"上高地?"
"OK, why not?"
Kamikochi (or 上高地) is the name of the place, but it sounds like a bloody good suggestion to go somewhere higher. And in the month of July when the TV is reminding Tokyoites of the hot summer, I don't see anyone turning down an offer to 上高地.
Kamikochi is in the Japanese Alps, a mountain range found in Nagano.
From the colorful brochure that they are handling out at travel agents and train stations, this place looks like the Japanese version of JiuZaigou. What with the advertised crystal clear lakes/ponds and read leaves in Autumn.
At 1500m above sea level, it was a cool place to visit in summer. But being that high, Japan Railway (JR) won't bring you that high up. And a train will really spoil the environment. So, JR takes you as far as the Matsumoto station. After that, the Matsumoto Electric Railway takes over, taking you as far up as the Shin-Shima-Shima (nope, you are not hearing echo of 'Shima' from the mountain) station. And this is where the railroad ends. The rest of the ascent will be done on a bus.
I can see great potential here for this place in Spring (when the snow on the mountain cap is thicker), or Autumn (when the leaves turns red), but in Summer it was a bit too green for my liking.
An word of advice: don't rush for the first toilet you see when the buses dump you at the Kamikochi Visitor Centre. This toilet charge 100Yen for its use. The collection box says 100Yen is the suggested amount. But the guy sitting beside the box has this intense expression that suggest he is trained to listen by the drop of the coin if anyone is trying to cheat with a 10Yen coin. Everywhere else I see, the public toilets here are free.
Matsumoto city is the gateway to the Japan Alps. With quite a number of trains to safely take me back down to Chiba before the last train of the day, I took a quick spin of the place. The Matsumoto Castle keeps coming up every time I flip through a Japan travel guidebook. It isn't really that majestic, but it was definitely handsome.
The bright red bridge spans the surrounding moat, in which the clear water reflects the towers of the castle.
"上高地?"
From the colorful brochure that they are handling out at travel agents and train stations, this place looks like the Japanese version of JiuZaigou. What with the advertised crystal clear lakes/ponds and read leaves in Autumn.
At 1500m above sea level, it was a cool place to visit in summer. But being that high, Japan Railway (JR) won't bring you that high up. And a train will really spoil the environment. So, JR takes you as far as the Matsumoto station. After that, the Matsumoto Electric Railway takes over, taking you as far up as the Shin-Shima-Shima (nope, you are not hearing echo of 'Shima' from the mountain) station. And this is where the railroad ends. The rest of the ascent will be done on a bus.
An word of advice: don't rush for the first toilet you see when the buses dump you at the Kamikochi Visitor Centre. This toilet charge 100Yen for its use. The collection box says 100Yen is the suggested amount. But the guy sitting beside the box has this intense expression that suggest he is trained to listen by the drop of the coin if anyone is trying to cheat with a 10Yen coin. Everywhere else I see, the public toilets here are free.
南流山--> (武蔵野線) -->南船橋--> (京葉線) -->蘇我
After the first couple of weeks here, things have fallen into a routine, leave my place before 12:55pm, just in time to reach the platform for the 1:06pm Rapid in the direction of Tokyo for Shin YaHashira. The school here is supposed to be the language school in Japan to be located closest to a train station. How do I know? The guy at the school told me. And how did HE knows. Well, the Association of Japanese Language School or something like that told him. The tracks can be seen from the classroom. Curiously the rattle of the trains as they zoom pass don't seems to bother anyone. 
