Let’s go to Kamikochi!

September 29, 2012-

I sure hope you all got some rest last night.  Yesterday evening turned out to be a little more eventful than what we'd anticipated.  ;-) 

Our room on the 39th floor. Extra bed….no arguing about having TWO children instead of one in one room. Plenty of room in here for the four of us!

The view out our window:

Let's go get some breakfast!  We learned last night that gold status from the Marriott Rewards program has earned us free breakfast at the Concierge Lounge on the 36th floor.  woo hoo!!!!  Make sure you eat a substantial breakfast as we have no idea when or if we'll get lunch today.  

Two girls happily chowing down on some breakfast.

A lovely looking buffet (okay….this is only half of the buffet). The BEST and flakiest croissants! 🙂

Last night the same kind lady at the hotel desk who helped us get back our suitcase also, very kindly, helped us figured out how to get out to Kamikochi.  We've got one train ride and a bus ride ahead of us.  

 First we need to go buy our train tickets to Matsumoto (where we'll pick up our bus to Kamikochi):

Luckily, the train station is right smack next to the Marriott. Do you know what the Shinkansen is? It's the Japanese bullet train. JR stands for Japanese Railway. You can buy tickets from vending machines but as we're since we're at a slight disadvantage not knowing the system or being able to read Japanese we just made it easier on ourselves by purchasing our train tickets from the ticketing office.  

*****

Before I go any further…let me say this.  We never, ever expect people in other countries that we've traveled to speak English to us.  We try very hard with what little we know of the language and hope for the best. So, it came as a complete and very pleasant surprise how much English the Japanese people spoke.  And even better was how nice and genuinely helpful they were.  Even complete strangers were kind and helpful! 

*****

How about a Starbucks break before we catch the train?  After a late night I think we need some more caffeine!

Don't laugh…but I had to ask if they had any pumpkin spice lattes. Sigh. I'm sure you can guess the answer: no. LOL! I'll take a regular latte anyway.  

 Waiting for our train to arrive!  First stop is Matsumoto!!

Maybe you can decipher this board:

I most certainly can't decipher this board!

Are you ready for a train ride through the Japanese country side?

We saw lots of stacks of hay? rice? not sure drying on racks.

Some people checked out for a few hours. 😉

We passed by many beautiful hills and villages. Many homes were in the typical Asian style (I'm not sure what you call it). Even more impressive- no trash, no layer of dirt or filth covering the buildings or parked cars. We passed by so many little plots of land that had been turned into sweet little vegetable and flower gardens.

Hey!  We're in Matsumoto!  Time to go find our next mode of transportation.  Ah!  Thank goodness we've found a kind person to help us.  Apparently we need to buy tickets from this vending machine:

The helpful person explained that we first need to travel by railway and then by bus.  The tickets cover both the rail and bus journey.  

Matsumoto electric railway station

On the little Matsumoto Electric Railway heading towards Shin-Shimashima

And now it's time to get on the bus!

Bus stop at Shin-Shimashima Station

Go ahead! Hop on the bus!

Find a seat. We've got ours.

Views from the bus: 

mountains and rivers with clean water

We're definitely going up ….and I can see some jagged peaks off in the distance.  Oh….and we're going through lots and lots of tunnels!!!  Some of the tunnels were r-e-a-l-l-y looooooooooong.

Some more very pretty scenery:

Check out the funny green guy sign. Is he holding a fishing pole?

Something about this photo… I just love. Oh, and have you noticed….they drive on the "wrong" side of the road here in Japan. 😉

Heading towards Kamikochi!

Look at what we saw along the side of the road:

You probably can't tell what we're looking at….we saw some MONKEYS!

 Hey!  Only 1+ hours bus ride later…. Welcome to Kamikochi!

Breath-taking mountains!!!  

How did we hear about this little place in the Japanese alps?  I first saw it on a random pin on Pinterest with a gorgeous photo of Kamikochi over the summer.  

Want to learn more about Kamikochi?  Look here and here for more information. 

Breathe deepily!  The air here is crisp and clean.  I wish we could bottle up this air and take it with us.  

Well, we'd better go find our inn…. hey!  I think I've found it:

Okay, it's time for us to check-in!  I'll show you the inn in the next post. Stay tuned!!!