Buddhist Baptism, Shinto Stairs and Scrumptious Soba in Togakushi

We woke up, bleary-eyed and not ready to move at about 5:30. With the morning service at Zenkouji set to start at 5:53, I figured we'd stay in bed. I figured wrong.

Early, windy, a bit rainy, early

All the tourists stayed for the first portion of the service. I confess, I had no idea what was going on, and spent most of the time checking out the interior of the temple and enjoying the chanting, which had some neat quarter tones and a bit of that double-voice singing (singing two pitches at once). They had an enormous taiko drum in the back that I was hoping someone would whack at least once, but sadly, that didn't happen. What did happen was that, after some time, we were shuffled from the viewing area to the front of the temple, told to kneel as the high muckymuck form the temple came around and smacked us on the head with prayer beads. I think I was baptized...

All in all, it was an interesting experience. I'd have sat there to listen to the chanting all morning, but no one else stayed (except those actually attending the service, you know, as Buddhists), so we wandered out to the only open shop in Nagano at 6:30am

Well, that's helpful, Sean...what is it?

A koiyaki shop. What is koiyaki? Well, the Japanese have a wonderful treat called taiyaki, which is basically a fluffy pastry filled with red bean paste that is baked in the shape of a red sea bream,

or tai in Japanese. Yaki means bake, or cook, so it's basically called "bream bake". OK, that sounds disgusting, but the pastry is delicious. Koiyaki, is exclusive to the Nagano prefecture. As the store owner put it,

the store owner

Nagano is pretty far from the ocean, and so no one catches sea bream in Nagano, so they decided to make something they have. Koi. Koi, by the way, are carp. Pretty, colorful carp that are traditionally kept in garden ponds and moats, kind of like huge fishbowls.

Not only did they change the shape to koi,  they replaced the red bean paste with a local specialty, hanamame, which, literally translated, means Flower Bean. The plant where the beans come from flower quite nicely, and have large, sweet beans.

They look like soy beans on steroids

We had them on our first trip to Japan, and loved them, though I though at the time, they looked like they could have been large beetles. In any case, they are sweeter than azuki (red bean paste), with more of a nutty flavor, more like pecans or walnuts. So, I give you, koiyaki.

Japanese presentation

Koiyaki! Absolutely delicious

After that healthy breakfast, we made our way back to the hostel to shower, pack up and head back into the mountains. On the way, we saw a few inari (Shinto fox gods) depicted doing traditional Nagano activities.

Like eating soba. Soba is everywhere in this area

With prayer beads, waiting to smack unsuspecting tourists over the head with

We got moving, after a "real" breakfast from the konbini, and within three miles, were already 200m above the city and climbing.

It was cool, overcast and beautiful cycling weather. After about an hour and a half, we reached the top, and traveled through a fairly recently made national park

which was essentially the forest on top of the mountain, now with campgrounds. Very nice, scenic ride, and short. This was our shortest day of the trip (~20 miles), mostly because there's nothing else close by. The next destination, Yanaba, is another full day's ride away, As a result, we pulled into Togakushi quite early (1pm). We couldn't check in until 3pm, so we decided to get some lunch.

Now, I had mentioned soba noodles were big in this area. Well, every and I mean every hotel, inn, hostel, woodworking shop and insurance company in this city also sold soba. Every building had a sign advertising their soba. Well, half of them were open, some of them were insanely expensive ($100+ per plate) and there was nothing else to eat. No other restaurants. If you stay in Togakushi, you eat soba. We had no idea where to go, so, being hip, modern tourists, we consulted Yelp, keeper of all gastronomical wisdom, who pointed us to a little shop just south of where we were staying.

Futsuyado

Cozy little place with about 8 tables

The soba was delicious. We're always concerned about the broth they serve soba in, because it can range from no fish to half the ocean, and if you ask if it has fish in it, they'll say no (because they didn't chop up fish and throw it in). I had Mushroom Soba, while Sumi had Tempura Soba. Both were vegetable-based broths with a tiny bit of bonito added, but mostly drowned out by the other flavors. The noodles were firm and tasty. Good job, Yelp-san.

We made our way to our hotel,, Oshi Ryokan and wow! We were the only guests tonight, and they upgraded us to a larger room.

Did I say room? I meant apartment

We had a foyer, a balcony and a large bathroom (not shown).
This is seriously larger than some apartments in Tokyo.

After admiring out room and cleaning up, we walked outside to the Togakushi Shrine. We chose Oshi Ryokan because it was literally across the street from the shrine. This is a very old shrine, with some legends dating back to 210 BC. Verified records show it being present at least since 849. It's actually a collection of shrines built into the side of Mt. Togakushi.

Hoo boy, they love their stairs

A view from the top

This is a newer building. Notice the same "imagined elephants"
here as seen in Nikko at Tosshogu.

Beautiful lacquered windowed doors inside

Stone lanterns were being lit as we left. The big trees surrounding
this area are over 800 years old

We saw just the lower shrine. There is a middle shrine about 2km up the mountain, and the upper shrine another 2km past that. We had no idea it was so big, and didn't have time to climb the mountain anyway, but this whole area screams for another trip, to explore all the stuff we passed up on.

Back across the street, we fell into our futons. Tomorrow will be our last day of cycling (sniff), as we head into one last ski resort in Yanaba.

