TheSpudParadox

(Blogged on 28th December but posted under December 19) Today we decided to head to Asama Onsen. There are two famous onsens near Matsumoto, and we chose to go to Asama which apparently has more history to the town and feels more like a neighbourhood onsen as compared to the other which has more beautiful views. (I think with all the fantastic scenery we have witnessed so far, we were starting to get a little overwhelmed.) For the clueless, Onsens are natural hot spring baths. Either a small poolhouse is erected directly over the source or the hot spring is piped from the source to the poolhouse. It is divided into males and females, and you go in buck naked. And no, you can't just jump straight into the hot spring (you will probably scald yourself ... read more

(Blogged on December 14, on the train en route to Matsumoto, posted on 15 December - dates have been adjusted.) We arrived in Toyama from Takayama via train. Took us about two hours. I realized that we have been visiting all the towns with mountain names in them. “Kama” means mountain. The first town was “Inuyama” meaning “Dog Mountain” in literal translation. Not sure why, there were not many dogs as far as I could tell (and I am not even being lame here. Hachiko the famous loyal dog was also not from this town.) “Takayama” means “High Mountain” and “Toyama” means “Wealthy Mountain”. So we were in a wealthy town I suppose? Probably have to read more about the histories of these towns. Apparently Toyama is a pharmaceutical area, hence my interest in stopping by ... read more

(This entry typed on 11th December but posted on 12th December - dates have been adjusted accordingly.) We traveled via the JR Takayama line to Takayama today. It was quite expensive, almost 4000yen. I think at this point I should point out that P and I are getting pretty good at navigating through the various train lines and companies. Basically we figured that there are two types of train service – the local service and the supposedly inter-state ones. The local service is called the subway, and the inter-state service is operated by several companies including the JR company, the Meiteitzu company and the Kinetsu company. The JR pass does not cover the Meiteitzu and Kinetsu lines, so unless you are pretty sure you will be traveling via the JR lines a lot, it probably isn’t ... read more

(Blogged on the 11th of December but entry posted under the 9th of December - dates have been adjusted accordingly.) We were recommended to go to the Ise Shrine by my Japanese tutor. It is apparently the oldest shrine built by the first emperor (I am recalling this from memory) and is always visited by every subsequent emperor. That literally took up the whole day before we headed to another temple - the Osu Kannon temple in Nagoya before calling it a day. First we had breakfast in one of the restaurants in Nagoya station. I was pretty shocked to discover that smoking was allowed in the restaurant which was air-conditioned. Ash trays were provided on every table (they were very clean - must have been scrubbed with hot water) and i found it peculiar to ... read more

We arrived in Nagoya and took the train to our hotel. I found out very quickly that many Japanese really did not speak much English. They were exceedingly polite and usually became very flustered when they could not help me with my request just because they do not understand me. I felt incredibly bad. Subway rides are expensive! About 230yen per one way ride. We found out too late that we could actually purchase one day subway passes for 760yen and felt like kicking ourselves after. We arrived at the hotel and was told that we were at the wrong one. Apparently there are two hotels with similar names and it was obviously a common occurrence for tourists to end up at the one we ended up because the receptionist very quickly whipped out a map ... read more

Currently in transit as i wait for the second leg of my journey to Japan. I am exhausted. I barely slept on the plane and was in no mood to watch any of the movies. I am really unaccustomed to traveling which is shocking. One thing i found amazing is my apparent Zen attitude i have adopted for this current trip. I actually sat down briefly yesterday to map out the route from the airport to the budget hotel where we have booked our rooms only to discover it was near impossible. It was not as straightforward as i thought it would be. After attempting to decipher the illustrations and train maps since i know trying to comprehend the Japanese words would be futile (my grasp of the language is weak!), i finally concluded that we ... read more