Central Japan Tour Day 7

Fujifilm X100VI 23mm f/2: 19mm (Wide Angle Adapter) 1/1000s, f/4, ISO3200

This was the day the cold actually started because the weather started to turn and we started exploring more mountain areas, but more on that in a bit. We started the day with a Japanese-style breakfast at the hotel. One notable thing here was the restaurant was on the top floor instead of on the lobby level like most or our other hotels, so the panoramic views through the windows were eye-catching, and the natural light was much appreciated by me.

Our first stop on this day was the Kitamae-bune Kaisen Wholesale Street where we took a tour through the former Baba residence, a mansion owned by a prosperous boat trader moving the best Japan Rice up North to Hokkaido in exchange for goods to trade/sell back in Honshu during the Edo and Meiji periods. We were asked to remove our shoes prior to entering due the tatami flooring. Compared to other historic house sites we visited, this one had very modern plumbing and fixtures!

Next up was lunch at the Minamoto Masunosushi museum I think? Here we tried the local specialty masuzushi, a Musubi-like construction of the local trout pressed on to a bed of vinegar-rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. Post-lunch we were able to walk around the area to learn and watch the process of making masuzushi, which was pretty neat!

Then we arrived at Kurobe Gorge which was, by far, my biggest hilight of the trip. As you can see in the photos below, the weather had turned wet. I think this actually added more to the experience as we were in the mountains and the clouds were low amongst the colorful trees. We clung to the awning-covered areas to stay dry and followed the lines of visitors to the trains. Some carts were sealed from the weather, but ours were open-air which gave us unobstructed photographic opportunities. The train ride was a wet, cold, 1-hour trek in then a reverse 1-hour-ride back out, and thank goodness for that. It was impossible to know where the scenic spots were and what side of train to see them on, so getting two chances was very necessary. Despite being a 2-hour round trip, the train kept a pretty good pace and made just a few, very-short stops that weren’t at the most scenic of spots, so nearly all of the photos were snapped in bursts along the route in “spray and pray” mode. Nearly all of views (save for the bridge) were on the “wrong” side for me on the way in, and I missed the bridge on the way in because I suspected all the nice stuff was on the “wrong” side so I didn’t catch it until it was too late. The train made one long stop at the reverse point where we could use the portable restrooms and climb the “observatory” structure to view a waterfall. The Wooden observation area was very tiny, and 20-ish train-cars worth of people all wanted to see the view so there was no time to set up a tripod. On the way back I remembered where the bridge was so I swapped sides for that part. My dad was getting very cold on the out-ward bound trip, so Mom and I tried to squeeze him in the middle to keep him warm, and one of the tour members, Kay Shoji (I think?), was kind enough to lend him gloves for the remainder of the ride! As we got to the end of the ride, I saw some monkeys! luckily, one of my photos (the title photo) happened to catch one of them in a tree, but we passed by them so fast that not everyone in our group was able to see them. I wish the train could make more frequent stops along the way so we could really soak in the scenery, but, alas the Japanese are nothing but efficient in allowing folks to enjoy the ride.

Our last stop before dinner was the Aimono Kombu House, a little shop that had prepared for us with warm kombu tea samples and had a wide range of the seaweed derived product. The tea was amazing after our cold adventure, so of course we had to buy a lot of that. I was particularly attracted to the seasoning. Each time one of the group discovered something, there was a run on that thing until there were none left! After our shopping spree, the shop ladies waved until our bus was out of sight.

I failed to capture dinner photos on this evening, so that wraps up Day 7!