Well I didn't expect...

You can't plan an adventure, but you can make the best use of one when it arrives. Our original intent after stopping in Matsumoto had been to head back to Gunma. It would be a long drive, but we'd save money on hotel. As the day wore on Travis the driver became less and less enamored of that option. Having served in his role myself, I fully understood his desire to stop moving for the night, so we headed to Nagano city, home to the famous temple of Zenko-ji.

I had stayed at a nice youth hostel near Zenko-ji a year before, so we figured to try there first. The hostel itself is in an old temple, and the lady who runs it doesn't speak a lick of English. Though she may be the nicest hosteler I've ever encountered. When she found out we were residents of Japan, she dropped the no reservations charge, and then threw in free parking just for fun.

 

The next stop was dinner, which we found at a local soba place that came highly recommended. It figures that they were out of soba, but my sukiyaki udon was still pretty amazing. 

Like Gunma, Nagano Prefecture is known for its hot springs, and within a moderate jaunt of the hostel is a primo resort. Indoor and outdoor baths, saunas, steam rooms and more. It really is just the thing to relax a body after a long hard days travel. Though en-route we happened upon a passage, a tunnel with paper lanterns that just seemed to go somewhere interesting. 

So of course we walked down it! At the end, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, we found a sake brewery. Because of course that is what you find at the end of strange passageways.

All good sake breweries have to have tastings available, and Travis, Peter and I surely took them up on that. Of course, they ply you with free booze so that you'll be more likely to buy the non-free booze. It works like a charm every time.

Freshly ladened with our freshly brewed nihonshu we made it to the hot springs without any further damage to our wallets. Back at the hostel post soak, we were ready to tuck into our bottles with gusto when the proprietor noticed the logo on our bags. Rather than forbid us from drinking in the rooms, she dished out a bottle of the same company from her own stock, as well as some home made plum wine. In fact, she kept bringing out new things to drink and sample even after we had drunk our fill. Nobody expects an adventure, but nonetheless, sometimes you find one.

Green Lunch, Black Castle

  

  After spending so much time moving and dodging aftershocks, I knew I wanted to get out of Gunma for Spring Break. Even a few days away can be quite the restorative, and time with friends is never wasted so when Travis proposed a road trip in Nagano I took him up on the offer. 

     Our first stop was the Daio Wasabi Farm. Despite having lived in Japan for almost five years, Travis had never been. The weather hazier than I would have liked. On clear days the Japan Alps loom over the rows of spicy veggies, but our view was much less majestic. Luckily, the fresh ground wasabi on my cutlet was still pretty majestic!

     The sensible double bill with the wasabi farm is Matsumoto castle. It is close by, beautiful, and one of the few remaining castles that escaped fire, war, earthquakes, the end of feudalism and the firebombings of WW II. I've been several times, but I never get sick of taking pictures of red bridge, moat and the lofty black ramparts.

Spicy

In the middle of Nagano Prefecture, near Matsumoto and its famous castle, there exists a dream come true for wasabi lovers. The Daio Wasabi Farm is set in a broad valley among the high Japanese Alps, and is the perfect combination of scenery and flavor. To get there, you rent a bike at Hotaka station, and ride a couple of kilometers through rice paddies and corn fields.

We started our visit at the restaurant, with a very wasabi lunch. My meal consisted of wasabi juice and a wasabi croquette, and both were excellent. The green monstrosity you see above was a wasabi beer ordered by Ryan. While this may not catch on for St. Patrick's Day back Stateside, it was actually far more delicious than you might expect. The wasabi flavor was very subtle, but was certainly present. The beer was in fact just a bit spicy, and went down perfectly with a side of wasabi peas.

 

The farm itself is quite a sight to see. Wasabi must be grown in a rocky stream bed of fresh, flowing water. The plants are also temperature sensitive, hence the black shade coverings.

We got to dip our feet in the water, and I took the opportunity to get a shot under the canopy. The water was chill, and very refreshing. However, I can't imagine what will grow downstream of anywhere my feet have been.

Once you are done exploring the paths among and above the spicy little roots, well there is only one thing left to do...

... and that is to have some Wasabi ice cream!

