The rest of Japan

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I haven't had a lot of computer access throughout Japan (lots of wireless that I can get from my ipod which is great, but not helpful for writing blog entries). The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy, usually only staying in places 1 or 2 nights and then moving on. I hit Takeyama for their spring festival. The centre of the festival is the floats, this is the only time of year that they are brought out - and unfortunately it rained that day, but it was cool because you would walk around the old part of town looking for the warehouses where they were stored. The floats are very elaborate, most of them built 200-300 years ago. Festival food was great, lots of soba noodle stands and octopus balls.
I spent a couple of days in Nagano, the highlight here was definitely the monkeys!! It is a bit of a trek to get out to the monkey park - which is up in the mountains, they have a little shack that collects your money, then you wander around with the monkeys, which do onsen (hot spring bathing). So, the monkeys have their own hot tub, they bath, groom, run around playing - super cute, got a few good video clips of them - I could have sat there all day watching them. The main temple in Nagano is the Zenkoji temple. There were hundred of people lined up for this temple, as this is the year that a copy of the first Buddha image brought to Japan is put on display - they only show the image ever 7 years, and there is a lot of ceremony involved - so people flood to the city to see it. One of the Japanese foods that I really like is from the Nagano area - it is Oyaki - sort of like a Japanese perogie/dumpling - filled with vegetables - really good.
When in Japan a couple of musts are staying at a Ryocan and going to an onsen - I went up to the top of the main island (Honshu) to an onsen out in the mountains (Sakayu Onsen Ryokan). Lots of snow still up here and spring skiing. If it was summer or fall there would be tonnes of hiking trails through the nearby national park. The Ryocan are Japanese style inns - mat floors, mattresses on the floor, sliding doors, etc. I really like the Ryocan style. Dinners were included here, so they brought me this massive tray of Japanese foods - not a clue what some of it was - and I confess that I cheated - I don't care for sushi or sushimi, so I cooked all the fish on the burner they brought in to warm up the miso soup!! The onsen / bath houses are an experience - there is a whole etiquette/ process involved. First - there are bath/ shower rooms for men and women, it is all common showers and bathing. Then they have the onsen or main bath - at this place it was coed - they had two huge wooden hot tubs, the water pumped in was nice, only slightly sulfuric - it felt great, incredibly relaxing. It was very popular with Japanese, I was the only foreigner that I saw there, which did earn me a couple of curious looks. All bathing is done nude, you can take in a small towel, but it never to goes into the water - usually it is sitting on your head, or if you are sitting on the edge of the bath then you can drape it over yourself. I can now safely cross nude hot tubing with 20 strangers (men) off my list of life experiences -

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Photos

Ryokan room and Japanese robes
I couldn't seem to resist dressing up and taking a picture of myself

Nikko bridge
Beautiful area up in the hills with the river and forests