Wednesday 29th of April; Matsumoto and Nagano

Meh, time passes by so fast. Another week has passed already, need to update my blog again. Keeping up a blog really is a lot of work. Yesterday at work I managed to upload all the pictures of my quick side trip to Matsumoto and Nagano. Will post something about the main trip "Onegai Sites Tour" later, since I haven't organized the pictures yet. Not to mention I'm planning to go to Kizaki Lake again, because I forgot a few locations and because the people there are VERY nice!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v42/moonlight2002/Bai_Bai.jpg
That picture is an example of how nice the people there are! The weather was horrible, yet they bothered going outside and wave at my train that was passing by quite fast.

Since it's quite late now and I had a few drinks. I will start with the topics of today now. Matsumoto and Nagano. More accurate, Matsumoto Castle and Zenkoji Temple.
Did i mention I have to keep things short, cause tomorrow morning I need to rush myself like mad towards Mt. Fuji? Looks like I'll only sleep a few hours again tonight.
Well, Matsumoto Castle. I guess I can keep things quite short in my blog, since I added comments at all pictures! Amazing ne?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v42/moonlight2002/Map.jpg
Here's a map of my trip of last weekend. Uminokuchi was the most important location of the trip, Kizaki Lake of the "Onegai Sites Tour"! I left Shinjuku (Tokyo) on a Friday at 10:00AM in the morning, arrived quite late at Kizaki Lake and had to take care of a room at a youth hostel. But more about my traveling in the next post, which will be about the great Sites Tour. Aw, I'm writing about the wrong thing here X_X
Back on topic, since saturday was rainy I decided to walk around Kizaki Lake the next day (Sunday). So took teh train towards Matsumoto. After arriving in Matsumoto, it was still rainy. So took a train towards Nagano.

Aw hell, should start talking about Nagano first. Well, at Nagano I wanted to visit the Zenkoji Temple. They are having some event there, which only is once every six years. At Nagano station I took the bus towards the temple. And since my feel of direction is ZERO, after leaving teh bus I walked in the wrong direction. Found a nice shrine though, after a quick shrine cheack walking back towards the temple. At the temple I got stuck in some ceremony, so spend a VERY long time in the rain at Nagano. After about 3 hours in Nagano I decided to go back towards Matsumoto to check out the castle there.

At Matsumoto I took a real good luck at the map so I wouldn't walk in the wrong direction again. Sadly I noticed a shrine I just had to check, which meant more walking in the rain. After another quick shrine check, I noticed Matsumoto has some strange obsession for frogs! There were frog-statues everywhere. I was about to go crazy, but than my fish-obsession kicked in. Check the pictures, a fish-cookies-shop!
Anyway, after the shrine check, frog-statues, and fish-cookie I finally went towards Matsumoto CAstle. There I went inside, thank god, I was really soaked! Quickly checking out the whole castle, running towards a ramen shop and than back towards Uminokuchi! Arrive at 9:00 PM at my youth hostel. From there I took some stuff and wen towards the onsen-house. And DAMN, it was closed! So went back towards the youth hostel enjoyed the onsen there, which was pretty good (lucky me). Onsen = Hot Spring!

So, my job is done. This is the end of this week's post!
In case you didn't notice. This trip was really Japanese-style. Going around like mad, checking as much things as possible. Forgot to mention, I woke up at 5:00 AM that day!

Here's a link for the pictures (+comments):
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v42/moonlight2002/MatsumotoNagano/

PS. click on the pictures to read the comment below the picture. Use the navigation-thingy to go towards the next picture, yeah by clicking. Just mentioning this, since photobucket is kinda shitty.