KISO VALLEY, "The Japanese Alps"

The next two days of our trip were to be spent in Kiso Valley, which is known as "The Japanese Alps." The plan was to take several trains (including our first ride on the Shinkansesn or "bullet train") and a bus from Tokyo to a town called Tsumago. From Tsumago, we would hike an 8km section of the old trade route from Kyoto to Tokyo, ending our time in Kiso Valley in a town called Magome. We had planned to spend the night in a traditional Japanese hotel, called a ryokan, which was located somewhere between Tusmago and Magome. Needless to say, with all of this foot travel, we did not want to drag our luggage around with us. We had planned to use a service called, "Black Cat," which picks up your luggage from one location and delivers it to another for an affordable fee.

My hair "blowing in the wind" on our first Shinkansen ride.

We woke up on our last morning in Tokyo, packed a small overnight bag, and went down for breakfast. After breakfast, we went to the reception desk of our hotel to work out the transfer of the rest of our luggage. Despite the language barrier, the folks at the hotel were very kind to help us fill out the Black Cat forms as they needed to be filled out in Japanese. They then told us that the fee to have our luggage moved would be $20.00. Eric pulled out a credit card, assuming that since we were in the hotel we would be able to use it, but we were told that since they were accepting payment on Black Cat's behalf they could only accept dollars or yen. Eric and I had zero dollars and were the equivalent of $3.00 short of yen (all the yen we had in the world included). At this point it was about 8:30am. We knew that we were scheduled to be on a 10:00am Shinkansen train out of Tokyo Station and that in order to get there we had to walk the almost mile to the subway station and take two separate subway trains to get there. But we had no fear! Because right across the street from the hotel was a Lawson's (a popular convenience store) with an ATM. Eric ran across the street to retrieve the cash money! He came back defeated and reported that Lawson's ATMs no longer accept Master Cards. The people at the reception desk told us that there was an ATM we could  use at the post office, which was also (conveniently) right around the corner! Eric ran out again. A few minutes later he texted me (It was about 8:40am at this point) and told me that the post office would not open until 9, but that the employees were nice enough to let him wait inside. We spent the next 20 minutes anxiously tapping our toes and watching the seconds tick by. Fortunately, right at 9am, Eric was able to get some cash and run back to the hotel. We paid for the luggage service, grabbed our bag, and RAN to the train station. Despite our delayed start to the day, we made it to Tokyo Station with about 9 minutes to spare before our Shinkansen was to depart. We asked for help and quickly found the correct train and track. Phew, what a morning!

Technical difficulties prevent me from sharing better shots of Fuji...

The train ride that morning took us through beautiful countryside, but the highlight of the trip was seeing Mt. Fuji out the window of the train. The massive mountain seems to pop up out of nowhere and is an amazing site to see. We can't wait (and really hope to be able) to plan a trip to tackle that thing! 

We got off the train in Kiso Valley and had a little time to kill before the bus we had to take to Tsumago departed. We were starving by this time and walked around a little to look for a place to eat lunch...but there wasn't much in the way of restaurants at this little bus stop town. We ended up finding a grocery store and collected a few items for lunch from there. We got apples, fresh gyoza, and a bag of chips and took it back to the train station to find a spot to sit and eat. As we enjoyed our picnic, we watched the people of the town go about their daily lives and enjoyed the beautiful views from the valley to include soaring mountains peppered with the colors of fall, waterfalls, and a river. There were groups of school children arriving home by train. We waved at them and they practiced their English on us saying, "Hi!" or "Hello!" and "How are you?" There were plenty of smiles and giggles to go around. 

After lunch, we walked over to the bus stop to wait for our ride. As we stood there, we were approached by a rugged traveler. He handed each of us a warm can of coffee, which he had purchased from a vending machine (yes, you can purchase hot drinks, among many other crazy things, from vending machines). In broken English, he told us all about himself. He told us that he was hitch-hiking from his university in Hokkaido (which is the northernmost island of Japan) where he studied veterinary medicine. He told us that he was Muslim (to explain why he was sporting a beard) and that he was happy to be able to practice his English. He was absolutely convinced that Eric was an Air Force pilot despite our best attempts to explain otherwise and thought that being able to fly planes was super cool. He loved Eric's teeth and showed us his own indicating that he would love to trade with Eric. He said that I was beautiful (by congratulating Eric on having a nice looking wife). He was an incredible person! He was very kind, animated, and memorable. The thing we loved most about him was that each time he told us something about himself, he would point to himself on the nose and say, "I" or "me." Our conversation ended with the arrival of our bus. As we parted ways, he told us that he loved us both, pointing to his nose and saying, "I love you and goodbye."

