Twenty-Nine Hours in Nagano

We arrive in Nagano around 11 AM. My wife’s aunt is waiting for us where the bus drops us off across from the train station. Her aunt has kindly gotten us a hotel next to the station. We leave our bag with the concierge and go to lunch at a soba restaurant. Soba is a buckwheat noodle found all over Japan, but is famous in Nagano Prefecture.

Making soba by hand in Nagano

Mika's aunt speaks English because her family lived in New York for four years. It definitely makes the visit more comfortable and Mika gets a much needed break from translating. After lunch, they go shopping, and I tag along behind as umbrella and bag porter. We have a nice day just hanging out with Mika’s aunt.

This evening Mika’s uncle invites us to a very nice restaurant. He is a retired banker who now spends his days golfing and studying painting and computers. We all get the seasonal menu, a seven course meal of delicious food and beautiful presentation. Next to the restaurant is a Japanese saké brewery. We order Ginjoshu, a type of Japanese rice wine. It is incredibly smooth. Much different from the watered-down paint thinner saké I usually get.

We return to the hotel around 9 PM. After having spent the last two weeks sleeping on the floor and bathing in a public place, we are both very excited about the concept of a bed and shower. The hotel is an upscale business hotel. There is a nice, very large lobby. The room is fairly typical for Japan, (slippers, night shirt, individually packed q-tips and razors) just this has nicer details than a normal hotel (ex. the section of the bathroom wall mirror over the sink is heated so it will not fog up). Our double room has space for only two single beds, not queen. In the corner is a small sofa and table. Everything seems smaller in Japan compared to America's super-sized standards. I get in bed and flip on the tube. I have two English options, CNN International or Steven Seagal’s Under Siege. I fall asleep to the sound of Ryback kicking ass.

Breakfast is not over-the-top extravagant, but it has a very large assortment of Japanese foods with some fruit and a few western favorites. Everything is tasty. From our table we have a good view of the people exiting the train station. I ask Mika if she feels guilty about having a long, relaxing breakfast while people outside are scurrying to work. She does not. I don’t really either.

My breakfast is West meets East: scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bread with a side of Japanese grilled fish and stewed vegetables. Mika's is East meets West: Rice, seaweed, Japanese curry, and fish with a side of sausage and bacon.

We go back to the room. Not wanting to leave luxury, we lounge around until ten minutes before checkout. We then walk the 1.8 Kilometers through central Nagano to Zenkōji Temple. Nagano is actually quite a nice city. Our walk takes us past modern department stores, the 1998 Olympic torch and rusting podium stage set far behind a parking lot, some lovely pre-WWII brick buildings, a rarity in Japan and traditional Japanese architecture.

After touring the temple, we meet Mika’s aunt again for lunch. We go to a cliché filled Vietnamese restaurant. There are lots of black bamboo accessories and the Japanese waitresses are wearing some type of Northern hill tribe outfit. The food is not so authentic, but good. Minus a bowl of cereal, it is the first non-Japanese meal I have eaten in seventeen days. After already being treated to a nice hotel, lunch, dinner and present, we try to pay the bill for lunch and put up a good fight. But Mika's aunt refuses with a ferocity maybe only matched by my own grandmother when I have attempted to pay at one of her regular eateries in Miami.

After twenty-nine hours in Nagano, we hop on the bus and head back to Ina.

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The Path to Salvation Ends in Nagano

If you are like me you are probably wondering…“what the heck kind of travel blog is this anyway? The self-named ‘International Rambler’ has pretty much been sitting at his mother-in-law’s house for more than two weeks now”. Don’t fret. Our departure date is set. On Monday, June 21st we will gather our belongings and begin the nomadic lifestyle more suited for an international rambler.

Meanwhile, we have one more small trip to make. Mika’s aunt has invited us to come to Nagano for a visit, just over two hours away by bus. Nagano is mostly known worldwide as the host of the 1998 Winter Olympics. To the Japanese Nagano is home to Zenkōji, one of the country’s most important temples visited by millions of pilgrims every year. The Dalai Lama is actually coming on Sunday.

Zenkōji Temple holds the first ever Buddhist image in Japan. It arrived from Korea in 552. I think in order to return the favor Japan sent Pokémon to Korea in 1996. No one has actually seen this image for hundreds of years. For the pious and inquisitive, a replica of the image is shown in a grand ceremony every seven years.

We walk up a small pedestrian road lined with beautiful monks’ residences and traditional Japanese inns. We continue on past the first gate and rows of small shops selling religious knick knacks, ice cream and everything in between. I buy a hat. Pass the second gate, and we see the main hall. It was built in 1707 and has been designated a National Treasure.

Right inside the main hall sits Binzuru. He was a doctor and Buddha’s most intelligent follower. Tradition has it that you rub a part of his statue’s body and then rub the same part on your own body. This will help alleviate your ailments. If you are lucky enough not to have any problems, you can rub Binzuru’s head and then your own. This will make you more clever. Most people are doing this for a laugh. However, in one touching scene, I notice a small, devout woman in her mid-80’s reach up to rub Binzuru’s knees then slowly rub her own. Next, using a cane, she moves around the statue to repeat the process for her back. A serious plea for help from her daily aches and pains.

We pass Binzuru and go to a machine to buy a ticket (¥500) which gets us into the main prayer hall and a passage through an underground, pitch-black, windy hallway that leads to the “Key to Paradise.” We enter the tunnel keeping our hand along the right-side wall and following the chatter of other pilgrims until we reach a large metal item that feels like a door knocker. At my turn I give it a few shakes. According to the brochure, “[o]ne touch ensures eternal salvation”. For less than six US dollars my eternal salvation has been guaranteed. Definitely a much better bargain than what is offered by American televangilists.

At every sculpture there is a box to give coins before making a prayer. My religion forbids idol worship, but this guy was just so darn cute I gave him a ¥10 coin.

Smoke from this giant incense burner brings health and good fortune.

After leaving Zenkōji, we go to a terribly boring museum that shows the process of making Nihonshu, rice wine. It is my recommendation to skip the museum, go to the shop and just get the free samples of Japanese saké.