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After the magnificent crapulence of the Kawasaki Toyoko Inn breakfast yesterday, Charlotte and I didn't even bother going down this morning. Instead Veronica came to our room and did the majority of packing, and then took Angela and Isabelle down, while Charlotte and I stayed upstairs to pack the remainder of the electronics, and carry the bags downstairs.
When we left, I skillfully managed to lock the key in the room, which made it a fun conversation at the front desk later when they asked me to hand the key back. After about a minute of making gestures of closing a door and showing them my empty hands, and pointing in the direction of our room, I think they either understood that I'd either locked the key in the room, or lost my mind. Either way they seemed to accept that as a valid reason why I wasn't handing the key back, and I was allowed to leave.
Charlotte and I browsed the web on the lobby computers to plan today's journey, while Veronica and the other 2 girls finished their breakfast, but before too long we were off. We didn't get far, because the best bread shop in the world, Vie De France, strangely interrupted our progress by forcing us to stop, go inside and purchase bread products to eat later on the Shinkansen to Nagano.
A few stops on an uncomfortably crowded local train from Kawasaki to Tokyo, and then we had our tickets booked for the Shinkansen to Nagano.
While on the platform at Tokyo station waiting for the Shinkansen Charlotte pointed out the coolest vending machine I'd ever seen in my life. Instead of actual bottles visible to select from, the vending machine simply had a giant touchscreen. When not in use the machine displayed news, weather, as well as information about the products contained within the machine, and when touched, the machine offered up advertisements and nutritional information about the product you'd selected. I guess a giant touchscreen was a natural progression for the humble mechanical vending machine, but I still thought it was pretty damn cool.
For the Shinkansen journey, again we could only book 4 tickets, since we only have 4 rail passes, so we tried our luck with an unreserved carriage, and since the train was starting its trip from Tokyo station, we got the pick of the seats. I think this was actually the least crowded I've seen a Shinkansen. We could have had a row each if we'd wanted it, but we settled for 2 rows to ourselves, spread out, and relaxed.
Heading from Tokyo to Nagano, the scenery gradually got hillier and hillier, and appeared to get much colder outside. Before too long the cityscapes of Tokyo and Nagoya changed into vistas of snow covered villages in rural towns who's names I can't remember, or in some cases even pronounce.
With the snow falling outside, and the Shinkansen's climate control turned up to around 45 degrees celcius, the cart service came around offering hot coffee, hot teas and hot soups. The girl was honestly stunned when the group of Aussie tourists down the back of the carriage ordered ice-creams.
Flustered, she obviously wasn't prepared for such a request, because apparently nobody orders ice-cream in winter. So with a disgruntled look on her face she left her cart where it was, mid-carriage, and wandered off towards the front of the train. She was gone for quite some time, and I was beginning to suspect that she wasn't coming back, but she eventually returned carrying a bunch of ice-cream tubs for us. I was tempted to ask for an extra one to make her walk back and get it, but we were only 30 minutes from Nagano at the time, so she might not have made it back in time.
Before long, on what I think was the most relaxed Shinkansen journey I've ever been on, we finished the 105 minute journey from Tokyo, and pulled into Nagano station.
Wandering through the station, probably not surprisingly there was the highest ratio of foreigners to locals than I'd seen in all my trips to Japan. Also not surprisingly, every one of said foreigners, except for us, spoke with an American accent, and was carrying a snowboard.
Nagano is a small and peaceful little train station, in comparison to the massive and crowded cities within cities which have been the train stations we have frequented over the last 10 days. We very easily found our way out onto the street, since there are only 2 exits.
I was expecting it to be quite cool. We were in the Japanese alps after all. But still, it was snowing in Miyajima, and it was barely cold enough to warrant a jacket, and when we walked out of the train station it wasn't even snowing. But it was cold. Easily the coldest temperature that this Australian had ever felt up to that point. It would have been lucky if it was more than 0 degrees in the wind, which was blowing down from the mountains to the North West.
After stepping out of a Shinkansen carriage which was set to slowly grill the passengers, this icy wind was quite a shock.
Finding our way to the hotel with no problems, we dropped the bags off, and returned towards the train station in search of a shopping centre, at which to buy some essentials, like gloves, beanies, earmuffs, neck warmers, thermal underpants, etc. Just the essentials that we're going to need to survive the next few days.
We came across a nice looking shopping centre, and took the escalator straight to the second floor to the street. What we thought was a nice looking shopping centre actually turned out to be a 3 story bookshop cleverly masquerading as something interesting. What I actually found curious was, that in the the most technically advanced country on earth, in this age of tablet PCs and e-book readers that a store of this magnitude stocking only hardcopy books would still be a viable venture. But to be honest business was booming. There were lots of people on every floor, all thumbing through books, and I think every one of them stopped reading to stare at the lost Aussie tourists, who obviously couldn't read a word of Japanese, as they walked through the bookstore searching for an exit. We purchased a couple of little items on level 2 just to make it appear like it wasn't a complete accident that we were in there.