After about a 10 minute bus ride, we hopped off in Tsumago and began our hike. It was starting to get really cold and I was starting to realize that, per the usual, I was under-prepared for the cold temperatures in the Japanese Alps in November. Eric has learned to laugh at me for this quirk (and keep one eye open for the things I may need to survive the elements). In this case, what I needed was a long pair of pants. All I had with me were capri length leggings. Oops! Tsumago was an absolutely beautiful old post town full of small homes and businesses. It was so well preserved that it looked like it came right out of an old post card. The only things around to remind us that we were in fact in the present were the cars parked under car ports.

We took a lot of time exploring the town because we thought we were closer to the ryokan than we were. As we neared the end of the town, we saw an information center. We stopped to ask for a map and for directions to our hotel. The woman there pulled out a map, indicated where we were on the map, ran her finger along the path all the way across the map, flipped it over and than ran it over about a third of the other side of the map. She stopped and told us that our hotel was there. Eric and I were shocked by how much farther we had to go and a little alarmed by the setting sun and drizzling rain. We picked up the pace a little! We ran into some friendly English speaking people along the way to our hotel. They told us the tiiiiiny town we were looking for was close, but noted they had not noticed our particular ryokan when they passed through that town. We thanked them and kept on moving. Finally, over a little hill, we saw a tiny stream of smoke rising out of a chimney. As we came around the side of the hill, we saw the sign for our ryokan. We made it inside just before the rain really picked up and the sun really set. 

Our first challenge in the ryokan was to take off our shoes and put on indoor slippers. After doing that, we could ascend the steps and ring the bell at the front desk for service. Eric was paralyzed by a difficult decision. There were two types of slippers: medium and very large. He did not know whether the size difference indicated male and female slippers or if he was allowed to chose the pair that would actually fit him best. Always a staunch rule follower, he did not want to make the wrong choice. As he agonized, jumping back and forth between the two options, I slipped on a pair and rang the bell. Despite my encouragement to chose the slippers that fit best, Eric was unable to do anything but wait until the person came to the desk and he could ask. He was told he could wear any pair he wanted. Mission accomplished. This was just the first crisis of "how to behave in a ryokan" that we faced and endured together.

Our host gave us a tour of the ryokan along with a brief overview of how it is operated. He explained that there were two other couples sharing the ryokan with us that night. He showed us where the hot bath was and briefly explained how to know and indicate that the shared bathroom was in use. We were informed that dinner was served promptly at 5:30pm; breakfast at 7:30am. He told us that he would come and retrieve us from our room for both meals. He then showed us to our room. The first thing we did when we got in the room was drink the hot green tea and eat the sweets that were sitting out for us on the small table in the center of the room. We then read about how to set up the tatami mats and made our beds for the night. Next, we had to bathe before dinner and change into our robes. This was the second crisis of our stay. Let's just say, we did not have a firm grasp on the etiquette of using the hot bath. We took our robes down to the bath and found that it was occupied. This gave us a few minutes to pace the halls and debate and discuss our options. Ultimately we survived the hot bath experience and I think we enjoyed it, but it was not exactly the relaxed experience we were hoping for. I am not going to point fingers, but a certain lover-of-rules-and-boundaries could have had more fun if he had been given a more thorough briefing. We made our way back to our room in our robes to wait to be summoned for dinner. 

We were retrieved from our room, as promised, promptly at 5:30pm. Our host lead us down to the dining room. When he slid open the door to the dining room, we saw three tables each beautifully set for dinner for two. We enjoyed a kaiseki (traditional multi-course Japanese) style dinner. Unlike dinner courses in the West, all of the courses in a kaiseki meal are presented simultaneously. I am unsure whether there is etiquette for the sequence in which the courses are consumed, but Eric and I went all willy nilly in our approaches. Here was the spread: smoked and salted small fish, salmon sashimi, cold soba noodles, various veggies, various pickled things, rice, bbq peanut sauce rice cake on skewer, miso soup, tempura vegetables, persimmon, something that had the texture of a sponge, green tea, and sake. The other two couples who dined next to us were significantly older. At one point during the meal, the owner of the ryokan came into the room, greeted all of us, and began facilitating conversation and (presumably) talking about the history of the ryokan. Everyone was very kind to us and curious about our story, but no one spoke more than a few words of English and, of course, our Japanese is useless. When we said we lived in Misawa, everyone knew that we were Air Force. Again, they were all convinced that Eric is a pilot and excitedly made lots of airplane noises. They also politely laughed and giggled about Eric's and my inability to sit on our knees or with our legs crossed for the duration of the meal. These 60-80 year olds sat in a single position for the entire meal while Eric and and I shifted approximately 30 times during the same time period. It was a really fun night- and one of the best meals we had on the trip!

