Day 8 - Nojiri to Kiso Fukushima

We started today with our first proper Japanese breakfast which was full of unfamiliar dishes but still very yummy, and included frying our own egg over a burner.

We then checked out of the onsen and left our packs at reception in preparation for a quick hike into Atera Gorge, meeting Ijima San who delivered our postcards to us. Talk about service!!

Turns out there was no shuttle bus running to the gorge (out of season, I assume) so we hoofed it the 10 mins to the entrance and then walked along the road that follows the river up the gorge to reach the centre. At that point, there was a track that crossed over the river via a suspension bridge and a path that leads up into the hills. It was a very pleasant walk, albeit I was very glad I had my walking sticks, especially for the down hill return part of the loop. Then we walked all the way back to the onsen again. All up it was a beautiful walk, if not a little bit on the chilly side when the wind caught us.

At the onsen, we grabbed our bags and walked the 2.5 kms into Nojiri proper to catch the 12.30 train to Kiso Fukushima, our stop for tonight. Luckily, we had time for a quick and very welcome cafe latte at a tiny coffee shop run by a lady who welcomed us warmly and even gave us a little hand decorated, carved wooden souvenir to remember the cafe by.

Then it was back to the station to catch the train. Thankfully we ended up on the right platform and only tried to get on at the wrong door for a minute or two before all the locals showed us the error of our ways...

In Kiso Fukushima we put our packs in the station lockers, where we were not allowed to store any dead bodies (party poopers), and headed out to explore the town. We first stopped for another warming coffee, and then heading to Tommy's coffee roastery just before it closed for the day, and drank yet another coffee. Buzzing!!!

Then we walked to a very underwhelming temple to look at a very small zen garden and the dead centre of town. People had been dying to get in there for centuries.

This was followed by a visit to a public footbath (41 degrees!) for a relax before going back to the station to wait for the hotel bus to collect us at 4.30pm.

Nukumorino-yado Komanoyu is another onsen hotel and quite flash. They offered a private onsen experience so we didn't have to mix with the plebs this time. That was followed by another huge multi-course dinner. Good thing we didn't eat lunch!!

The hotel runs a nightly star gazing experience for free, so we took them up on this offer and spent a chilly 30 or so mins on the top of a hill behind the hotel (after a 10 min bus ride), having different stars and constellations being pointed out to us with a nifty laser pointer. Fortunately, no planes were harmed in the making of our evening's entertainment. It was apparently about -5 degrees and felt like the arctic circle....

Back in our room now trying to warm up enough to go to bed....Leer más