Kamakochi

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It was an extremely early start! We were up around five am and headed to the bus station to buy our tickets. We made sure that we arrived in good time, as there was something we really wanted to try. When we had been in the bus terminal yesterday, we had spied a wall of vending machines, most of them were pretty normal, like what you would find back home, however, there was one that looked amazing. It was a machine that actually vended hot meals! This is what I think of when I think of Japan, a vending machine that can do anything. We had perused the different options yesterday, the machine had quite a selection, and we had decided that fried rice would be our best bet. We deposited our coins, 360 yen, quite pricey, as you could get a feast from the mart for that price, and waited. The machine sprang into action and within a couple of minutes, we were given our little box of fried rice. I'm sure that the locals in the bus station must have thought that we were mental, as we were so excited. The rice was canny hot and it was actually really good, I've definitely had worse meals, and those were made in restaurants.

We boarded our bus and it left promptly at 7 am. The bus journey took an hour as we headed higher into the mountains. We made a couple of stops in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. I think these places are skiing areas in the winter. One town (well row of shops and maybe guesthouses) looked pretty ghetto. I would like to think that it would look better with a magical dusting of snow. We arrive at Hirayu Onsen just before 8 am. When we had looked at the timetable yesterday, it seemed like we would have to wait half an hour a bus to Kamikochi, however due to the amazing Japanese efficiency, we didn't as there was a bus there waiting to meet our bus, and a women told us to get on this bus. The first bus had been a proper coach, where as this one was more like a city bus, not much room and not very comfortable. Luckily we were only on it for about twenty five minutes.

We arrived at the park and it was pretty cold, especially as I only had shorts and a t-shirt on. We headed to the toilets and were a little disgruntled to find out that we had to pay to use them. However, it was only 100 yen and, on reflection, as the park doesn't charge an entrance fee, it is actually more than fair. We thought that we would have to pay every time we wanted to pay, but it was only at the entrance, where you had to pay, and you could use all the other bathrooms in the park free of charge. Since it was so cold, we headed inside of the visitor centre to warm up a bit. We had a look around and Mel bought a mini map of the park, that folded up to fit in your pocket. Then we headed over to the shops on the other side of the park entrance. Since it was still a bit chilly, I bought a coffee to warm me up.

Finally, we set off on our walk. We walked through the woods for about ten minutes, and arrived at the first bridge, Kappabashi. The area was pretty and had an alpine feel to it We could see the mountain peaks in the distance. These mountain peaks are Nishihotakadake. Okuhotakadake, and Myojindake, all of which are over 3,000 metres high. The origin of the bridge's name is unknown, but there are some ideas about how it came about. 'Kappa' is an imaginary creature in Japan, and it is said that long ago there was anabyss around this area, where Kappa lived. That is one theory for the bridge's name is that travellers could have waded through the river water, and by having clothes on their head they could have resembled Kappa. I had expected the area to be deserted, just us and nature, but there were a few lodges and stores there.

We kept walking we followed the river. We came across a couple of artists painting. We were taking some photos of them, as you do, because it made a great picture. Well, one of the artist got up and came over to talk to us for a bit. He was really friendly, and had pretty good English. He told us that he was from the nearby town/city of Matsumoto. We spent some time admiring their work before heading on. We walked for about another 40-50 minutes. We came to the Myojin District, which is right below Myojindake. It is the entrance to the Tokugo Pass, which is the old main route linking Matsumoto and Kamikochi. There were lots of picnic benches there, and we decided to take a break, and have some food there. We busted out the Hida beef crisps that we had bought at a convenience store back in Takayama. They were canny, not amazing as I had hoped they would have been, but they were definitely edible. They tasted like beef flavoured crisps from home, so not really worth the price we paid for them, as premium Hida Beef crisps.

We were at a fork in our path, we could cross the river, or we could keep heading upstream, I want to say/write north, but I don't know if that's true. Since we had made good time, we decided to keep heading upstream. We walked through the Tokusawa District, which had up until 1934, had been a pasture for cattle and horses. We spotted the Tokusawa Lodge tucked away up a path. There were loads of gorgeous flowers in this area, so we took loads of photos of them. We walked a bit further up, until we reached the end of the trail, on this side of the river. Where the trail ends on this side of the river, there is a lodge/cafe, Tokusawaen, which is famous among the Japanese, as it featured in the famous mountaineering novel, "Hyoheki". We had a mooch around their gift shop, and Malia had a curry, and me and Mel had an ice cream each. It was canny. The rooms in the lodge looked pretty fancy, even the dorms looked nice. Maybe, one day, I can come back and stay here.

