The Magome Pass - at last!

So my map reading skills are fallible after all - got within 100m of the pass over the mountains and got confused with the directions and had to back track down the steepest part of the hike to get our bearings again only to find we were right after all. Pah!

The trail down the other side went through the most fab snow covered valley. We specifically didn't ring the bear bells which are there to ward them off as we were hoping for a close encounter - no such luck though :(

A meditation

It's amazing the inspiration which comes on the ancient trail. It occurred to me that in years gone by these were the very same steps that my friend Ann climbed when she came on holiday to Japan!

Ok let's start walking then

So this is the start of the trail. The bus climbed up though the mountains and into the snow - nice :)

The road to Magome...

Ok so the train has dropped us off in small town in the mountains. Time for some sushi from the local shop while we wait for the bus to Magome where we start walking.

Bullet Train to Nagoya

Well an early start - up at 6:00am to catch the 7:33 bullet train to Nagoya and then on from there to Magome by local train and bus to start our 3 day hike along the Nagasendo Trail.

Bullet train certainly went like the clappers but sooo efficient - all trains leave on the dot here - we did actually set our watches by them! Finished off the rice crackers watching Mt. Fuji sail by :)

Time for a fag and some thoughts

Ok at the risk of blogging the quite mundane have to note some things done differently here:

So basically there are all these vending machines on the streets selling bottled and canned drinks and cigarettes and right near them are special cordoned off areas where people just stand around smoking and drinking their purchases before moving on. You can smoke in restaurants though, but you can't cross the road without a green light and we think the people with the masks on are the people who have the colds rather than the ones who are paranoid of catching one.

Takes some getting used to all this!

Muji Snacks

Popped into the Muji store - a much bigger affair than at home - as big as a Habitat, a cycle shop, a Banana Republic and Selfridges Food hall in one store. Picked up some black pepper rice crackers, pumpkin sponge roll and a couple of bottles of Taiwanese Dong Ding Oolong tea for later. I love this place!