The 50-hour Adventure: Sequence 1

Nagoya, Aichi to Togura, Nagano to Yamanouchi, Nagano to Nakatsugawa, Gifu

A: Yamanouchi  B: Togura

Despite it's name, the Seishun Juhachi Keepu (Youthful Train Pass), is available for people of all ages to purchase.  It's ¥11,500 and allows five unlimited day rides on the JR local and rapid trains.  You can even split it with up to five different people!  Since sharing is caring, my friend and I decide to take our relationship one step further and go halfies.  Tomorrow: a house. 

Nothing says adult like a stuffed bear

We wanted to make sure we got our monies worth, so we had to go somewhere a little far.  The pass expired on the 10th, and lucky for us that was a holiday- Coming of Age Day (Seijin no hi), where the Japanese honor those who have turned 20years old and thus, are considered true adults in society that can drink, smoke, and vote legally.

On Friday, Carrie came after work and we cracked a few beers, perused the internet and at the mention of "small onsen town" and "snow monkeys" we were sold.  Nagano Prefecture it was. 

Saturdays are light for us, but we still wouldn't get off in time to make the 6 hour train ride, so we ritualistically grabbed a few beers from the convienie, and met up to decide how to spend our time.  Around midnight, we decided it was best to leave on first train.  In five hours.  I drunkenly (I'm a lightweight) climbed into bed telling myself I could just sleep on the train.

I met Carrie at 5:10 a.m. and we headed to Chikusa station where we would embark on a rad 50-hour adventure. 

Two hours to Yabuhara!

Public service uniforms are for serious in Japan

Immediately after boarding, I felt bad for anyone ever made too big for their world.  My seat felt like a toy seat, my knees almost hit the seat across from me, so I had to sit sideways, and the five layers of clothing I was wearing were quickly causing me to overheat.  Trains in Japan are heated from seemingly every orifice- the back of the seat, the bottom seat cushion, under the seat and probably from the ceiling.  I found myself pushing my hands and wrists up against the cold window and then pressing them on my neck and face.   All this coupled with the fact that across from me sat an ambiguously gendered person, who was paaaaaassssed out, and would fall forward, almost hitting my knees, and then jerk back up.  This process would repeat every 3 seconds.  The idea of sleep got off at the first or second stop, leaving me awake, overheating, and overjoyed to document the gorgeous snowy scenery we rolled past.

A visually beautiful, but physically painful 6 hours later "Togura Station" sounded overhead and we jumped off the train.  I called Kamesei Ryokan (our traditional Japanese bed and breakfast) and requested a pick up.

"Hello.  We are at the station.  Is it possible for you to give us a ride to the hotel?" I asked the American manager (he married the owner's daughter).

"Sure, give me ten minutes and I will be there!"

Before he could hang up I blurted out, "But how will we know who you are?"

"Um...I'll be the only 6'7" white guy in the vicinity."  Way to make me feel like a total asshole.  I think a lot of the reason I forget that stuff is because I "feel white" but look Asian, so I'm like "Omg, everyone is white in disguise!" togura

Tyler took us to the top of a mountain to the town's fertility temple built in the 40s.  It overlooks the Shinano River, Japan's longest river.  Heights and I are nemeses so I focused on anything snow-covered.  Snow and I have a long standing love affair, I think its the perfect accessory to landscape.

Steps up to the Temple, overlooking the mountains and town

Fertility Shrine: apparently it works. I didn't touch it.

Next we went to the Ryokan, Tyler showed us some cool things to do in Togura like making miso, strawberry picking, a ninja funhouse, drag queen geisha show, some onsen, restaurants, pottery classes, etc. 

Video of our traditional Japanese room

And 18 hours later...

It started rain/snowing (yay!) while we walked around, trying to take advantage of the last few hours of sunlight.  Peeling off 5 layers consisting of long socks, short socks, leg warmers, long johns and jeans, we took a break to soak our feet at a small park that had a public foot onsen.  Unknowingly, I still managed to soak the bottoms of my folded up jeans/long johns.  You try pulling up skinny jeans over fatty Korean calves that once graced many a soccer field.  It's not so easy, damnit!

Oh Whats Up, Fishes!

Foot onsen in the snow!

Hot Spring Water Fountain: Free sulfur water for all!

Another onsen fountain. 5 hours later I would discover drinking sulfur water acts as a laxative.

Carrie and I decided to hit up the drag queen geisha show, but first maybe we should stop at an izakaya and get our nonde on.  The waitress slipped us some unwanted snacks, and I am pretty sure I can add pork or chicken hormone to my list of weird things I've eaten.  I have no idea, it looked like a cross between a small ear and kidney.

The geisha show was interesting to see, difficult to understand, you know, since I don't speak Japanese.  But, they were also speaking in a dialect I'm not used to hearing and in such an informal way (and disrepectful) where they roll their "R"s hard enough to make any Frenchman jealous.  There was a 45 minute "intermission" where the lead actor spoke faster than the Mirco Machines man, still slightly rolling his "Rs" and trying to sell schwag from the show.  Here's a clip from the first half:

Apparently, according to Tyler, no one ever stays past the boring, awkward sales pitch and they miss possibly the best part- the dancing.  Check it out!

Later on in the night, I pulled a classic "I'm drunk and will die if I don't sing karaoke" move.  As we walked around the small town in the snow, we soon realized all the places for "entertainment" were basically bars with call girls in them.  This would not stop me.  We bargained with the door lady.

The face of true happiness.

"How much for one hour?" I asked.

"¥5,000" per person" she answered.  Suddenly, a vocabulary word from my Japanese lesson popped up into my head.  Thank god.

(later I would learn that I had actually recalled the phrase "very old" which I was repeating to this woman over and over like an idiot."

"Oooooh....motto furui. Motto furui." I said over and over. Carrie joined in.  "Too expensive, too expensive" We got the price down a significant amount, and soon we had the whole ladies bar to ourselves, and our own personal escorts!  Mine was from Thailand, and Carrie's was Korean.  They poured our drinks for us, laughed at our jokes, told us how great our voices were, and someone even got a little hand on leg action (not me!). 

The outside onsen

We bid our ladies adieu, and headed back to the ryokan excited to take a middle of the night soak in the onsen.  We got back to the room, pulled our clothes off, wrapped up in our yakata (robes), and padded down to the women's onsen.  That shit is hot.  I was sure I had caused some permanent damage to my skin and wasn't sure if birthing children would be possible anymore.  I explored out into the hall, and found my own little outside onsen to sit in while snow flitted down from the sky.  It wasn't until a few days back from our trip that it dawned on me I was using the outside co-ed onsen naked.  Oops. 



I woke up a few times in the middle of the night and I had no idea where I was, but I was finally jarred awake by the telephone ringing and Tyler's polite voice explaining it was almost time for check-out.  We hurried, left him a Nutri-Grain bar as a thank you present, and jumped in a cab headed towards the station.  26 hours in and this was already starting to be a fabulous getaway, only on its way to getting better. 


ps: have you ever seen a pommegranate tree? yeah, me either.

Creepy Tim Burton Pommegranate Tree