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Published: November 4th 2005
Morning footbath
Chris and I taking a footbath before the long day of travel.Hello all, finally getting around to updating more about Nagano! I can hardly believe that it's been two weeks since we've been there! I am super homesick, but the days are certainly flying by! Ok, so I mixed up the days last time I wrote about Nagano, it was actually the second day that we went to the Zenkoji Temple and made soba noodles. Anyway, on the second day of the trip we did lots of other stuff.
After lunch (making soba noodles), we went to this Ninja Museum. At first everyone on the trip thought that it was going to be kind dumb... we all assumed it would be like an elementary school field trip. But it was SUCH a blast and everyone had a good time, despite the fact that we are all in our twenties (ok, well I'm still a youngin' but there are people in the IES program who are as old as 26!). The museum was in Togakushi, a town which was once the home of a famous ninja family. The "museum" was more like a hands-on training facility for ninjas. There was a house full of trap doors and secret passages, there was a kind
Ninja Museum
Tiana, Nia, and Becca getting ready for ninja action! of ropes course to practice agility and acrobatics (is that a word) on, and then there was another house with photographs and ninja artifacts. The ninja house was by far the highlight of the trip.
We had to take our shoes off at the front door, and then once inside we had to find our way through this maze. Most of the doors were hidden and all of the doors were only one-way... once you had gone through it was impossible to open the door from the other side. We had such a good time just running around and trying to figure out all of the secrets. One of the rooms was tilted at a 30 degree angle, so when you went inside, you kind of slid to the opposite wall. Also, the room induced this really drastic dizziness, it felt so confusing and everyone was really unbalanced. We would try to run to the "top" of the room, only to slide back down. I was with Charissa and Thally, and before we got to the tilted room, we could hear everyone inside screaming and laughing and we thought that it was going to be scary or something. After we
NINJAS!
Me and Nia posing as ninjas. were finished fooling around in the tilted room, we had to find our way out of the building. A few of us ended up following an old couple around and it took forever to find the secret doors! I thought that we were going to be stuck in there forever. There were false pannels, and little tunnels that we had to crouch down to get through.
The museum building was also really cool. The first floor was set up the way the ninja's homes would have been. There were tatami mats on the floor and a fire pit in one of the corners where the ninja family would have eaten their dinner. And, like many other traditional residential Japanese homes, there was a breezeway along the entire periphery of the house which could be opened up by sliding the many panels along the sides of the house. On the second floor of the building there were lots of blown up photographs and display cases filled with ninja apparel and ninja weapons. We saw a photograph of a girl ninja! There were also lots of photographs of scuba-diving ninjas.
We all bought ice cream at a little stand down the road
Tilted Room
Everyone jumping around like little kids inside the ninja house tilted room. from the ninja museum, they had soba flavored ice cream (tasted like vanilla with a nutty aftertaste) and ringo flavored ice cream (ringo is apple in Japanese). Both were delicious and even though it was pretty chilly outside, it really hit the spot.
After the ninja museum, we headed back to Shibu-onsen and everyone relaxed, took baths, took naps, etc. before dinner. Dinner, like the first night, was amazing! Tons of little dishes and really healthy and delicious. We were all talking about how this would be the perfect way to retire... live in a little onsen village, eat good food, take lots of baths, and only wear yukata (the cotton robes) around. I went to bed pretty early that night and it felt so relaxing to have eaten a delicious meal and then taken a hot hot bath.
On the third day of our trip we packed onto the buses and went to an apple orchard. We got to pick apples right off the trees! When Shin-san was explaining this activity, he seemed kind of apologetic, as if picking apples might be boring. But everyone had a really good time, climbing ladders and trees. The apples were delicious, I
Secret Passage
Charissa and I going into a secret passage underneath the "kitchen table." think they were Fuji apples. There was this big exploding machine that would make a HUGE boom every couple of minutes. It scared the crap out of us, but the point of the machine was to scare birds away. I thought that it was pretty cool. Shin-san also kept saying that the apples were "watery" and we finally figured out that he meant "juicy." But for the rest of the trip we kept calling things "watery." There were some older men who worked at the orchard and they helped us pick the apples. After we were done picking, they came on the bus with us to this festival where we learned how to make mochi. Mochi are sticky rice cakes that have sweet beans or other toppings (crushed peanuts, sugar and black sesame, etc.) on them. They are really delicious and we had the opportunity to pound the rice! Basically there is a huge tree stump where a big bowl has been carved out of the top, and you put a huge amount of cooked rice into the bowl. Then, with an enormous wooden mallet, you pound the rice until it becomes a very smooth and sticky consistency.
At
Thally-san
Thally going through a rotating wall panel. this festival we were really treated like special guests! The old men kept bringing us more free food to try, and whenever a local Japanese person tried to get something they were turned away. In addition to the mochi, we had grilled chicken on skewers, miso soup, and yaki soba (a dish similar to lo mein... kind of). There was a stage where there were various performances throughout the day, and at one point the MC announced that there were "70 Gaijin over there" and then he pointed towards the area where we were all hanging out! We also tried this puffed rice, which was kind of sweet and reminded me of some kind of cereal. YUM!! The festival reminded me a lot of the Ellis Hollow Fair... it was very community-based and everyone was just kind of hanging out really leisurely.
