Autumn & Onsens

Woof! A long time since the last blog. I must be slacking. My excuse is I've been enthralled with the Japanese Autumn. That'll have to do.



This month the sun has still been lovely and warm but the mornings and nights have been rather cold. This in turn gives the prefect opportunity for onsens! The one in Takamori is one of my favourites and offers great views of the Shimoina area and the Minami Alps. The pics in this blog are a couple I'm taken there.

Shimoina Footy

Despite Saturday being a dreary and rainy day, I headed out to Takamori to watch my school's football team play a couple of teams from Iida. It surprised me that our entire team were ichninensei's (first years), while the other teams were playing sannensei's (third years), but I suppose there's no rule against what age teams are played against eachother.

The first match we won 1-0, but the rain came down, the pitch got muddier, and then my boys had to face the top team in the Shimoina area. They fought bravely but were outmatched and beaten 5-0. Despite the rain and the score they remained cheerfully upbeat, and I managed to get a few pictures huddled under the team tent.

Sports Day

Last Saturday was the Shimoina area sports tournament. All schools in the area compete across a range of sports including football, table tennis, Japanese archery, Kendo, basketball, baseball, etc etc. The various sports took part across many schools, so I chose to visit Takamori for table tennis, then return to my school for football.



My schools football team consisted of three 3rd years in defense, the rest were 1st years. The team was awesome to watch, and kicked a local team 3-0 in their first match.

The girlfriend has landed!

Yikes, almost 4 weeks since the last post! Ok, I have a good excuse, my girlfriend came to visit for a couple of weeks. We spent a couple of nights in Tokyo in the Kadoya hotel in Shinjuku. It was a bit expensive, but then again not too bad for Tokyo. And of course completely worth it to show her around the city.

We then headed back to my place in Nagano, had dinner with my friends here, then a day later hopped on a bus to Kyoto for a couple of nights. We stayed at a really neat hostel just south of the station (J-Hoppers). The price was pretty good and the hostel quiet, clean and friendly. We saw the tourist bits (ginkakuji, kinkakuji, nijo jo, imperial gardens) and also took a wander along the philosophers path, which I hadn't done before. We happened to walk past a Geisha house and saw one being dressed (!) through the doorway. I decided to leave the camera in it's bag.

We also took a walk down the canal (surrounded by neon restaurant signs and weeping willow trees) and through the narrow backstreets that I think give Kyoto it's charming quality. After being fleeced for a really small and really expensive meal we found an awesome sushi bar along the canal and fed our faces for half the price of the previous meal.

After Kyoto we visited some places around the area in which I live, including "my" lake and a lovely mountain-viewing area called Shirabiso Kogen. We ate there and spent the day sat out reading, playing guitar (on a mountain, yes!!) and taking pictures.

Around the Shimoina area we sampled many of my favourite restaurants and eateries and generally spent time relaxing in the beautiful weather around the lake and local parks. Bliss!

But alas she is now back in Australia continuing her tour of it and Asia. Hopefully I can tempt her back before the end of the year...

Tenryu river

After getting back from my second Taiko performance this morning I realised I looked not unlike a big hairy dog, so headed out to get my mane cut. It was (is) a beautiful day here in the Shimoina area and I decided to take a few pics of one of my favourite places here on the way back from the hairdressers. Oddly, it's a big metal bridge coated in peeling orange paint - hardly the most picturesque feature in this area. I like it because every time I drive across it (which is often, as it connects my village to the city) I can look north and south along the river, and regardless of weather it is always really beautiful. The sun was shining, the wind was crisp, and the faint smell of woodsmoke was on the air. It was a nice moment.