With the travelogue backlog mostly caught up, thanks to a couple of hours on the local train the day before and a two hour stint in the morning it was time to turn the attention to the day's proceedings, which were rather straightforward.
We'd take a walk around the city in the morning, returning to the hotel to collect the Black Monster and heading to the station for a connection to Nagoya and thence to Okayama, where we had an evening appointment with some combination of ramen noodles and tapas, though probably not in the same sitting.
Best known as the venue for the 1998 Winter Olympics, Nagano sits surrounded by 3000-metre summits, and a morning glance through the hotel window revealed snow capped peaks at a comfortable remove from the immediate vicinity. The Prefecture, of which Nagano is the capital, is known as the Roof of Japan and since it lies between the Kanto and Kansai regions, local customs have been influenced by the cultures of both eastern and western Japan. As the regional capital, Nagano serves as the transport hub for the surrounding snow resorts, with handy road and rail links to most of Japan's major centers, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka. It's about an hour and a half from Tokyo by Shinkansen on the Hokuriku Line, also known as the Nagano Shinkansen or Asama, a legacy of the 1998 Winter Olympics with two or three departures per hour from Tokyo Station.
There is, however, a more scenic approach via the Wide View Shinano limited express that runs hourly from Nagoya, a three hour journey that takes you up (or in our case since we headed in the opposite direction, down) through the central cordillera and provides a route that's almost as scenic as the rail motor line from Toyama to Nagoya that passes through Takayama.
That one was one of the highlights of our 2008 trip, and if it subsequently seems I'm a little under-enthused about this leg of the journey it's coming on the end of a trip through Tohoku that has delivered multiple highlights of the autumn leaves variety. But if you're heading to Nagano from anywhere in western Japan, and Kyoto or Osaka in particular it's the best option, with one important caveat that comes into effect a little further down the page.
The Shinano is notorious for running late and had us scurrying to get to the right platform when we arrived in Nagoya. If you're headed into Nagano and planning to spend the night there, of course, difficulty making connections won't be an issue.
Founded in the seventh century, Zenkoji is one of the most popular temples in Japan, and while it sees a stream of visitors the most significant feature of the temple is only shown to the public for a couple of weeks every six years. Zenkoji houses the first Buddhist statue brought into Japan when Buddhism was first arrived in the sixth century. The original hibutsu (hidden Buddha) is permanently hidden and what will be on display again in 2015 is a replica.
You approach Zenkoji (or at least we did) along a street lined with shops that sell local specialties and souvenirs, through a couple of gates along the way. The outer Niomon Gate is guarded by a pair of impressive Deva guardians, which protect the temple from enemies of Buddhism, while the Sanmon Gate, which dates back to 1750, offers vies of the temple approaches from the second storey.
Zenkoji's main hall, rebuilt in 1707, contains various statues, and if you pay the fee it’s possible to enter the inner chamber, view the main altar, and enter the basement where a pitch dark underground passage holds the key to paradise, attached to a wall, believed to grant salvation to those who touch it.
Had I consulted my research notes before we set out I would have visited Yawataya Isogoro, just outside Zenkoji's main gate. A 280-year-old store specializing in shichimi (seven flavours), a condiment consisting of ground chili peppers, sesame, citrus, and other spices, commonly sprinkled on soba noodle soup, but I didn't so Hughesy's Chilli ingredient collection is one condiment poorer.
Predictably, the main item on the day's agenda before the long rail leg that would deliver us to Okayama was a visit to the Zenkoji temple, an exercise that took us on an extended ramble past last night's dinner venue and on to the road street that runs uphill to the temple. It was a fair step from the hotel but I was up for the exercise and once we'd done the temple bit there was the prospect of oyaki dumplings for brunch.
With the temple visit out of the way, and a couple of oyaki dumplings consumed (I'd opted for a mushroom filling at the first place we tried, and mushroom with radish at the second) we diverted in search of croquettes to round off the brunch and waved our way back to the hotel through the back streets rather than retracing the route we'd followed on the outward journey.
Having reclaimed the Black Monster it was Ho! for the station and the Shinano Express. Since we were boarding at the point of departure there was a ten minute window before we started moving, time that I used to keep working on travelogue material, an activity that brought a fairly sharp rebuke from The Supervisor because we were in for a major scenic delight.