AFter the festival and our mochi-making experience, we all went to Obuse-do, which is a very touristy little town. Jordan and I were saying how much it reminded me of the little tourist towns in upstate new york. It had the same energy, the same types of products (expensive little stores with lots of hand-made crafts), the same
Scuba-diver
Photo of a ninja scuba-diver
kind of "fake" authenticity. We all met in this conference room above a chestnut-cake making factory for a presentation by a guest lecturer, but EVERYONE fell asleep during the presentation. It must have been a combination of being full and the rain outside. After the presentation I walked around with Jordan and Carrie and we found a post office with an ATM. We also went into some of the snack shops and Carrie bought some rice crackers because she was really hungry. But the crackers turned out to be wasabi crackers and it was quite a surprise to her! She ended up giving the entire bag to Becca, who has become universally known as the garbage disposal.
After our free time in Obuse-do, we headed back to Shibu-Onsen and we all went into the baths and had another fantastic dinner. All of the girls in our room had tea and played cards and then watched a movie on Tiana's portable DVD player. We definitely got really close on this trip, it was really nice to always be around them. And they are all so funny, we were constantly cracking up or playing tricks on each other, or playing butt punch!
Apple ice cream
Me, Charissa, and Becca enjoying ice cream. On the last day, I woke up really early and went outside for a walk. There were tons of little staircases going up the side of the mountain near our hotel and I was really curious as to where they led. It turned out that they led to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines which were tucked away in the deep forest. I also came across some old wooden houses which appeared to be abandoned. If you have ever seen the movie Spirited Away, the houses that I saw were similar to those in the "haunted" village in the movie. They were so incredible. It was as though I had come across a secret pocket of lost time. The temples and shrines were also so amazing. I think that this is the best way to have a religious establishment as there is such a feeling of repose and almost a spiritual presence. From the temples I could see the mountains across the valley and they were snow-covered! Absolutely beautiful, I wish there was a better way for me to describe these secret temples in the mountain!
After my exploring, we had breakfast together and then we headed out on "micro-buses" to
Picking apples
Nia practicing her technique. this monkey park. The drive to the monkey park was crazy, we went through this evergreen forest on these TINY little winding mountain roads. The driver was quite reckless and there were a few times I thought we would go flying off the edge. But we made it safely and the monkey park was amazing. It was a pretty far hike from the parking lot, and when we got there, the park officials said that the monkey troops might not come down for awhile. We were on a kind of tight time budget, so we were all worried that we wouldn't be able to see them. But finally, after waiting for about 45 minutes, we saw hundreds of little monkeys descending from the depths of the mountains! They were all coming down to take baths in the outdoor onsen! Everyone was super excited to see them, and the monkeys were so used to people that we were literally side-by-side wtih them. Sometimes the monkeys would brush against our legs as we were walking around. They were really cute, except they had red faces and red butts, and sometimes it was hard to tell the two apart. Although I suppose that
Huge Apple
Some of these apples were as big as my head. is a survival skill as if a predator bites one end of you, it's probably safer if he bites your rear.
After the monkey park we had another dangerous ride back down the mountain and then we loaded onto our big buses and left Shibu-onsen. The hotel staff were waiting in the parking lot to wave us goodbye. We had lunch at a rest stop and then we went to Osuwa where we met a really famous drum master. He tought us how to do Daiko drumming which is a very old tradition among Japanese. It started out as a way of sending messages... the loud booms would relay information across large distances. But it has since become a very famous kind of performing art. The master whom we met was EXTREMELY famous, he has taught and played all over the world. His studio was set up in the basement of a kind of museum of all the artifacts he had collected during his travels. There were tons of musical instruments from around the world, and in the actual studio there were dozens and dozens of drums. The walls of the room were covered in large mirrors, similar to a
Team work
Tiny Thally picking an apple from Giant Jordan's shoulders. dance studio, and there were two other instructors who helped to teach us. The drumming was super fun, it was hilarious to see 64 kids beating on big drums. We learned an entire song in less than one hour! The drum master, I have unfortunately forgotten his name, gave us each a certificate of completion as well as a hand-made signature. I wonder if this signature is worth something? He was such a nice old man, and as we were leaving, he again walked us to the bus parking lot and waved us goodbye.
That was our last stop on the NAgano trip. Our journey home was SO long beacuse there was a huge traffic jam coming into Tokyo. Apprently it is like this almost every Sunday night as everyone returns to the city. We were supposed to arrive in Makuhari city around 6:00pm, but we did not get there until 10pm! I think everyone was kind of sad to be leaving, and of course a little worn out, but it was so nice to be able to come back to the dorm with the other girls! Hopefully we will all be able to travel together again... I think we
Mochi
Tiana putting a little elbow grease into her pounding. may try to go to Tokyo Disney sometime soon.
Ok, take care everyone! Love Molly
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Chelsea
non-member comment
Wowieee!
Your trip keeps getting better and better! When I read the part about the Ninja museum I was smiling so big. (I have this thing for ninjas... I just cannot resist their awesomness.) I can't miss that either. Where in Nagano is this at? (My email address is shii.kitty@gmail.com if you would like to chat it up a bit. :D)