August! Part 5 – Nagano, part deux

After visiting Nagano city, mom and I went on to Matsumoto, which is home to the famous Mastumoto castle, among other things.  Now, let me tell you that the train ride from Nagano City to Matsumoto is certainly the most beautiful ride that I have ever partaken of, and I highly recommend it to everyone.  The line winds its way through mountain towns/farming communities, and you can catch glimpses of rolling green hills in between the forested mountains.  Naturally, I neglected to take any photos.

See all those people on the bridge? That's just to get into the castle grounds...

In Matsumoto, we stood in line for about an hour to get into the castle.  Now, this should have been my first clue, but I naturally thought, “Once we get in, I’m sure it will be awesome.” Well, at least it was cool, as in temperature. Unfortunately, I forgot that this week was a national holiday for everyone, so the place was packed. We moved through the castle at a snail’s pace, and while it was interesting, we became so exhausted in the crush of everyone that we lost interest in lingering to inspect the details.
Not surprisingly, we ran into quite a few foreign tourists, and I got that feeling of conflict I always do where I want to distance myself from them, but I also want to talk to them. Mom walked right up and talked to some very nice, albeit very loud and fat (like, obese) ladies from the states. They were taking a crazy trip from coast to coast on a tour bus, and it sounded exhausting, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly.

Old pistol - a ten-shooter??

There were a lot of interesting old rifles and pistols, but they didn’t bother displaying any of the stuff American tourists were interested in, like swords and the like. Peering at the rifles reminded me of some evolutionary tree, with Japan being a section that branched off long ago. The guns resembled Western models, but the details were different, like something out of fantasy. For those of you that have seen Miyazaki films, with all of his crazy flying machines that bring to mind some sort of zeppelin/Spruce Goose hybrid, these weird cousins of our pistols and rifles might make more sense.

... and then this giant frog came along...

Afterwards, we found a cute little shopping street that was more or less unchanged for a million years, or something like that. Everything here is either super-new or -old. In any case, there was a frog theme to the street – I don’t know why, but Japanese people love any excuse to manufacture and buy mascot goods, so it probably had something to do with that. There was an awesome frog statue at the entrance, featuring weirdly cute samurai amphibians. The stores ranged from cutesy-pottery shops to flat-out junk stores, so it would have been interesting if we weren’t so tired from the castle foray. My favorite shop was crammed with junk from the ancient to the mundane – the most interesting of which was a porcelain couple, probably about two hundred years old, completely naked and in a very interesting sexual position.

Not the best one, but good.

August! Part 4 – Nagano

So, dear readers, the next day of summer vacation was a crazy trip to see an active volcano, numerous mountains, a hot spring, and a huge buddhist temple.
We started in Gunma, taking off at 7AM with Sarah and her friend, mom, and my bosses the Imais. Our first stop was the active volcano, Mt. Asama, or by the Japanese name, Asama-san. I was surprised, although I shouldn’t have been, of the overwhelming sulphur smell everywhere – like rotten eggs.

Mt Asama

When I think of volcanoes, I imagine the hellish lava fountains, belching black smoke, and bizarre rock formations, but no particular smell comes to mind in my imagination. Well, dear readers, let me tell you, volcanoes stink.
Next, we went to the incredibly famous hotspring (onsen) town, Kusatsu. They’re really into telling you about all the famous people who’ve written about this place, how old it is, and the pH balance of the water (I kid you not – every onsen has detailed chemical descriptions of their water, something most Americans would probably be too dumb to ever figure out).

Sarah and Vasili

As this was an onsen near to and heated by Asama-san, it also smelled. Yes, the entire town smelled like hard-boiled eggs. Still it was a neat little place – very mountainous, which is rare for Japanese towns. They almost entirely build on the flat areas, so it was cool to see all the buildings in the hilly landscape. Through the center of town runs a river of heated water the color of pea soup, sluiced into troughs that eventually spill out from a man-made waterfall into a large pool. This is to cool the water, and it also looks really neat.

Water goes in here...

... and comes out here.

Sarah, mom, and I went for a soak in the public rontenburo (and open-air onsen bath), and poor Vasili went over to the men’s side all by himself. Since all the ladies are completely naked, they prefer you don’t take photos, so here’s one someone else took.