This was actually my second trip to the farm, but I had just as much fun as the first time. It really is a little seen gem of Japan, though I can understand why. Nagano Prefecture is a bit off the Tokyo to Kyoto to maybe Nara or Hiroshima tourist path. Getting to the farm from anywhere that isn't Matsumoto or Nagano City will take a few hours, and would anybody on a ten day trip really want to devote a whole day to wasabi? That said, for anybody who has the time or is in the area, it's a uniquely Japanese experience that doesn't involve a shrine, temple, or skyscraper.

Haven't you alway wanted a monkey?

North-west of Nagano city is Jigokudani Onsen, home of the bathing snow monkeys. The cute little Japanese Macaques live in the hills and forests around the area, and come down to bathe and play in the hot springs.

The Monkey Park is unique in that there are no fences, the monkeys are free to leave at any time, and sometimes do, there is no guarantee that they will be swimming when you visit, though they do seem to be there more often than not.

The park forbids guests from feeding the monkeys, which is nice as the animals aren't as aggressive towards humans as they can be in other parts of Asia, though certainly I saw a few monkeys give chase to those tourists who got a bit too close in their search for the perfect picture.

I watched this little guy searching for tasty treats for quite some time. He flipped over every rock in the stream looking for food, but sadly I never saw him find any!

We had a great time at the Monkey Park, and even though it's a bit off the beaten path, I'd highly recommend a visit for any travelers in Japan.

Matsumoto-Jo

The pleasant alpine town of Matsumoto is one hour south of Nagano by train. Despite the potential for crowded trains, our trip down was easy and the clear day made for spectacular mountain scenery. Nagano prefecture really shows why these mountains are called the Japan Alps, the high craggy peaks really do recall their European namesakes.

Nestled along side a traditional shopping district is this delightfully strange samurai frog statue. It really is the sort of whimsical and strange thing that can only be found in Japan. Samurai frogs aside, the prime reason for a stop in Matsumoto city is its castle.

Matsumoto is one of the few remaining 'original' castles that has been rebuilt in modern times. Like most of the rest, the keep was slated for destruction during the Meiji Era, but it was saved by local citizens who wanted to preserve their gorgeous landmark.

It being Golden Week, to actually enter the main keep would have taken at least two hours. We all decided that we had the photos we had come for, and that a retreat from the hordes of tourists was in order. Standing in line through the entire structure just didn't seem like that much fun.

Nobody regretted the trip though, the day was beautiful, the castle striking, and the Mos Burger we had for lunch was delicious!

Sunrise Over Zenkoji

I had the misfortune of a pretty bad cold and very stuffy nose during the early part of our trip. This not only killed my voice, it also made it very hard to sleep. Our first morning in Nagano saw me wide awake at a shocking 5:30 AM. Rather than waste the morning by failing to get back to sleep, I grabbed my camera and made for the temple, primed to get some rare early morning photos.

Despite the hour, I was far from the only visitor out and about in the temple area. Zenkoji opens at 6 in the morning, and a fair number of people were there for the early morning service held in the inner area of the temple. The line stretched so far that I needed to shoot a panorama just to cover a part of it!

Next Stop Nagano

The last week of April and the first week of May sees the arrival of Golden Week, a collection of Japanese public holidays that meld together to form almost a week off from work. I've used past Golden Week holidays to show my Mom around Japan and to travel to Thailand and Vietnam. This year I went for something a little different, and a little cheaper.... Road Trip! Peter, my friend and roommate from training, was the first to arrive, and we packed up Hammond and made our way to pick up the rest of the crew.

Our first destination was Nagano City, home of the 1998 Winter Olympics, and one of the larger and more famous Buddhist temples in Japan, Zenkoji (善光寺). Visitors have a chance to go under the main alter in a tiny, pitch black tunnel to search for the "key to enlightenment", but being that it was Golden Week, the line for the tunnel stretched all across the inner sanctum. I had already found the key on my last trip inside Zenkoji 5 years ago, and the rest of the group opted for lunch over eternal enlightenment, which I think illuminates the human condition quite succinctly.

