Blogs from Nagano, Japan, Asia - page 14

Just wasted an hour trying to do a nice route map of our trip for you but the WiFi connection here is terrible so you'll just have guess I'm afraid! Anyways, I'm happily sitting in front of a gas heater in our little hotel's lounge gazing out at the snow and trying not to look at the creepy metal bird avec spinning propeller (?!) which keeps staring at me despite having no discernable eyes. For those of you listening to this by way of my father or the infamous Mr Lewis, please do try and stay awake this time - I'm not mentioning any names but watch my eyes Vera! I'm going to blame it on the abilities of those reading it aloud - you can't be putting enough humerous intonation in your voice obviously. I ... read more

h2Day 6/7/8/h2 A few hours on the train north to Nagano where the 1998 Winter Olympics were then another hour on a private train and we landed in rainy Yudanaka. It is a sleepy little town, but beautiful! We stayed at the Shimaya Ryokan which was a traditional family run hotel with it's own onsen. Our room was traditional with tatami mat floors and rice paper walls. It's all quite low and Chris was banging his head on the ceiling every few minutes. Because it was raining when we arrived we chilled in our room and then went for dinner at this place called Asashinaya at our hotel man's suggestion. The staff were so nice and we had a big meal with even bigger beers. They gave us this little wooden plaque as a gift for ... read more

Host family has been up to no good recently. Like springing second row Blue Man Group tickets on me 20 minutes before the show starts in Roppongi and taking a weekend trip to a beautiful place in Nagano-ken called Karuizawa. Karuizawa to Tokyo is like Nantucket to New York and Boston; its the nature place the rich people go to get away from the heat. It isnt summer yet so Karuizawa the town was pretty empty, only about half the shops were open, but it was nice since it wasn't crowded. It's at a pretty high elevation so the air is crisp and clean; once you get out of the train you can notice a huge difference - not to say that Tokyo's air is bad, its just city vs country highlands. Some of the attractions ... read more

So, not including local transport, at least... 9 hours on trains 20 hours on boats 37 hours on planes 346 hours on buses 51 different beds 72 different towns 12 pages of each of our passports 143 days 429 meals 2 broken backpacks far too many beers and a big bag of money later ...and we're in Japan, working in local elementary schools. And that's the end of it. No more backside and soul destroying night-buses, no more nights in bus stations or 24 hour KFCs waiting for connections, no more haggling for everything, no more expensive internet cafes, no more scorching weather and drenching humidity, no more going into 7/11 for 10 minutes just to cool off under the air-con, no more constant hassling for ping-pong shows, tuk-tuks or moto-taxis, marijuana or sexy ladies, no ... read more

Well, my addiction won out again. Instead of saving my ￥en and being responsible, I signed up for another snowboarding tour, this time to Nagano. A lot of people from the Niigata tour would be there, and this time, there were 2 buses going, and 60-80 people. The pattern was much the same as the last trip. Meet up, get on the bus - this time our seats had been allocated - make sure you stock up on drinks, and then off we went. I found it a lot harder to sleep this time around, Even though I was tired, and desperate to sleep, my brain wouldn't switch off and I was focused on all the things I would need to get done in time for my departure. I met a few new paople on this ... read more