Kusatsu rotenburo

It was really hot, and then the weather was hot, but the water was so weirdly blue. It was awesome. We sat around in the rotenburo for a while, and then we went off to a lunch of okonomiyaki.
From what I’ve read, I think that okonomiyaki came out of post-WWII Japan (let me know if I’m mistaken). They are a kind of savory pancake, with a base of cabbage and flour. There’s usually an egg involved, as well as some meat, like beef, seafood, or sometimes chicken. I assume this is because, back in the day, cabbage and flour were some of the few food items that were cheap and readily available in war-torn Japan.
Now, okonomiyaki at an actual okonomiyaki restaurant is quite an experience if you have yet to have it. The closest thing I can think of in Oregon is a Korean barbecue, since that usually features a hot grill in the center of the table. In any case, you get a bunch of ingredients delivered to your table and make it yourself. It’s hot and difficult, but quite enjoyable. Well all tried our hand at making it, but Mrs. Imai was indeed the most skillful – a surprise to no one.
Next on our list was a hike up to the Yugama crater lake at Shirane-san (Mt. Shirane).

The road between Gunma and Nagano

The drive there was absolutely gorgeous. The mountains between Gunma and Nagano are beautiful, and relatively pristine. Some deer were spotted (not by me), and the hills rolled on forever in every direction.
The hike up to the lake was crawling with tourists – surprising to an out-of-shape American since most of us never seem to hike anywhere with a more than 5 degree incline. Anywho, the water in the crater lake was weirdly aquamarine and opaque. Once again, the familiar egg smell wafted through the air, but it was not nearly as strong as it was at the volcano.

Posing in front of the crater lake

From there, our next stop was Nagano city in Nagano prefecture. The drive was pretty long, and I think we all passed out in the car on the way there. Once there, the Imais bid us farewell after helping us check in to our hotel.

Zenkoji gate. Look closely at how it dwarfs the people nearby.

We all decided to hike up to the Zenkoji temple, which was pretty close. Since Nagano hosted the 1998 Olympic Games, the city has a lot of new buildings, but they were all built to look old-fashioned. The city is pretty awesome, nice and clean, and no where near as annoying and crowded as Tokyo. I decided that I sort of wished I lived in Nagano.
The Zenkoji temple compound is amazing. It’s huge, and there are so many buildings. Additionally, that weekend was Obon Week, a pretty big deal here where everyone goes to visit their family for a week and pay their respects to their deceased ancestors. It’s neat, because pretty much everyone gets at least a few days off from work, and they head out to the country to spend time with family and dance at nightly festivals.
Because of Obon, the temple was decorated with lanterns and other festival outfittings.

Obon lanters

It was beautiful at night, and strangely empty, so the grounds seemed to have more magic than they usually do… then I saw the vending machine that dispenses the good luck charms.

You're in luck!

Ah, Japan.

August! Part 3 – And here’s mom…

Yes! Indeed!

First, let me just open by saying that I SAW A FUCKIN’ BLIMP!  That’s right, dear readers, a real honest-to-god blimp flying over Saitama University.  I went there with my host mom and her niece for an open-campus thing.  While the niece was doing a bunch of boring stuff, okaasan and I were out and about, listening to the incredibly loud bugs and seeing blimps (well, just one) flying around overhead.  Amazing, let me tell you!

Mom in Tokyo!

Anywho, the next day mom came in, and she and I rode the many trains from Narita to Tomioka. It was fine, at first, right up until we got to Ueno, where we had to buy our ticket from Ueno to Takasaki. Now, usually ticket buying is really straight-forward, but for this particular train you have to buy a regular ticket and then pay an extra fee for either a reserved or non-reserved seat. Of course, you can do this easily if you know how, but it involves more than just the general button-pushing involved in buying a run-of-the-mill ticket. In the end, I had to wait in a S L O W moving line for a half hour (while the last train to Tomioka left Takasaki) to buy my ticket from an attendant.
After FINALLY getting on the train to Takasaki, we realized we had gotten on the local, which took twice as long (two hours instead of one) to take us to Takasaki. From there, we had to take a taxi, and the ride cost us $80! I shit you not, dear readers! I mean, come on! It’s not that far from there to here. But in any case, we eventually made it home to my sweltering apartment.

A gallimimus

The next day, we attempted to take the bus to the Tomioka natural history museum, but this only runs four times a day or something. So, again, we had to take a taxi. Fortunately, it was much cheaper this time, and we got to see ANIMATRONIC DINOSAURS!!! And, even

Right before we got eaten

cooler, a sizable collection of dinosaur and prehistoric mammal bones. There were also taxidermied models of all the different fauna in the area, as well as plants and so forth. Pretty cool. There was even this crazy display/diorama of a dinosaur excavation with mannequins dressed as paleontologists and stuff. The crazy part is that it’s built into the floor about 20 feet down and there are huge sheets of glass covering it, so you walk over it and look down. It’s pretty freaky, because you feel like your going to fall in. Needless to say, many of the adults were scared shitless to set foot on the thing.

Standing on the floaty floor...

The special exhibit was on the coelocanth, and they had these weird eel-like relatives in tanks that had little proto-feet. They were using them to crawl around in the tank as we all stood around gawking.

Weird fishy thing