After dinner there was not much to do but get some rest, which was fine with us because we really needed it. The room was warm and sleeping on the tatami mats was actually really comfortable. Eric and I fell asleep listening to the rain fall outside and hoping that it would clear up in time for our morning hike to Magome. 

When we woke in the morning, it was still raining outside. We got ready for breakfast and, again, the breakfast knock came promptly at 7:30am. We walked back down to the dining room and when we got to our table, were surprised to see another whole (small) fish sitting on plates in front of us...for breakfast...at 7:30am. After a brief feeling of panic, we collected ourselves and began sampling all the small dishes (another kaiseki style meal). We kept one eye on our fellow diners to see how they conquered the fish. We realized after some time that they had all eaten the whole fish: head, tail, and all. We looked at each other, took deep breaths, and went for it. We opted to leave the heads and tails, but we have to report that the fish was actually quite delicious! It tasted very much like beef jerky! Along with the fish, we had various cold veggie salads, miso soup, rice, sweet egg omelette, pickled radish, and tea. This spread was, of course, unusual for us, but it was surprisingly enjoyable and provided just the sustenance we needed for our morning hike. 

The sky had miraculously cleared sometime between breakfast and packing to leave the ryokan so we set out to finish our hike to Magome. The rest of the trail took us through one of the oldest cedar forests in Japan and past a number of beautiful waterfalls. The morning portion of the hike took us about two hours to complete and was unbelievably beautiful! Along the way we encountered lots of nature and signs of nature. There were bells all along the trail with signs posted on them that read, "Ring the bell hard Against Bears." We also learned that the information centers encourage hikers to rent hand-held bells to ring while they walk. We did not have personal bells so we took every opportunity to ring the collective ones loudly. I came across a place (in the middle of nowhere Japan) where I could recycle the empty water bottles and coffee cans we were dragging around. As I approached it I said, "hey, Eric, there is some kinda bee on this thing!" Eric responded (frantically) not to go near it because it was not in fact a bee, but a Japanese giant hornet, which is apparently the most lethal animal in Japan in terms of number of kills per year! I of course felt it necessary to recycle my recyclables anyway and survived my close call with mother nature. We had another close call later on as we crossed a little brook. We heard a noise to which Eric responded, "well, excuse you." I asked what the noise was, to which he responded, "just a little gurgley burbley." I told him I didn't think that quite explained it and a second later we heard lots of hissing and growling. We didn't stick around to inquire, we ran down the hill away from the brook.

Karate in the waterfalls. What can I say? We couldn't resist!

A few minutes later, we came upon a clearing with a few houses. As we walked past one of the buildings, a man ran out of it and said, "stop, please come in, please come in!" He explained to us that we had made it to the oldest functional tea house on the trade route. He said that travelers had been enjoying tea in this house for over 300 years. We told him that people had been drinking tea in that tea house longer than our country had been a country. That was a pretty wild fact to wrap our heads around! He invited us to sit and enjoy a cup of tea and some candy. He spoke English very well and told us about the history of the trail, the building, and asked all kinds of questions about where we were from. 

Here are some shots of the sites we saw along the way: 

It was foggy, but you can kind of see the snow caps peeking through here.

Right before walking into Magome, we hiked up out of the valley and onto an incredible vista point. It was extremely overcast and cloudy, but breathtakingly beautiful nonetheless. The town of Magome was a lot like Tsumago; full of houses and little shops where people sold their handicrafts. Common crafts from the area included wood work, textiles, and baskets. It had been a nice morning temperature wise, but by the time we got to Magome the sun had hidden behind the clouds and it felt like the temperature had dropped a number of degrees. We were really feeling the cold! Especially me in my capri pants... We popped into a soba noodle house for lunch and to warm up. I had hot soba noodles and Eric had a kaiseki style lunch. When we finished lunch, we went back out to explore more, but after only an hour or so were so cold we decided it was time for a cup of something hot and some dessert. Eric had matcha, I had cocoa, and we shared matcha cake. It was all delicious and we ate it as slowly as possible so that we could stay inside for as long as possible.  

After our warm drinks and dessert, we made our way to the bus stop to wait for our ride into the big town where we would catch the train for the next leg of our journey.

We both consider the two days we spent in Kiso Valley a highlight of the trip. We love hiking and being outdoors and we got to do both of those things in one of the most beautiful parts of the world either of us has ever seen. Kiso Valley seems a little off the beaten path for the standard tourist of Japan, but it is definitely worth consideration for any nature lover or lover of history. We feel very fortunate to have been able to see it with our own eyes!

Next stop: Takayama.