From Teacher to Sensei: Nagano weekend

I had an adventure this past weekend away from the city! I went to visit my friend out in Nagano. The name may sound familiar to some of you as they hosted the 1998 winter Olympics.

I was excited to be up in the mountains. I was even a bit happy to see snow. Don’t get me wrong, coming from the Midwest, I was happy to have a winter that didn’t involve massive amounts of snow and below freezing temperatures but I did start to miss the snow a little…

Anyway, the day started with three hours of travel into the mountains. I got to take a shinkansen to get there. The shinkansen are the Japanese bullet trains. The train I was on was going roughly 150 mph. They are super aerodynamic and the fastest trains in the world. The one that I was on was considered a slow speed shinkansen. I can’t imagine how fast the high speed ones go. The train itself was super nice! It was roomy and comfortable. Overall, a very enjoyable way to travel. Better than a plane if you ask me. Luckily, I had just downloaded some games into my I-pod so the time passed pretty quickly.


My train!

A soon as I arrived at the station, I was greeted by a small festival. My friend had no idea that it was happening. We had some great street vendor food for lunch. Japanese food is AMAZING but if you can get it freshly made, hot off the grill, it is the BEST! We also enjoyed some traditional Japanese performances of taiko drums and enka music.


Taiko drums

Some Enka music

After we slurped up our udon noodles and grilled chicken, we headed off to see Matsumoto castle. The castle was stunning as was the view from the top. But the best thing that happened at the castle was a photo opportunity. There were two men dressed in full samurai armor taking pictures with people in front of the castle. My friend and I jumped at the opportunity. After all, who doesn’t want to be photographed with samurai?! We started to pose and then about ten Japanese people around us whipped out their cameras and started snapping pictures of us. We took about 5 shots in all before everyone was satisfied including one where we let out a warriors cry.

The castle. This is one of my favorite pictures I have taken in Japan.

SAMURAI!!

After the castle, we headed back to Nagano city for a fun night out. The main item on the agenda was karaoke. We met up with some more people and headed out. Karaoke here in Japan is awesome! You get to have your own room so it is just you and your pals singing your hearts out. The best part though is that you can get all you can drink. That’s two hours of singing and drinking. Sounds like a dream come true. Still not exactly ready for bed, we went back to a friend’s apartment and played video games until 3:30 AM. Fun night in my book!

The next day, we took a bus up into the mountains to see some monkeys! Nagano is known for some of its onsens, hot spring baths. One of these onsens was taken over by monkeys that are native to the mountains. They have only ever taken over this one small pool and are quite indifferent to the people that come to gawk at them. They were even walking in between us and splashed some people watching. They are totally fine as long as you don’t touch them or look them in the eye for too long. I was just blown away by how close you could get to them and how much they basically just ignored all of us who were taking pictures of them. They were adorable. We then headed back into town for some cheap Italian food and a bottle of wine before I had to get back on the shinkansen. I really enjoyed being able to get out of the Tokyo region and seeing some friends. Weekend well spent.