Another beautiful warm summer morning in Kyoto which I eagerly left to head to my first glimpse of what was dubbed as the 'Japanese alps'. On the Shinkansen to matsumato , where I dropped my bags and headed to kamikochi - the mountain village at the base of the alps. Beautiful, small, remote place with lovely hiking trailswhich followed a gentle streaming aqua blue river, with views of the snow capped mountain ranges at every corner. Very picturesque place - so much so it felt unreal but all I needed was to pop the wasabi peanuts in my mouth to get a jolting shock of reality. Yes - this was still Japan and yes, it was really this stunning. I'd heard of temples and zen and sushi in Japan - but today was some new found respect for the natura beauty of Japan.
There were so many trails and so little time. Definitely a place coming back to with some more time for some overnight hikes.
Back to matsumato for the evening. Walked around the town - some cute black and white storefront lined streets, cobble stoned pathways with little
Sushi shops and souvenir shops, a Japanese shrine with a figure 8 entrance routine, a frog and frogress? figurine and a walk through the lighted matsumato castle park to wrap the day up. Spent the night at a Japanese tatami style hostel with dreams of the alpine route taking over.
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