Into Nagano and the Sanada Clan

One of the good things about being on top of a mountain, aside from the view, is that you can only go downhill from there. While this metaphor is often used to describe the fall of greatness or whatever, I'm being literal. We've done so much climbing into the mountains the last several days, today, the only way we can go is down.

We started out by reassembling the trailers for the first time since last Monday...so we could roll them to the nearest 7-11 and ship them once again! Not because of today, but the next two days are all uphill again. I would almost feel like it was cheating, but after seeing the roads they have up here, we wouldn't fit on the previously mentioned sidewalks, on the shoulders in the tunnels or even the sides of the roads with our trailers. That and they are heavy. Anyway, we coasted into town, shipped our trailers to our final cycling destination, Yanaba, got some breakfast and off we went, down to Nagano.

A perfect day for cycling. Notice the ski slopes on the left.

Nagano or bust

Still some snow for the determined skier.

All of the other descents we've made this trip have been fairly relaxing. We don't pedal for half an hour and roll down the mountain, feeling the wind in our hair and enjoying the rewards of our labor. This one was a bit more intense.

That's a lot of turns...

The ride down Myotokusan, the mountain we were on, was steep, the switchbacks were very sharp and very numerous, and the road was narrow. Some places it narrowed to one wide lane. It was also as long as any we'd done. Going down took full concentration and shaved a good year of life off of our brakes. I was forced to stop twice on the way down to rest my hands, I was squeezing the brakes so hard and so often. The other rides down we were enjoying gravity. This one we were fighting against it. It was a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, just not in the same relaxing way the others had been.

After about 40 minutes of working our way down the mountain, the descent opened up into a small town, where it leveled off a slight amount and we were able to see the Nagano valley.

After this, it was an easy ride into Nagano proper. The 20km ride took about 90 minutes, including our stops to rest our hands, so it was still morning. We couldn't check in until 4pm, so we decided to take a day trip into the small town of Matsushiro to visit a historical area. But we weren't going to bike there. We needed a break. So we headed to Nagano Station.

A very modern station in the middle of a pretty sleepy city. Today being Sunday, everyone was out doing things, but only downtown, from the looks of it. And it seems everyone rides their bikes to the station. Why do I say that?

Four rows that stretched for almost 1/4 mile of parked bikes.
We took this picture so we could find ours when we got back!
Can you spot them?

I'd never seen that many bikes parked in one spot, even in Tokyo. We found some coin lockers in the station and stowed our backpacks so we could actually travel light for a little while.

These are all the city mascots of Nagano Prefecture.
Each locker had a different mascot on it.

We hopped on a bus that, after half an hour of very stop-and-go traffic, brought us to the small town of Matsushiro, home of the ancient Sanada clan, big players in the Warring States period or Japan, and one of the more powerful families up to the Meiji Restoration. They also have a main character in the Samurai Warriors video game series. Of course.

There were four different attractions we were interested in. The ruins of Sanada Castle, which were right outside the station.

Restoration completed in 2010

Much of the foundation was still intact, but fire destroyed the main buildings

After that, we walked over to the very well preserved Sanada residence, an excellent example of a wealthy family's compound in the pre-Meiji era. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but there was a smaller home that had a similar feel we were able to photograph. It was very impressive.

The outside of the Sanada residence

Inside, rooms were separated by sliding wall panels that could open up into
a larger area, or partition rooms.

The Sanada residence had many more rooms, some not connected to the main structure

There was also a porch area overlooking the garden.

After the residence, we went to the Samurai School. Yes, there really was a samurai school.

Several large dojos for martial arts training

They also learned literature, poetry and art. They were cultured, well-rounded
guys with sharp swords

The main building was huge, allowing for many classes to occur at the same time

And an archery area. The targets are stored inside

and brought out here for practice

Sword practice demo in one of the dojos. There was more posing and bowing than sparring.

Finally we went to the Sanada Treasure House Museum, where there was a lot of historical stuff, some of it very interesting. Unfortunately, very little was in English, and we're not that well versed in historical kanji, so we missed some stuff, especially in the letters and writings. No pictures of the exhibits allowed, but there was a nice diorama of the whole area at the entrance.

We hopped on the bus to head back to Nagano, stopping at a Coco Curry House for lunch. We had to, The bus stop was literally at the front door of the restaurant. It was fate. Afterwards, we walked back to the station, grabbed all our gear, picked up our rail passes, reserved our Shinkansen seats for the ride back to Tokyo on Thursday, somehow found our bikes and set off in search of the hostel we were staying at.

1166 Backpackers is a full on hostel, with dorm rooms as well as private rooms. Nana-san greeted us and was very helpful with recommendations for things to do and see in Nagano, and marked some on a map for us. The hostel was nice and clean, if cheap. Pleasant mix of people, free coffee and tea, good wifi.

1166 main lounge. 

After cleaning up and getting settled in, we took a walk down to the 7-11 to get a snack (no full dinner needed after Coco Curry) and passed a few interesting shops.

A cat-art store that was closed for the evening, but had some pretty neat art outside

A specialty ice cream shop that used vegetables to enhance the ice cream

Did you expect any less?

The ice cream was really good. I had Honey and Nuts (real honey, amazing) and Sumi had some berry combination that was also quite good. They had some interesting looking stuff, yes with vegetables.

If you look, you'll find some with tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, etc

Back to the hostel, Sean spends the next three hours finishing homework in the lounge, Sumi goes to bed. We have to be up early tomorrow morning for a 5:53am Buddhist morning service at Zenkouji Temple. We'll see how that goes...