 
Traffic en route to Nagano hadn't been overly heavy, but the Golden Week crowds were out in full force in the shopping promenade near the temple. This didn't stop me from trying no fewer than three new soft serve ice cream flavors. First up was soba flavor, which is based on the buckwheat noodle that is famous in the Nagano area and tasted a bit like vanilla, though with definite hint of soba. Then I had a miso flavored ice cream cone, which I likened more to caramel, though again you knew that you were eating miso. Finally I had sakura (cherry blossom) flavor, and it was certainly cherry blossom flavor and not cherry. It actually hinted more strongly towards strawberry, though it smelled and tasted subtly of blossoms. Miso was the clear loser among the three, but even that flavor was far more delicious than it had any right to be, and all three were quite palatable.

Cherry Blossoms of Komoro

As you gain in latitude and/ or altitude, sakura trees bloom later. They bloomed in Kyoto weeks before they bloomed in Maebashi, and two weeks after the peak of blooms in Maebashi, they hit their stride in the small mountain town of Komoro, in nearby Nagano Prefecture.

Through random happenstance, I actually have two friends in Komoro, one who went to college with Zach, my old friend from highschool, and one whom I met at the Interac training. They both invited me to the festival, and I had to say yes. I needed a bit of time outside of Maebashi and Gunma, and I wanted to road test Hammond a bit, and see how he performed on a longer duration trip before the epic road trip planned for Golden Week.

The Komoro festival was held in a park set amongst the ruins of Komoro Castle. Like many old feudal castles in Japan, Komoro Castle was destroyed at the beginning of the Meiji Era, and now all that is left are the impressive stone foundations. Walking along the the top of the stone wall you see here and looking down at the flowering trees brought a new way of looking at the sakura, from above they looked less like trees and more like clouds of flowers.

The park festivities ended with a jazz performance. I didn't recognize much of the music, but a highlight track was some music from Lupin the 3rd. Only in Japan can you enjoy natural beauty, great street food, beer, and Jazz bands playing songs from animated films.

It was five years ago today...

On February 25th, 2005 I landed in Japan for the very first time. I had already been to Europe several times, and the offer of a free place to stay in a new country was too good to pass up. I had no particular interest in Japan at the time, I just loved to travel. I was, and still am, always looking for new horizons, new things to see and to new places to explore.



Getting off the plane at Narita airport, I doubt I knew just how much my life was about to be impacted. I followed the signs, obtained my three week JR pass, and headed into Tokyo. I remember looking with some trepidation at the map of the Tokyo train system, with the above ground JR lines and the two separate subway systems looking like the most confusing plate of spaghetti ever created. I never made it onto the transit in Tokyo that trip, it was simply too intimidating. I was alone, I was jetlagged, and despite success on the Paris Metro and the London Underground, I just knew I would get horrifically lost.



Luckily for me, I only spent one night and one day in Tokyo, because I was off to meet up with Zach in his Nagano apartment. I spent about a week with him, and I saw a lot. The high black walls of Matsumoto castle amazed me, though not as much as Himeji castle would a few weeks later. Together we went to the little town of Obuse, where famous wood block artist Hokusai spent the last few years of his life. We went to a small museum dedicated to him, as well as a tiny Chinese Art Museum, where the proprietor had to turn on the lights for us, as we were the first visitors that day!



I also visited my Aunt's old student in Hiroshima, spending a weekend in the warmer southern climes. We saw the A-bomb museum, went to a tower of okonomiyaki restaurants, and took the ferry out to Miyajima and the famous floating torii.



Every first time visitor to Japan must go to Kyoto, and so I did as well. I spent about a week there, traipsing from temple to temple. That was also my first trip to Fushimi Inari, and I loved it! I also made it to Zach's favorite place in Japan, the great temple complex at Nikko, where Tokugawa Ieyasu's ashes are interred.



In a far corner of the Nagano area is the Jigokudani hot springs, where the snow monkeys live. I took the train to the last stop, and was then supposed to take a bus, but it seemed that the bus wasn't running, so I walked instead. It was only a few kilometers, and the monkeys were totally worth the trip. While I was walking I ran into a police officer who was going the other way, and was understandably curious just why this foreigner was walking through the woods in the middle of winter. I told him I was going to see Jigokudani, and he expressed some shock that I was WALKING there. Then he said, "You are samurai!" On the trip back I ran into a construction worker on a snowmobile, who despite knowing no English offered me a ride back into town. I gratefully accepted and that marks the first and so far only trip I've done on a snowmobile.



