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Onsen / Hot Springs
The Japanese love of Hot Springs, or "onsen" is inseparable from the national character. People will gladly travel many hours just for the chance to have a soak in one of the many thousands of hot springs throughout this volcanic country. The "onsen" experience, like so many things in Japan, is a multilayered experience. Some hot springs form the focal point for a whole tour...
Other Adventures
A boundless range of other activities can be found in Hakuba and area, from canyoning to paragliding to rafting to kayaking to canoeing, arts and crafts and more!
Sightseeing
The Nagano Prefecture area and beyond offer a variety of sightseeing opportunities, from the laid back ambiance of Matsumoto, with it's justly famed Matsumoto Castle, to he beauty of Zenkouji Temple in Nagano City, to the resort shopping town feel of Karuizawa...and more.
Hikes and Walks
There are many hiking opportunities around the Hakuba area, ranging from challenging multiday hikes to ones that are more suited to the "strolling". The one constant is views of the Japanese Alps and the surrounding countryside that is sure to soothe the soul.
Cycling
Japan is a cyclist's paradise in a number of respects. Forgetting the highways for a moment, it is a country of well kept roads, many of them with very light traffic (thanks to those highways!) which lead you through blissful scenery and villages where time seems to have stopped, or at least has slowed down a bit, with a refreshment stop or lodging for the night never more than a few km...
Daytrips
Hakuba can be your base for many fascinating day trips, on the way up or back from the major centres, or to break up your ski vacation.
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The town itself, and specifically the "hot spring" portion of the town is a lovely mix of temples and beautiful onsen buildings backing right onto the ski lifts.
Flowers, especially the rape blossom, were in full bloom all through Nagano when I went, and Nozawa was no exception.
After a couple of hours of walking around the town, poking my head in here and there, I was ready to head back through Nagano City and to Hakuba. On my way out of the valley I noticed a side road which a sign indicated led to a lake and boat landing. The road itself was tiny and twisted, so I thought that
promised good things for the lake itself. And wow... after winding around the mountain a ways, the lake indeed lived up to it's promise. An absolutely beautiful setting nestled into the valley. Pictures don't quite do it justice but...
Matsumoto Castle is the main tourist draw and for good reason. It is still, for the most part, in it's original state, and it gives a fascinating insight into what the real meaning of these kind of places were. Europeans probably know better I suppose (and other people cleverer than I), but as a Canadian and not having many castles close at hand to refer too, I grew up thinking that castles were kitted up with all sorts of amenities, or at least as much as was possible in those days. Sure, I thought they must have been fairly drafty and cold, but still, people proceeded with their lives calling the castle...home. Matsumoto Castle (“Matsumoto-jo” as it's referred to in Japanese) is for the most part, strictly utilitarian. There are a couple of rooms where you could take in the surrounding area in a more leisurely fashion, but for the most part it's full of steep steep staircases (easy to defend against enemies coming up from below) and wide corridors so as to facilitate the running to and fro of fully armoured warriors. And, lot's of places to drop rocks on people. Exactly the kind of place I was looking for as a clubhouse when I was a boy. If only I had know where to look!
As you would expect, the castle serves as museum as well, so you can also see interesting displays of the armour worn at the time and the weapons used, including some quite beautifully decorated guns.
As it was not always wartime in feudal Japan, and certainly hasn't been in recent days, the area immediately surrounding castles is usually an immaculate garden or park land. Matsumoto-jo is no different, and some of the loveliest views of cherry blossoms in the spring (usually, the middle of April) can be had along the moat surrounding the castle.
The Metobagawa River is one of a few rivers running through Matsumoto .... situated casually along it's banks is a lovely “shopping street” (“shoten-gai” in Japanese), where you can find all manner of tradional Japanese snacks, toys and gifts and a sense of what it must have been like strolling around “downtown”, circa feudal Japan era. It certainly doesn't compare to the hustle and bustle of the Asakusa area in Tokyo for example, but that's one of it's charms I think. I strolled and strolled on that warm afternoon, and then sat down on a bench with a friendly old lady who insisted that I share her tea from her thermos. Which, I promptly did. Usually prefer coffee myself, but it wasn't bad.
Just off this shopping street is the Yohashira-jinja Shrine (“jinja” means “shrine” in Japanese). As is quite common in modern day Japan, it's the sense of contrast that is perhaps the most interesting to westerners. Directly behind the shrine is a, well, not so lovely communications tower. First time visitors to Kyoto are often faced with similar scenes, temples of breathtaking beauty, sometimes surrounded by, well, the willy nilly of daily modern life. The Japanese are especially adroit at focusing the mind's eye on what should be seen, and away from the less attractive surroundings, and I have a feeling most visitors to Japan quickly develop this gift. Life is not a museum piece after all, and these temples and shrines still form an important part of modern Japanese life.
One of the charms of Japanese temples is the chance to take an “o-mikuji” or “fortune”. They usually cost 100 or 200 yen, and give fairly generic fortune cookie type advice about the near future. In, dare I say, a not atypical Japanese attitude towards fate, the Japanese themselves are somewhat ambivalent about it's true meaning... if it's positive, or “dai-kichi”, great! If the fortune points to a negative future, the thing to do is to tie the actual paper the fortune is written on to the line you can see in the picture and then ... all bets are off. Get out of jail ... free! Nice! The fortune I drew was not all that positive, so that's what I did. Ah, no worries!
My final walk on this trip into Matsumoto was along the river bank itself, which depending on the season, can be a snowbank, a treacherous mudslide, or, if your timing is right, it can be a serene slice of riverside life, complete with blooming cherry trees and a family of ducks. (or, perhaps they were just friends, I didn't think to ask).
Links
Matsumoto Welcome Page
Matsumoto Castle
Matsumoto Maps
The weather had started out rainy and cold in Hakuba, but had
cleared a bit by midday, so some friends and I decided to take the
drive up through Omachi and up towards the series of dams and onsen
through the Takase Ravine (about 30 minutes outside Hakuba).
There are three main dams, the Omachi, Nanakura and Takase dam itself,
and they form a beautiful backdrop to the drive. We stopped at
the Kajika Onsen, first taking a stroll alongside the stream, where
Mizubasho, or the unatrractively named in English, "Skunk Cabbage",
were in full foliage and bloom.
The every popular monkeys of the Japanese Alps also made an appearance,
though they don't deign to bathe with you as they do at Jigokudani.
Our timing was perfect, and we had the onsen pretty much to
ourselves. While they are both lined with cypress wood, "hi no
ki" in Japanese, the inner bath and the outer are fed from different
springs, and there was a noticable difference both in temperature and
in sulphur content. Both extremely refreshing however, and a
great way to while away a lazy Friday afternoon..
About a 30 minute drive from Hakuba towards Oomachi, and near the route up to Kurobe Dam.
