Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Japan: The Northern Alps #5

20/6 Day 5:  Karuizawa


If you've joined any guided tours overseas, you'll know that there will be one day dedicated to shopping, to appease the womenfolk in the tour, just like there will be one meal consisting of Chinese food to cater to the stubborn people who insist on eating Chinese food everywhere XD

So we arrived in Karuizawa slightly before lunch. My first impressions of Karuizawa? Totally different from the other towns and cities we visited so far - Nagano, Matsumoto and Toyama. For one, I couldn't see a single high-rise building when I stepped out of the station. From the sprawling mega-outlet-mall to the summer villas, chalets and shops, Karuizawa seemed like a place in suburban America.

Karuizawa, viewed from the station
We decided to check into the hotel first before checking out the sights - and was treated to a 15 minute walk with luggage in tow D:

Cozy little cafe in the middle of nowhere
The hotel was a really nice place though, the receptionist/staff was extremely nice and helpful (plus her English was not bad either!). It was a small cozy 2-storey building that reminded me of a backpacker's hostel, except it had fully equipped. big spacious rooms. Its cafeteria (named the Beatles cafe) even had a mini-stage for band performances!

Hey Jude~

First stop was lunch at the Karuizawa Prince Shopping Plaza, filled with overpriced eateries OTL. Still, the omurice (rice wrapped in omelette) I had tasted really good!

Endless rows of shops

Expensive but delicious omurice
Before starting on the shopping, we decided to visit a natural attraction - the Shiraito falls. The bus ride took about 30 minutes, taking us deep into the mountain forests surrounding Karuizawa. It wasn't that spectacular or anything since the falls were pretty low, but they were pretty unique looking! And the water actually flows out from the ground! Some kind of sub-soil flow, instead of an overland stream, feeds the falls.

A short walk to Shiraito falls
A wall of water! Pretty tiny though
If you look closely, the water is actually flowing out from the ground 
While waiting for the return bus, dad bought a fishy snack
With that out of the way, my mum could finally begin her retail therapy in earnest, starting with the locally coined "Ginza" area, also known as Kyu-Karuizawa (Old Karuizawa). In what was basically a shopping street filled with local specialties and random knick-knacks, I managed to find a Ghibli store! 


Ghibli store! <3
Cat bus and a huge Totoro plushie!
Costumed photography, anyone?
Kyu-Karuizawa shopping street
Since it was a weekday, the streets were pretty empty save for a handful of local tourists and residents milling about. I did notice a lot of Japanese taking their canine friends out for a walk though, and couldn't resist taking a few photos. They really do love their dogs :D

1 Shiba Inu not cute enough? Have 2 instead!
Corgi meets terrier!
The terrier on the right was actually at one of the shops we visited (where I bought a bottle of locally-produced. really fresh milk), lazing around at the entrance waiting to welcome customers. Guess its owner decided to take it for a walk :p

There wasn't much to see so we decided to take a slow walk back to the hotel, stopping by a small pond on the way for some peace and quiet. Along the way we noticed many summer cabins and cafes clearly devoid of any human presence - perhaps their owners only returned during the summer. Some looked as if they had been vacated for some time.

Tree-lined roads everywhere in Karuizawa
Quirky little French restaurant
A coffeehouse of some sort? Looked closed though
One interesting thing I noticed along the way was the numerous French bistros, Italian trattorias and restaurants randomly popping up along the road, and not a single Japanese eatery. The prices were not cheap either, clearly out of the reach of anyone looking for a simple meal. The Karuizawa equivalent to our Dempsey Hill and Bukit Timah enclaves, perhaps?

Kumoba-ike. Apparently it looks lovely in autumn, with the red maple leaves
Male duck :3
Since it was getting late, we decided to have dinner back at the outlet mall before heading back to the hotel early to rest tired legs. Dinner was wagyu beef sukiyaki!

*drool*

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Japan: The Northern Alps #4

19/6 Day 4: Toyama City


It was a pretty dreary and wet day in Toyama, so there wasn't much to see. We took a short walk to Toyama castle, but the castle was undergoing renovations, plus the building wasn't much to look at :/ With only a few hours to burn before taking the local train back to Nagano, we decided to follow the walking route printed on the tourist pamphlet.


The only location of interest that was within Toyama City itself was a street of old, pre-war houses that were owned by influential merchant families back then. Being a weekday, plus the gloomy weather, the street was totally deserted, save for a few shops that gladly welcomed us.



Took shelter from the rain and bought dorayaki!

There was a particular house that belonged to a well-known merchant family (Mori, if I remember correctly) and we entered it, expecting to see a couple of exhibits here and there. Little did I know, the elderly couple tending to the house offered to give us a guided tour!


The oji-san spoke mostly in Japanese, but I could understand most of it, and he threw in some English as well for the benefit of my mum and dad. He was really enthusiastic about showing us around the house (perhaps we were the only visitors that day). When we told him we were from Singapore, he looked really surprised and told us, "Very far!"



