With two public holidays – Marine Day & a one off holiday for the Olympic Games, we thought we would escape Tokyo for a couple of nights. It seems that a good percentage of Tokyo had a similar idea so the journey took much much longer than planned. Note to selves … setting off at 9 am on a public holiday is not a good idea!

The Japanese Alps are a series of mountain ranges, rising to over 3,000 metres, and which bisect the main island, Honshu, of Japan. We headed for Matsumato, a mountain city, a good base for the mountains and home to Matsumotojo, a beautiful castle.

We drove part way & then caught a bus … no private cars are allowed in the Chuba National Park.

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We were surprised to see these fellows … Snow Monkeys I think and they were totally unbothered by people walking past them. We didn’t spot any Black Bears & the most recent sighting was a week before we were there. But it did explain why nearly every walker had a jingling bell attached to their rucksacks!

We set off for a 6 km walk … and noting the gathering clouds we did buy another umbrella. We were about three quarters of the way when the heavens opened. Not only were we soaked from the rain coming down, but the ground suddenly became a quagmire. And then, we (confession, mainly Geoff!) had to queue in this rain and wet ground for an hour for a bus to return us to our car. The carpark was so full when we had arrived so we had handed the car keys to a parking attendant … no one was around when we reached our car and the keys were left pinned to a board. This is Japan!

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