Memorial Day Weekend - Bonfire, Tateyama-Kurobe Route, Chichibu

We started the summer off in a big way this Memorial Day weekend. Friday night our Branch held a bonfire/hot dog roast near the Sagami river. It's only about a 5 min drive from Camp Zama. We had a great time, although many people commented on how strange it felt to be doing a campfire with cars and trucks zooming along major roadways right above us.

We have a new member in the Branch who is from Hawaii. He told us he hasn't come to church for 20 years, but he wants to start coming again! It's been great to have him in our Branch, and lucky for us his sister and niece were in town visiting this weekend. They showed up with an ukulele and pan of spam musubi and were the life of the party! 

One of the sister missionaries who is serving in our Branch is from New Zealand, although she is Samoan. Between her and the Hawaiians we had quite the Island Vibe going on!

 

Saturday morning we went on a tour with MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) to see the Snow Corridor on Mt Tateyama in Toyama Prefecture. We met at 4am(!) for the 4 hour bus ride to Ogizawa Station in Nagano Prefecture. From that point on there is no "private" transportation allowed.

The first leg of the trek is an electric tolleybus that takes about 10 minutes through a tunnel in the mountain. Then you arrive at Kurobe Dam (the tallest dam in Japan). The next leg is to walk about 15 minutes to the Kurobeko Station where you get on a cable car with a 33% incline! The cable car takes only about 5 minutes. At the end of the cable car is Kurobedaria Station. At this station is the boundary between Nagano Prefecture and Toyama prefecture. For the fourth leg of the journey you get on a ropeway gondola that has NO support pole between the top and bottom, just hanging cable. That brings you to Daikanbo Station where you get on one more electric tolleybus through the mountain to arrive at Murodo Station. (The route can be continued down the other side of the mountain, but our tour just went to the top and back down the same way) 

Once we got to the top (about 10,000 feet) we were free to walk through the snow corridor and hike around the trails (although they were all still mostly snow covered). We noticed several groups of people dressed in ski clothes and carrying their skis. We realized they were HIKING up the slope in order to ski down! That is a crazy amount of hard work - the slopes are steep up there! We saw that some of them had the special fabric on the bottoms of the skis that make is so the skis will not slide backwards. I guess they put the skis on and penguin step up?!

There is a lodge/hotel at the top as well as an onsen. The onsen is fed by natural geothermal hot springs (stinky egg smell like Yellowstone). After hiking and eating our lunch, we enjoyed a nice soak with a view of the steam coming up from the ground below. Very relaxing!

This is view from the back of the electric trollybus - the lights are the bus right behind us in the tunnel.

Kurobe Dam - very impressive!

View from the lookout above the dam.

Climbing up the stairs preparing to board the cable car.

Views from Kurobedaria

You can see the ropeway we are about to get on behind Kimball.

Looking down at the ropeway between Kurobedaria and Daikanbo

Views from Daikanbo and the boundary between Nagano and Toyama Prefectures

Finally arrived at the top - Murodo Station to walk along the Snow Corridor. This opened over a month ago and we understand the walls are currently half the height they were when the corridor first opened. But it was still amazing to see!

View of the lodge at the top and hiking around the area.

Frozen lake down below to the left.

We stopped for lunch. If you zoom in to 200% you can see small specks off to the left of Kimball. Those are some people hiking up the slope in order to ski down.

Geothermal steam rising up from the valley below.

Rock ptarmigans live up at the top but are somewhat rare to see. We happened to come across one just sitting on a fence post.

Specialty soft serve is a big thing in Japan. For some reason "Black ice cream" was the specialty for Murodo. It was pretty good - chocolate. But after I finished it I recognized the other flavor - mocha.

Took this pic from the bus window as we drove home. Its rice planting season in Japan and everywhere you look there are flooded fields of new rice. It's hard to see from this picture, but the fields are COMPLETELY FLAT and water is perfectly reflective -  like a mirror, reflecting the scenery around it. Very beautiful!

We got back to Camp Zama around 8pm Saturday night and before collapsing into bed, we packed for our trip to visit cousin Kenichi and his wife Sheziko in Chichibu. Dad kicked off the day with Branch Presidency meeting at 7am, we left for church at 8am and I spoke in sacrament meeting at 9am. After church we changed clothes and drove to Chichibu, arriving at 2pm (Sunday traffic is always killer).

