry because I thought her jumping and screaming was going to land her in front of a truck and then I’d have to explain to her father that she died while under attack from grasshoppers.

I tried walking ahead and clearing the path, but Risa chose to RUN the entire 300 meters in the road, while jumping back on the sidewalk to avoid the trucks. Crazy.

Once clear of the Grasshoppers of DOOM™, we got a nice break at a waterfall. It was a little underwhelming because there was a big ugly steel bridge kind of blocking the view, but it was alright because we were bug free… for a moment.

As we got up to leave, somehow a little white Worm of TERROR™ appeared on Risas hiking stick, causing her to scream and drop the poll. Sheesh.

The final episode of bug attack happened at the worst possible moment. I spotted a monkey in the bushes ahead of us. I wanted to snap a picture so I asked risa to grab the camera from my bag. As she was taking off the lens cap, a Butterfly of DEATH™ flew in front of her face. She screamed, turned away… and scared off the monkey. Siiiigh…….

Other than our problems with the terrifying wild creatures of the Kiso Valley, the walk was really nice. This is really a beautiful place, and the periodic Nakasendo post towns that we come to every couple of hours make the walk even more fun. We especially liked walking through Kiso-Fukushima which is famous for it’s Nakasendo checkpoint for tax collection and its large gate.

We stopped at one Onsen today. It was a little place along the river, but it was a nice break from the walk and it was raining a bit so we got to duck out of the bad weather. The onsen was… dirty. The water was an orange color from the natural spring, but the problem for me was the .25in of orange grime on the bottom of the pool that covered anything that touched it. Good thing they had showers to go with the bath. If Risa had to deal with all those scary bugs, I had to deal with the Onsen of FILTH™. The guy who ran the place was really nice and gave us some ice cream on the house as we were heading out.

Tonight we almost camped at an awesome sumo stadium, but we couldn’t find any bathrooms so we decided to press on to another roadside rest area and camp behind the building. These rest areas are great. The 24hr bathrooms and vending machines give us almost all the comforts of home!

Our rest area has a big stone marker identifying this spot as the half way point between Kyoto and Tokyo on the Nakasendo. Woohoo!

Day 82 Photoset

We had a nice breakfast at the Ryokan this morning. The best part was the heart shaped egg, and umeboshi that was made by the grandma of the family who runs the Ryokan. It was the best umeboshi we’ve had since arriving in Japan.

Umeboshi is a pickled plum known for its extreme sourness. If you want to impress a Japanese person, just tell them that you like umeboshi, it will blow them away.

These particular umeboshi were crisp like pickles, which is somewhat rare. Usually it’s soft, but these were nice and crunchy. As we were leaving the Ryokan, we told the grandma that we really liked her umeboshi and she disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before returning with a bag full of them! We’re set on umeboshi for the rest of the trip now.

From the Ryokan we went back to Tsumago to see anything we might have missed last night, and to take a bunch more pictures now that the weather is sunny.

At the edge of town, Tsumago has the old bulletin board preserved and on display. This old display was where the government posted new laws and other announcements. The wooden boards are hung quite high above and angled down to give the impression of the government looking down on you. Nice not-so-subtle messaging.

From Tsumago, we followed the Nakasendo down the mountain into the Kiso valley. The road wasn’t preserved like it was between Magome and Tsumago, but there were sections that looked like the old stones had just been paved over. We also found the remains of a couple of those old grassy hills that marked every 4km.

When we got to the valley floor, the view was amazing. Kiso valley is a narrow river valley with beautiful green mountains with rocky tops on both sides. The highway that runs along the river has a nice big sidewalk so the walking is extremely easy.

Our target for today was a roadside rest area in Okuwa. We got there around 5:00, so we made it in time to eat dinner at the restaurant. We also talked to some of the ladies who worked at the store and they told us we could set up camp inside the covered eating area.

We got our tent set up, but we didn’t last long. The traffic on the highway was super loud, so we had to move our tent to behind the main building. We need to get out of here early before people show up to work. Excited about tomorrow, should be an entire day following the river and enjoying the valley!