Back to Japan - Japanese Alps

First off, some sad news, I couldn’t get any tickets for the Sumo wrestling tournament as all 15 days sold out within the space of an hour, so instead I will be going to a sumo experience show, where someone tells us about the history, traditions and culture around sumo wrestling. We also get to watch two retired sumo’s have a bout and then we can have a go as well, it should be fun.

Now come the part I have been looking forward to the most and that is going to Suwa in the Japanese Alps. The Japanese Alps are a bunch of mountains running through the centre of the main island of Honshu, with a lot of the peaks sitting above 2,500 meters.

Now why Suwa some of you might wonder, well it is anime related as to why I am staying there and decided to make this my base for a week. An animated film I like called "Your Name", which is a funny rom-com film about a boy and a girl who keep on swapping bodies, but live in two different locations, the boy lives in Tokyo, but the girl lives in a fictional mountain village called "Itomori" with a lake, which is partly inspired by Suwa and the large lake that it surrounds.

While in Suwa I will be going around the 4 grand shrines, visiting an art museum, which is dedicated to the a local artist called Taiji Harada, going to a bunch of Sake breweries, visiting the geyser centre, hopefully going on a kayaking tour of the lake, going to a Takashima Castle and visiting the Onbashira-kan Yoisa museum.

The museum is dedicated to the Onbashira Festival that is held once every seven years, where people can experience the festival culture of Suwa. There is also a Tree-dropping experience, which is part of the festival where people ride fir wood down a grove.

I will be drive away one of the days to Takayama city, which is about 75 miles away, which is a more traditional and have quite a lot of well-preserved Edo period (1603-1868) streets and building.

While there, I will be visiting the morning markets, a retro museum dedicated to memorabilia form the Showa period (1926-1989), a historic temple called Hida Kokubun-ji, the historical government building called Takayama Jinya, another retro museum where you can even try a traditional Japanese elementary school dinner in a re-made traditional classroom from the 1920s - 1950s. I will also be going round the Sanmachi Suji district, which is famous for all the Edo period streets. Before heading home, there will also be a search for a good Izakaya too, which is like a Japanese pub.

There will be a day for rest after going to Takayama will be a very long day and at my estimate now I will be leaving at about 5:45am and then getting back about 10pm.

The day after resting, will be a bit of a weird one, as in the morning I will be again going to an Edo period village called Narai.

Narai in the Kiso Valley was a major stop along some of the old routes that was used during the Edo period to connect Kyoto and Edo (now known as Tokyo). It has quite a lot of old traditional wooden buildings and lacquerware shops and it has been classed as a cultural asset due to the traditional buildings since 1978.

After exploring the village for a bit, it will be time to head over to the O-gawara Pass, which will see me going round and doing a bit hiking round some mountains and if you want to look at the route I have chosen, you can see it here: https://thejapanalps.com/en/route/mt-tateshina/route-02/

The only thing I would need to keep an eye out for is bears, as there are Black bears up in the mountains and while they hardly ever attack people checking the news for any recent attacks will be a good idea beforehand and I’d rather not have a run in with Yogi.

After spending a week up in the mountains, it will be time to head back down Osaka, which is where I will be spending close to another week, until next time when I will be talking about the last parts of my trip when I am in Osaka, and hopefully there won't be any Typhoons when I go this time.