As a result, the iPad was slotted into the backpack and the iPod provided the soundtrack as we set off on what was, indeed, a scenic joy to behold. At first, running through Nagano Prefecture it was a case of fairly broad plains filled with the regular signs of economic and agricultural activity backed on both sides by majestic snowcapped mountains. Then, as the train climbed into the foothills things closed in on either side as we travelled through deep forest-clad gorges where rocky riverbeds were the order of the day and slopes that were closer to the vertical than the horizontal showed an impressive array of autumn leaves.
There was, however, one major issue that means this particular leg of the trip is significantly underrepresented in the photographic record. We were elated on the left hand side of a service that departed at midday on a line where the westerns sun seemed to remain in a steady position providing a continuing source of annoyance and preventing anything in the way of photographic action. Things got so bad towards the end of the journey that we were forced to draw the curtains.
Fortunately, the views on the other side were quite magnificent and the glare issues completely ruled out anything resembling typing, so there was nothing for it but to sit back and enjoy about two and a half hours of magnificent scenery. The last bit, heading across the plain into Nagoya, was the predictable cityscape, and much of the time we spent crossing it was spent pondering the possible outcomes when a train is six minutes late and your connection leaves ten minutes after the scheduled arrival in Nagoya.
An announcement over the P.A. System advised us to speak to the conductor, which, of course, we duly did, but one couldn't help suspecting the normally reliable and on time almost to the second Shinkansen service was going to be kept waiting to allow a couple of stragglers to make the connection. The Shinano is a regular train, rather than a Shinkansen, which meant that, once we'd alighted and found our way off the platform we had to find our way onto the relevant platform in the Shinkansen section, something that had both of moving at a fair clip down an escalator, along a passageway and up another escalator to find...
Miracle of miracles, a Shinkansen just coming to a halt, easing into the station just in time for us to board. The train we'd boarded was actually going to our overnight stop at Okayama, but we changed in Osaka, boarding a much more luxurious Sakura that would get us there quicker than the train we'd just left, which was one of the stop at all stations variety.
The reasons for stopping where you do vary, and we were in Okayama because of its location, which makes the city an important transportation hub. It’s the spot where the main Shinkansen line joins the only rail connection to Shikoku, which we were going to be visiting briefly the following day, crossing the Seto-oteshi Bridge. Had that detail not been part of the equation we could well have continued on to Hiroshima.
Okayama's most famous attraction is Korakuen Garden, which is ranked as one of the best traditional landscape gardens in Japan, along with Kanazawa's Kenrokuen and Mito's Kairakuen. The black Okayama Castle, located just across from the garden, is another attraction, but the single item that dominates the city’s cultural environment is a fairy tale.
Momotaro delivered, I must admit, a certain degree of wry amusement, due to the coincidence of mythical hero and a culinary delicacy of which I’m not too enamoured. In the fairy tale, an elderly childless couple find a peach floating down a river, and, when they investigate further they find it contains a baby boy. As is invariably the case in such instances, the couple adopt the child, and given the circumstances in which he was found, name him Momotaro (literally, Peach Boy). The fully grown Peach Boy, announcing his determination to rid the neighbourhood of the demons from Onigashima (Demon Island), who’ve been terrorising the villagers.
He’ll need something to fuel his quest, so his aged adoptive mother makes kibi-dango (sweet millet-flour dumplings) to take on the journey. He’ll also need allies, which he finds in the form of a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant who he enlists to the cause by bribing them with the kibi-dango.
Predictably, the demons are defeated, their treasure makes the old couple rich and everyone lived happily ever after. Okayama’s main street, predictably, is Momotarō-Odōri, or Peach Bo Street.
I’m thinking of writing my own version of the story, detailing the adventures of Frock-Stah, the rum ball boy.
The plain on which the city is located produces rice, eggplant, and white Chinese chives while the uplands behind the city produce grapes and (surprise, surprise) white peaches. Proximity to the Seto Inland Sea contributes to several of the area’s signature dishes, including the popular takeaway matsuri-zushi (sushi rice with vinegar, egg and seafood), sold in a peach-shaped box. Other specialties include mamakari, which resemble herring and sawara, a fish whose name is rendered into English as trout or horse mackerel.
And, of course, there’s always kibi-dango.
Which explains why we ended up at a Spanish tapas place that adjoined the hotel...
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