So on we trekked, out in search of an actual shopping centre, and we came across the My Town C-One shopping arcade. A small but pleasant place for us to get in out of the cold for a few and hour until our room became available.
Little did I know that this place would have a 100 yen store on the second floor, and since we've had a distinct lack of time to browse 100 yen stores so far, Veronica thought this would be a great opportunity to punish me. So, with much dread, we entered Seria. No, not the wartorn epicentre of unrest in the middle-east, but a much calmer store, where everything costs 105 yen, or around a dollar.
The operators of Seria were either numb or stupid, because it was as hot as the surface of the sun in the store. It made the Shinkansen seem positively comfortable by comparison. 100 yen stores are unpleasant at the best of times, but this one was like shopping for cheap items in a sauna, while wearing a fur coat. It wasn't long before we all started stripping off layers, and I wondered how much I could take off before pushing the boundaries of indecent exposure.
But as hot as it was, you can't really argue with the value. Gloves? 105 yen. Beanies, scarves, neck warmers, thick socks, earmuffs, etc? All 105 yen. For a couple of dollars it may just save some bits of me from dropping off due to hypothermia, so I guess the ordeal was worth it.
We made it out of Seria alive, and after some other rather pointless wanderings throughout the shopping mall, we found ourselves at the starbucks downstairs for a warming coffee (or hot chocolate for the girls) just as it started to snow.
Again, and I've lost count of the number of times on this trip, we were the only idiots sitting outside, while everyone else sat inside looking out at the tourists who had obviously lost their minds. On the contrary, instead of being jammed into a crowded, noisy and overheated coffee shop, we were outside in the crisp mountain air, under cover, watching the snow fall, while drinking our hot drinks, and trying on our new 100 yen goodies to see how well they worked in the cold. I was glad there were seats available outside.
After checking into the room, and doing some mundane tasks like clothes washing, it came time for dinner. We're on the top floor of the hotel, and we'd been watching a decent snow storm roll in, so with the sun gone down, and the temperature now dropped easily below freezing in the wind, I took Charlotte and Angela for a walk back towards the train station, through the lightly falling snow, to the 7/11 for a selection of dishes and sandwiches for dinner. Since the Toyoko Inn rooms have very little room to eat, we made use of the tables, chairs and kitchen facilities in the hotel lobby to heat and eat our meals. Judging by the number of people who did the the exact same thing while we were there, it is a pretty common thing to do.
So all that's left to do for today is plan tomorrow's activities. To be honest I know there is snow monkeys somewhere around here, and I have a feeling that there is a ropeway around here somewhere that is worth taking a look at, but other than that, aside from skiing, and a temple a few kilometers walk from here, I'm not sure what's around here to do. I guess I'm about to find out.
When we left, I skillfully managed to lock the key in the room, which made it a fun conversation at the front desk later when they asked me to hand the key back. After about a minute of making gestures of closing a door and showing them my empty hands, and pointing in the direction of our room, I think they either understood that I'd either locked the key in the room, or lost my mind. Either way they seemed to accept that as a valid reason why I wasn't handing the key back, and I was allowed to leave.
Charlotte and I browsed the web on the lobby computers to plan today's journey, while Veronica and the other 2 girls finished their breakfast, but before too long we were off. We didn't get far, because the best bread shop in the world, Vie De France, strangely interrupted our progress by forcing us to stop, go inside and purchase bread products to eat later on the Shinkansen to Nagano.
A few stops on an uncomfortably crowded local train from Kawasaki to Tokyo, and then we had our tickets booked for the Shinkansen to Nagano.
While on the platform at Tokyo station waiting for the Shinkansen Charlotte pointed out the coolest vending machine I'd ever seen in my life. Instead of actual bottles visible to select from, the vending machine simply had a giant touchscreen. When not in use the machine displayed news, weather, as well as information about the products contained within the machine, and when touched, the machine offered up advertisements and nutritional information about the product you'd selected. I guess a giant touchscreen was a natural progression for the humble mechanical vending machine, but I still thought it was pretty damn cool.
For the Shinkansen journey, again we could only book 4 tickets, since we only have 4 rail passes, so we tried our luck with an unreserved carriage, and since the train was starting its trip from Tokyo station, we got the pick of the seats. I think this was actually the least crowded I've seen a Shinkansen. We could have had a row each if we'd wanted it, but we settled for 2 rows to ourselves, spread out, and relaxed.
Heading from Tokyo to Nagano, the scenery gradually got hillier and hillier, and appeared to get much colder outside. Before too long the cityscapes of Tokyo and Nagoya changed into vistas of snow covered villages in rural towns who's names I can't remember, or in some cases even pronounce.
With the snow falling outside, and the Shinkansen's climate control turned up to around 45 degrees celcius, the cart service came around offering hot coffee, hot teas and hot soups. The girl was honestly stunned when the group of Aussie tourists down the back of the carriage ordered ice-creams.