Overall I spent three weeks exploring Japan on a rail pass and my feet, and had the time of my life. Getting off that first flight, I never expected that less than six months later I would be flying back to Japan to live and work nor that five years later I would be doing it all again. 僕は日本に帰ります。

Two year Japanniversary

It is hard to believe that two years ago today I stepped off of my flight from the United States and into the muggy Aichi heat. It has been a long, strange, wonderful trip. The things I've done, the people I've met, the places I've seen, the food I've eaten, it really has been a fantastic two years.

Now, I've reduced those two years of intense experiences into an 8 minute video, roughly in chronological order. Of course, I wouldn't blame anybody if they can't sit through all 8 minutes of tinny rock music and slightly pixelated pictures. After all, I am the one with an emotional attachment to all these images. Though, I imagine that a few of my blog readers can find themselves buried in the avalanche of Grant's memories. Enjoy.

A Very Wasabi Easter

So after a raucous party that included such wonders as a whoopie cushion and a super wasabized piece of sushi, the next day, Easter Sunday, dawned bright and warm. The original plan had been to go to Joestsu, and see more Sakura, but it had been pretty cold, and so the blossoms wheren't quite ready for viewing yet.




So instead we went to nearby Matsumoto and hopped a rickety little local train that took us, being Zach, Sanami and Myself, deep into the wilds of Nagano prefecture. Our eventual destination was the town of Hotaka, known for the purity of its spring water. They say that pure water is the first step to growing that most wonderful of plants, the Wasabi plant. I have been known to say that I don't eat sushi for the raw fish. I eat sushi for the subtle flavor of wasabi. Well that and the glory that is pickled sushi ginger. Especially now that I have been deprived of spicy food, I find solace in the white heat of lots of wasabi.




Arriving at Hotaka we rented some mountain bikes and set off, dodging cars and the occasional wedding. Yup, Zach got a vision of his future, maybe. There was a full shinto wedding party at a local shrine, and the groom was a rather nervous looking white guy.



It really was a great day to be out, warm enough that it actually felt like spring. Unlike Kanazawa, home of the Worst Weather in the World (TM) (except for Antarctica, they have worse weather).

So after dodging a few tour busses we made it to the edge of town and the wasabi farm. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I was very pleased with what we found. The rows upon rows of cultivated irrigated wasabi were very pleasing to the eye, and the piped in classical music added a bit of a festive air to the whole thing.




While the day was nice, one look at the trees was enough to know that winter is not very long gone. Luckily, we had plenty to keep us warm. Almost anything you could think to add wasabi to was on offer. Wasabi katsu don, wasabi crackers, wasabi beer (didn't try!) wasabi juice, wasabi ice cream (did try!) and more. Actually everything I tried tasted wonderful, and no the ice cream wasn't spicy. The fresh ground wasabi that went with lunch was though!




As we rode back we caught a glimpse of a field that had a metric ton of medium sized hawks soaring and swooping around it. I had never seen so many birds of prey in the same place at the same time. I desperately wished I had brought my Nikon with me, and my 300 mm lens. Alas I didn't so the photographic record will remain incomplete.


Wasabi Juice is good!

Back in Matsumoto we hit up MOS Burger for lunch. In a fit of wasbi frenzy I ordered the Avacado Wasabi Burger, a special offering that is hard to find. It was delicious, and a perfectly spicy cap to a spicy day. But unknown to us, our day was not yet over...



We decided to check out Matsumoto Castle, one of the few remaining original feudal castles in Japan. After getting lost, we found our way to the fortification and discovered that they had a special event that night. While we watched the sun go down we were treated to live music and the gradual lighting of the structure, and adjacent sakura.



It was beautiful to watch, but without a tripod it was very, very difficult to photograph. Out of the few dozen pictures I took, these are some of the few that don't look like a blurry mess. Well live and learn. Always carry a tripod!