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!