Flustered, she obviously wasn't prepared for such a request, because apparently nobody orders ice-cream in winter. So with a disgruntled look on her face she left her cart where it was, mid-carriage, and wandered off towards the front of the train. She was gone for quite some time, and I was beginning to suspect that she wasn't coming back, but she eventually returned carrying a bunch of ice-cream tubs for us. I was tempted to ask for an extra one to make her walk back and get it, but we were only 30 minutes from Nagano at the time, so she might not have made it back in time.
Before long, on what I think was the most relaxed Shinkansen journey I've ever been on, we finished the 105 minute journey from Tokyo, and pulled into Nagano station.
Wandering through the station, probably not surprisingly there was the highest ratio of foreigners to locals than I'd seen in all my trips to Japan. Also not surprisingly, every one of said foreigners, except for us, spoke with an American accent, and was carrying a snowboard.
Nagano is a small and peaceful little train station, in comparison to the massive and crowded cities within cities which have been the train stations we have frequented over the last 10 days. We very easily found our way out onto the street, since there are only 2 exits.
I was expecting it to be quite cool. We were in the Japanese alps after all. But still, it was snowing in Miyajima, and it was barely cold enough to warrant a jacket, and when we walked out of the train station it wasn't even snowing. But it was cold. Easily the coldest temperature that this Australian had ever felt up to that point. It would have been lucky if it was more than 0 degrees in the wind, which was blowing down from the mountains to the North West.
After stepping out of a Shinkansen carriage which was set to slowly grill the passengers, this icy wind was quite a shock.
Finding our way to the hotel with no problems, we dropped the bags off, and returned towards the train station in search of a shopping centre, at which to buy some essentials, like gloves, beanies, earmuffs, neck warmers, thermal underpants, etc. Just the essentials that we're going to need to survive the next few days.
We came across a nice looking shopping centre, and took the escalator straight to the second floor to the street. What we thought was a nice looking shopping centre actually turned out to be a 3 story bookshop cleverly masquerading as something interesting. What I actually found curious was, that in the the most technically advanced country on earth, in this age of tablet PCs and e-book readers that a store of this magnitude stocking only hardcopy books would still be a viable venture. But to be honest business was booming. There were lots of people on every floor, all thumbing through books, and I think every one of them stopped reading to stare at the lost Aussie tourists, who obviously couldn't read a word of Japanese, as they walked through the bookstore searching for an exit. We purchased a couple of little items on level 2 just to make it appear like it wasn't a complete accident that we were in there.
So on we trekked, out in search of an actual shopping centre, and we came across the My Town C-One shopping arcade. A small but pleasant place for us to get in out of the cold for a few and hour until our room became available.
Little did I know that this place would have a 100 yen store on the second floor, and since we've had a distinct lack of time to browse 100 yen stores so far, Veronica thought this would be a great opportunity to punish me. So, with much dread, we entered Seria. No, not the wartorn epicentre of unrest in the middle-east, but a much calmer store, where everything costs 105 yen, or around a dollar.
The operators of Seria were either numb or stupid, because it was as hot as the surface of the sun in the store. It made the Shinkansen seem positively comfortable by comparison. 100 yen stores are unpleasant at the best of times, but this one was like shopping for cheap items in a sauna, while wearing a fur coat. It wasn't long before we all started stripping off layers, and I wondered how much I could take off before pushing the boundaries of indecent exposure.
But as hot as it was, you can't really argue with the value. Gloves? 105 yen. Beanies, scarves, neck warmers, thick socks, earmuffs, etc? All 105 yen. For a couple of dollars it may just save some bits of me from dropping off due to hypothermia, so I guess the ordeal was worth it.
We made it out of Seria alive, and after some other rather pointless wanderings throughout the shopping mall, we found ourselves at the starbucks downstairs for a warming coffee (or hot chocolate for the girls) just as it started to snow.
Again, and I've lost count of the number of times on this trip, we were the only idiots sitting outside, while everyone else sat inside looking out at the tourists who had obviously lost their minds. On the contrary, instead of being jammed into a crowded, noisy and overheated coffee shop, we were outside in the crisp mountain air, under cover, watching the snow fall, while drinking our hot drinks, and trying on our new 100 yen goodies to see how well they worked in the cold. I was glad there were seats available outside.
After checking into the room, and doing some mundane tasks like clothes washing, it came time for dinner. We're on the top floor of the hotel, and we'd been watching a decent snow storm roll in, so with the sun gone down, and the temperature now dropped easily below freezing in the wind, I took Charlotte and Angela for a walk back towards the train station, through the lightly falling snow, to the 7/11 for a selection of dishes and sandwiches for dinner. Since the Toyoko Inn rooms have very little room to eat, we made use of the tables, chairs and kitchen facilities in the hotel lobby to heat and eat our meals. Judging by the number of people who did the the exact same thing while we were there, it is a pretty common thing to do.
So all that's left to do for today is plan tomorrow's activities. To be honest I know there is snow monkeys somewhere around here, and I have a feeling that there is a ropeway around here somewhere that is worth taking a look at, but other than that, aside from skiing, and a temple a few kilometers walk from here, I'm not sure what's around here to do. I guess I'm about to find out.
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