Blogs from Nagano, Japan, Asia - page 3

Happy Valentine's Day! In Japan, the woman gives the man chocolate for Valentine's Day. I tried to secretly buy Darren some chocolate, but it is difficult when he is always around. I got him some chocolate covered almonds and some other chocolates that resemble Mt. Fuji. I tell him that he needs to share. It is the present that gives back. Today we are off to Happo One. We first eat breakfast at our hotel. Yogourt and granola. It is really good and Darren wants to have this for many more breakfasts. We catch the shuttle bus to Happo One. This ski resort is one of the larger ones in Hakuba. In 1998, Hakuba partially hosted the Winter Olympics and the ski jumps are located at this resort. This resort has its claim to fame and ... read more

Marrying an outdoorsman pretty much guaranteed me spending quite a bit more time outside than I previously had. Luckily, my own passion for hiking had developed fairly quickly after moving here from the American midwest, where I was excited by small hills. The mountains that Japan offers are WAY more exciting and offer a pretty good diversity of courses and seasonal possibilities. The one thing I had never done, however, was hiking in the snow-covered mountains, because I always know I didn't have the right equipment for it. That's where my husband came in! We had a weekend off and I was DYING to go snow-shoeing, but our spot to go (Nikko, where Ma-kun has friends who own a guest house) reported back poor snow conditions that were no good for snow shoes. So we had ... read more

Convincing wild animals to sit in hot springs and pose for photos is not as easy as I'd hoped, despite all I'd seen on the TV. However naked men in outdoor hot springs with hand towels for hats seems to be rather common around Yamanouchi, but not as common as heated toilet seats. It's been an interesting day.... It's getting towards the end of typhoon season which means there's a lot of rain, I'm hoping it's worse here because we're in the mountains and it will get better in Kyoto. I woke a few times in the night to hear the constant downpour, wishing it would ease off but according to my weather app, there's no chance of that. This isn't the type of rain that merely trashes hair. No. It's it's the rain that has ... read more

Glyn's just asked me if I wore the toilet slippers. We're at a Ryokan (old Japanese style inn) in Yagamouchi / Yudanaka and I can't even get going to the toilet right. I saw two pairs of slipper in the toilet doorway and assumed that some lazy sod had left them lying about. Japan is the only country where I've read about the customs before arriving and when I got there, found it it was all true. Fortunately the Japanese are too polite to be angry, but we have been corrected, more than once. And we've been here about half a day. We started by flying to from Manchester to Munich to Tokyo. Towards the end of the 11 hour flight from Munich, I finally got to see Japan through the clouds: a view of dark ... read more

Geo: 36.7425, 138.417Even though we were up late last night, I was up again early at 730am to pack my bags as Chris slept. Half of us wanted one last chance to explore Takayama before we left at 11am, particularly the other Morning Market. We had toast and coffee for breakfast at another cafe again. Then we headed down the street to shop. This Market was much bigger and livelier than the one yesterday. It spanned the waterfront of the canal along shops and vendors. I shopped like crazy. Found souvenirs for myself and my fambam back home. I bought myself a t-shirt that says "No Sushi, No Life" and a set of chopsticks with adorable animals on them. :D I had to buy another bag just for souvenirs lol.After shopping for an hour we got ... read more