Preserved and refurbished houses
I learnt a lot about Japanese-style architecture that day - he pointed out many details about the house that would have skipped my notice - the arrangement of the wooden floorboards, the intricate patterns of the pine wood ceiling, the design of the garden etc.

There was an elementary school nearby :D
We continued walking through the street until we reached the port, which was pretty deserted. It was about lunchtime, so we looked around for an eating place and found this expensive looking restaurant. Being the only eatery we could find, we decided to just eat there. It specialised in Shiro-ebi, which translates to "white shrimp", the local Toyama speciality seafood. I ordered a kakiage don, and it came with a huge deep fried patty of shrimp!

Awesome graffiti at the Toyama port
Shiro-ebi kakiage don
Modern electric tram
We took the tram back to the hotel, where we checked out and headed to Toyama station for our 4-hour long train ride back to Nagano. I took the opportunity to study for my JLPT N4 test, which I just took last week (and passed, hopefully! ><)

The landscape changed from cities, to farm fields, to mountains, to the Sea of Japan, to small little towns in the middle of nowhere. Students came and went as the train passed by their schools and hometowns, reminding me of my own journey home from school with my buddies.

We arrived in Nagano just in time for dinner, which was a hearty hot-pot of pork and chicken (and whatever innards the chef could throw into the pot). The waiter was a funny chap - he used his iPhone to translate whatever he wanted to tell us into English. The result? Well, I suppose you know how well Google translate works XD

The next day, we headed to Karuizawa on the way back to Tokyo.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Japan: The Northern Alps #3

18/6 Day 3: Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, Toyama City


Early the next morning, we boarded a local train from Matsumoto towards Shin-Omachi Station - the starting point of the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route.We arrived just in time to catch the next bus that would bring us up into the mountains - you have to really marvel at the precise, clockwork timing of the Japanese public transport system. When the train schedule says you arrive at 9am, you really arrive at 9am. And 5 minutes is all it takes to purchase tickets for the bus, before you're up on the bus and ready to depart at 9.05am, the scheduled bus departure time. Its crazy!

Shin-Omachi station
The bus took us through peaceful buckwheat fields at the foot of the mountains, before winding up the mountain slopes to our first stop - the "trolley bus" station that would bring us up to Kurobe Dam. The bus was an interesting ride, because it was powered by electric cables similar to a tram, but had to be steered by a driver (no tracks). The reason why conventional diesel-powered buses are not used is due to the area being part of a National Park - no smoke emissions from vehicles are allowed.

After a short ride through the mountain (via a long, dark and wet tunnel), we arrived at Kurobe Dam.

Not a pretty sight, with all the trapped debris...
...but cast your eyes further, and you're greeted with this
I've never been up close to a real dam before, much less set foot on top of one before (no, the Marina Barrage doesn't count as one!), so I was pretty hyped up to be standing atop the Kurobe Dam. I read earlier that the dam only released water at specific times of  the day, so imagine my delight when I saw this ->

The roar of the gushing water was spectacular
Put water spray and sunlight together and you get... rainbow!

We walked across the dam to take the next mode of transport - a cable car that would bring us to a rope-way station, halfway up the mountain.
Just a little digression here: Cable cars in Japan are different from the cable cars in Singapore. What we know as cable cars (you know, the ones that dangle precariously between Mt. Faber and Sentosa), the Japanese call rope-way. In Japan, cable cars refer to tracked cars that are pulled up and down a slope by cables. Now you know :D
At the cable car station, we met this cheerful oji-san who is the station master of the cable car. And since we were accompanied by numerous Taiwanese tour groups (a common occurrence, apparently), the station master went on to shamelessly promote a photobook (of the national park, not of himself XD), using a mix of Hokkien and English to illicit laughter from the Taiwanese tourists.

In his own words "Jit-cheng kor! (1000yen)"

Station master cum salesman
The cable car
The cable car brought us to a lookout point on the roof of the rope-way station, where the view was spectacular.

Snow-capped mountains
View from the roof of the rope-way station
Kurobe dam and lake, viewed from wayyyy up
We then took the rope-way to the very top of the mountains, which was covered in snow despite the blazing sun. I didn't even feel cold in the midst of all the snow, which felt really strange. It was difficult to walk though, the snow was melting and very slippery D:

Rope-way car filled with Taiwanese
Dirty snow caused by our footprints :/
At the top of the world (well, in Nagano Prefecture maybe)
It might seem a little dark and shady in the pictures, but trust me, the sun was blazingly bright and reflected of the snow. I had to squint all the way, and I guess my camera adjusted the exposure so that the pictures wouldn't be overexposed. My mum was smart to bring along her sunglasses :/

Following that, we had a hearty lunch of soba (while standing up) at one of the stalls at the top of the mountain, before taking a bus and a cable car back down to Tateyama station. Along the way, I spotted this beautiful snow-covered plateau called Bijodaira (美女平). It translates roughly to "Beautiful Girl Plateau".

Beautiful girl plateau indeed
Swallow/swift nests at Tateyama station!
Tired from the journey, we took a local train all the way to Toyama city, the capital of Toyama Prefecture and our rest stop for the night. By travelling across the mountains, we had crossed the prefectural border between Nagano and Toyama Prefectures!