Cousin Ken met us at our hotel and he and Shezuko took us on a whirlwind tour of Chichbu. It's a lovely place about 2 hours north-ish of Tokyo. The thing we couldn't get over is how GREEN it is. 

Just crazy GREEN! 

Our first stop was to take in the view of Chichbu from a look out point in a park Kenichi and Shizuko like to walk in - Muse Park. We stopped at few more looks out points along the way - all very lovely! 

Next we visited Urayama Dam. The first sign we saw said it was the 2nd largest dam in Japan and we were thinking - Wow we have hit #1 and #2 in two days. But then later we saw another sign that had been revised and Urayama is now the 6th largest dam in Japan as others have been built. But this dam was still very impressive. It took over 20 years to build it.

Kenichi and Shezuko took us to see terraced rice fields. We were surprised to see people working to plant the rice by hand. Sometimes it is done by hand but there is a machine that is used to do it most of the time.

Next we went back to their house for some light refreshments. They have such a lovely home! Shezuko loves flowers and  other plants and has so many beautiful plants by the front door.

The refreshments were almost too pretty to eat. Local strawberries, pineapple from Thailand (so sweet it was like candy), special black beans, a shrimp cracker, and dango in a banana leaf.  What a treat!

As were were driving around earlier, Kenichi and Shezuko were telling us about one of Shezuko's hobbies - making clay flowers. It was hard to imagine what they were describing so when we got to their house they showed us some of the arrangements she has made. Incredible - they look exactly like real flowers - all made by hand and then painted and arranged in beautiful vases.

Several years ago Kenichi and Shezuko lived in Malaysia. They have a unique and impressive collection of wood carvings from their time there. 

After our visit to their home, the next stop was to a field of poppies. Stunning! We couldn't quite understand the reason these poppies are planted here, but our best understanding is that they are just planted to be enjoyed as part of the beauty of the area.

Next we visited Chichibu Shrine. This shrine was recently refurbished and is looking very good! The colors are super sharp and the details just pop. (btw, this shrine is one of the oldest in Japan and has been at this spot for over 2100 years!) The artist who did many of the carvings (Hidari Jingoro) is the same person who did the carving at Toshogu Shrine in Nikko. He did the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys at Toshogu, but at Chichibu the monkeys are the the opposite, "hear good, see good, speak good". 

We learned that visiting the shrine is said to bring many blessings - academic success, familial safety, and prosperity for one's descendants. You're welcome! 

We next went to a wonderful local restaurant for dinner, Myoken. Dad and Kenichi each ordered the BBQ eel (unagi) and Shezuko and I ordered the Chirashi. They also brought us an appetizer of dried eel bones. Very crispy and salty - like chips. But it was hard to get over the idea of crunching fish bones.

After dinner we stopped by a place that is famous in the Springtime (April) for its fields of "cherry grass". Now the season is ended but next year....

Stock photo of how this area looks when the grass is in bloom

And our final stop was to take in the night view of Chichibu. As we looked out over the city we realized  that during our tour we had circled the entire valley, getting views from every side! What a great day.

Monday morning we had a Japanese breakfast before heading out. Japanese breakfast is a different mixture of items than a US breakfast, but I've found I like it. All the different-sized tiny dishes are my favorite part!

Dad ate Nato for his breakfast (fermented soybeans - very stinky and slimy and not good, in my opinion). But, it's the traditional breakfast food and also very good for you. I just can't do it.

We left Chichibu and headed for Hatonosu Gorge. Of course we had to visit another dam to keep our streak going - this time it was Shiromaru Dam. There is a fish ladder next to the dam but the observatory for the fish is only open on weekends right now. Come summer we may have to go back to see the fish swimming up the ladder. The hike through the gorge was beautiful - again our overall impression was GREEN, GREEN, GREEN!

Our final stop was to see Mito Bridge. This bridge crosses over a part of Lake Oku-tama. It's amazing that this area is relatively close to Tokyo (maybe 90 min by car) and yet so rural and uncrowded.