We walked back the way we came, following the Azusa River, back to the Myojin District. We, then, followed the trail to Myojin Bridge. The area was so pretty, I wish we had known about it before, as it would have been nicer to have our picnic there, than at the picnic benches. There were lots of people sitting by the river resting and eating. We could see the mountain, Myojindake in the background. Also the sun was shining and the weather had warmed up, making it a beautiful day. We crossed the river and headed in the direction of Myojin Pond. We had to pay an entrance fee to visit the pond, I can't remember how much it was, I think around 300 yen. I also bought myself another temple plaque to take home, I'm addicted to buying these things. The lake was stunning, the water was so clear and you could see the bottom. The water is so clear because it comes from a spring under the ground. Also the Hotaka Shrine Inner Alter is located by the pond. There was am old boat tied up to the jetty, which was cute. The pond is surrounded by trees, and we saw some on the other side of the pond. We saw a couple climbing the trees. We were happy that we had seen some monkey, albeit, from afar as Kamikochi is famous for having monkeys and bears. There is a special animal protection team, that look after the monkeys, as they have had too much human contact and are now desensitised to humans. We followed the trail round the pond a little more, jumping over rocks and came to an area with less people, however it wasn't as picturesque. I think this was the smaller pond, as Myojin pond is comprised of two ponds, one big and the other small.

We left the pond area, and walked further down the trail. We came across this gorgeous area, and had to stop there to have our second picnic of the day, so we could finish all the food we had brought with us. We were sitting on this little wooden jetty, that jutted out into the water, the water was so clear and clean looking, and the mountains up above looked so beautiful. They were even reflected in the water. My pictures of the area don't do it justice. We chatted to a few different people, that came past and took photos of them, for them, and we got one lovely lady to take our picture. We spent a bit too much time there and realised that we would have to move a bit faster, if we wanted to see everything that we had planned to.

We practically ran down the road to the Weston Relief area, what an apt name as we were in need of using the bathroom facilities. When we were coming out of the toilet, I was joking about how you always have to make sure that the entrance doors to the bathrooms are closed, so that the monkeys can't get in and wouldn't it be funny if a monkey dropped on your head, while you were using the toilet. I was totally thinking that this would never happen, but as we came out of the bathroom, there were quite a few monkeys walking up the street towards us! We had hit the monkey jackpot, whether this as a fluke or if the monkeys were always in this area and it this specific time. They wandered past us up the street, they weren't too bothered at all by all the humans around them. Some were play fighting, and there were a couple of mother monkeys with their babies nestled on their back. The mothers were obviously protecting their babies, as they weren't walking no the path, but on the wall, a bit further away from us humans. What a lovely unexpected surprise!

We headed a bit further down the trail to the Weston Memorial Plaque, where we were treated to the sight of more monkeys. These ones were climbing and swinging in the trees. So cute! After playing for a while the disappeared further into the woods. Reverend Walter Weston was an English clergyman and missionary from the Church of England, who first came to Japan when he was 27. He was an avid mountain climber and conquered numerous peaks throughout the Japanese Alps. He introduced the Japanese Alps to the world in his book 'Mountaineering and Exploring in the Japanese Alps'. He is known as the father of mountain climbing in Japan.

Our last stop before heading back to the bus terminal was the two bridges, Tashiro Bridge and Hotaka Bridge. We took yet more photos of the river, before we had to head back. We had wanted to head to the two lakes that were further down, but we didn't have time. On our way back to the information centre, we saw a poster that told us that bears had been spotted in the area, only a few days before. They had been spotted by the ponds, that we didn't have time to visit.

We found a short cut that lead us straight to the car park, that shaved a good bit of time off our trek back. Since, we had bit of time, I wandered over to one of the food stalls to grab a drink. Most of the stalls were shut, but there was one still open. I got a bottle of water and some of the snack food on display caught my eye. I decided to get a croquette thing, I had no idea what it was, but it looked similar to the croquette things that are widely available in Korea. The croquette was canny nice, it was filled with yummy Japanese curry, but the best bit was that there was an egg in it too. I had hit the croquette jackpot!

The bus arrived, we got on and of course left on time, as we drove to the entrance of the park, we stopped at a few more bus stops to pick people up. We left the park, I like that the entrance to the park is a gated kind of tunnel and has security guards on it. It makes it feel like it is being protected from evil outside influences. We arrived back at Hirayu Onsen and had about a five to ten minute wait for the bus back to Takayama, so we had a nose in the gift shop at the bus terminal, we were good though and didn't buy anything. We arrived back in Takayama around 6:30. We had a mooch in some of the shops on our way back to the hostel. At the hostel, we got changed, as it was canny chilly, and headed out for dinner.

As usual, the streets of Takayama were deserted pretty much. We had left it a bit late to eat, we should have known better, and a lot of places were closing up. We found a restaurant that seemed to be open a lot later than the others. The restaurant, Tenaga Ashinaga, had a comprehensive menu with pictures on the wall outside. We headed in and got a table, the restaurant was quite small, but there were plenty of tables. We ordered our food and were told that a drink was included in the price. I ordered a beer and the cutest ever baby glass of Kirin turned up. I must have took about a million photos of it, as it was so cute. It was so small, it was even smaller than a half glass back home. Our food arrived quickly, which was good as were were starving. We had ordered a Hida beef kind of hotpot stroganoff type of thing, ginger pork, and a mixed veggie with either beef or pork dish. The food was tasty, and each dish came as part of a set with miso soup, rice, salad, and a couple of vegetable dishes. We were wrecked and had another early start planned for the morning, so we headed back to the hostel to pack up our stuff, as we were moving on to Nagoya, the next day. One last night of sleep in the lovely comfortable futon.

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