Dinner was a local specialty - Black ramen! I remembered that the Ramen Champion stall Iroha hailed from Toyama, so I did a search and managed to located a store near our hotel! Did it taste better than the one we have in Bugis and Changi Airport? Perhaps, but the soup was unique and delicious, even though I wasn't a fan of soy-based soups (I'm a tonkotsu person).

Iroha black ramen
If you've been to Ramen Champion, you'll recognise this man
And that concludes the main attraction of the entire trip! We spent the remaining days getting back first to Nagano and then to Tokyo, via Karuizawa. After all the natural scenery, my mum was itching for some retail therapy :p More to come in the next post!

Friday, July 06, 2012

Japan: The Northern Alps #2

17/6 Day 2: Matsumoto Castle, Kamikochi


We arrived in Matsumoto early on a Sunday morning - the skies were gloomy, but thankfully it didn't rain. It was a quiet Sunday morning, with few people out and about. Lazy buggers, all sleeping in XD

School on a Sunday? D:
Even so, most cyclists and pedestrians don't really care
After checking into our cozy little hotel (Japanese style), we took a short walk towards Matsumoto Castle, the main attraction of the city. On the way, we ran into a little river (we seem to have an affinity for rivers, somehow)

Everybody, please keep the river clean~
As we hadn't had breakfast, we hunted for a place to have breakfast, but all the shops were closed (they only opened at 10am). Luckily, there was one hardworking cafe already open, so we had some toast and coffee (at exhorbitant prices tho :/)

Cinnamon toast with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream (for breakfast, yes I know XD)
At first, we couldn't located the entrance of the castle as it was surrounded by a moat - the gates that we thought were entrances were all locked - eventually, after circling the castle, we found the main entrance. As the sun was starting to rise, so did the locals - people started streaming in, walking their dogs, kids feeding fish and swan in the moat, and of course the tourists from other parts of Japan.

Matsumoto castle keep, one of Japan's famous castles
Awesome reflection effect
We paid 500yen to enter the castle courtyard (a little steep) as well as the castle building itself. At the entrance, you had these chops where you could stamp your entrance ticket with a motif of the castle and this kid was so enthusiastic he used his mighty hulk strength to permanently stamp his ticket XD

RAWR!
Beautiful, manicured castle courtyard
Random samurai spotted, posing for photos

We entered the castle keep, not knowing what to expect (most of the other castles we went to previously had exhibitions of ancient weapons, armors and the like). Indeed, there were exhibits of antique muskets, samurai armour, bows and arrows, swords and other relics of the warring period. What we didn't expect though, was the uber steep staircases that linked each floor - near 90 degree staircases! There were many old folks touring the castle, and they had a really hard time climbing up and down those stairs. Eventually we reached the top of the castle, where everyone, bummed out from their stair-climbing exertions, flopped down onto the floor for a rest and a great view of the city.

View of Matsumoto city from the castle
Kids enjoying a Sunday morning ice cream :3

We headed out to the next stop of the trip - Kamikochi (上高地). If you can read kanji/mandarin, it means "upper highlands". Indeed, Kamikochi is a beautiful, natural and preserved mountainous region, part of the Chubu-Sangaku national park. The only way to reach Kamikochi is by bus or taxi, as private cars are prohibited. We took a local train from Matsumoto to Shinshimashima station where we hopped onto a bus that took us straight into Kamikochi.

Shinshimashima bus terminal
The bus was supposed to go all the way into the main entrance plaza of the park where most people got off, but we decided to get off a stop earlier and hike our way up to the Kamikochi bus terminal. We were rewarded with splendid views, an invigorating forest trail and some of the freshest mountain air. I also took more photos here than any other location during this trip - pardon the following photo spam!

First glimpse of Mt. Hotaka and Azusa River

Cute little girl :3
Dead pine trees rising from the middle of Tashiro Pond

Forest nature trail
Open marshland surrounded by forests
Dragonfly with Samurai armor
Boardwalk cutting through the pristine forest
Snake spotted!
Weston Relief - named after a British missionary Walter Weston
The most beautiful scenery I have ever seen - the snowy slopes of Mt. Hotaka and the Azusa River
Plenty of dead pines, in contrast to all the life around (Takezawa Marsh)
Myojin-bashi (bridge), signalling the end point of the hike
 By the time we reached Myojin-bashi, we had been walking for almost 4 hours, and still had to make a round back to the bus terminal to catch the last bus at 6pm. In total I think we walked almost 10km that day. On the way back to the bus terminal, I managed to catch a glimpse of a troop of Japanese macaques! 

Lazing around in a tree
Munching on some grass
Dinner was at this nice and cozy izakaya place where they supposedly imported their seafood direct from Tsukiji market in Tokyo! Either way, the sashimi and seafood were all very very fresh!

Lump of fresh, raw tuna meat
Cozy little place
So that marked the end of a very tiring but fulfilling day in Matsumoto. Next day - the Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route!