Kamikōchi (上高地)

A few weeks ago, I went with Simon to visit a beautiful region in the northern part of the Japan Alps (Nagano prefecture), known as Kamikōchi (上高地).

I took a train from Nagoya (Ltd. Express Shinano) to Matsumoto city. After meeting in Matsumoto (he was coming from Tokyo) we took a bus to Kamikōchi.

We spent our first day walking around the lake and admiring the mountains that were surrounding it. Perhaps the most famous touristic spot there is the views of Mt. Hotaka from the Kappa bridge.

We stayed in a mountain lodge called Nishitoya (nice place, good service and delicious dinner). The next morning we woke up very early and decided that the mountain we wanted to climb was Mt Nishi-hotaka (西穂高岳) with 2908m of altitude.

After an hour or so, we found ourselves in the middle of the snow without appropriate equipment such as crampons (アイゼン). Although it wasn't the first time for me to climb in the snow, it was for Simon.

Our first milestone was Mt. Nishi-Hodoku (西穂独標) at 2701m of altitude.

Here the hike became quite difficult due to the continuous ups and downs through dangerous cliffs and rocks.

We continued for a while because we really wanted to climb Mt Nishi-Hotaka but finally we decided to go back after reaching the Piramid peak (ピラミッドピーク) at 2740m of altitude. We were quite tired, it was becoming increasingly dangerous and we didn't have the necessary equipment. Plus we had to go back early in order to make it for the bus that would bring us back to Matsumoto (松本).

In Matsumoto, I took the opportunity to visit its castle for an hour before coming back to Nagoya. It was a very tiring hike but I am glad that nothing bad happened to us on those cliffs!!

Study some Kanjis a day!

Just a short post to mention that I recently opened a new blog dedicated to the study of the Kanji. This is the address: http://sangorrin-kanji.blogspot.com/

It is more like the diary of my own study rather than a systematic approach to learn them but I hope it is useful for other people!

Mt. Kama - 鎌ヶ岳 (かまがたけ)

Last weekend I went to Mie prefecture (三重県) for a hike in the Suzuka mountains where I had already gone for two other hikes, Gozaisho (御在所) and Fujiwara (藤原岳). This time I climbed Mt. Kama (鎌ヶ岳) which is 1.161m tall. Similar to the hiking trail to Gozaisho, the starting point for Mt Kama is Yu-no-yama-onsen(湯の山温泉). This time instead of going by train I took a direct bus from Nagoya Meitetsu bus station (1 hour bus ride - 1280yen each way).

The hiking trail is really beautiful!! It crosses many streams, rocks and nature. In fact I managed to see a huge snake on my way!!. Sometimes there are difficult parts where you need to use your hands but in general, anybody with a bit of experience can climb it. In the picture above, you can see the views of Mt. Gozaisho from Mt Kama.

Helsinki, Finland

My flight back home to Nagoya was quite cheap at the cost of having to spend one night in Helsinki.

But looking it from the positive side, I had a whole morning to visit Helsinki. So after spending the night on a bench at Helsinki-Vantaa airport I took a bus to the city center (cheap urban bus number 615). The last stop of the bus is in the central train station, a good place to start walking around.

My first impressions about Helsinki were quite good. Houses were beautiful, everything seemed to be ordered and clean.

Also despite it has a very good economy, the city didn't look very big. Maybe a good place to life if you don't mind the cold.

As we see, somebody didn't mind about that :D

On the other hand the level of life is quite high. Fortunately, there is always a cheap McDonalds to survive.

In Helsinki, like in many other European cities, there are trams on the streets. In Spain there are few places with trams I think, notably Bilbao (probably the best tram in the universe of course hehe)

I read that one of the main buildings in Helsinki was the Cathedral so I went to have a look. Honestly, it was not so impressive.

Although I didn't have too much time I decided to take a boat to check Suomenlinna, a famous fortress in some islands near Helsinki that are included in the Unesco world heritage.

It was a good decision. The trip by boat across the frozen sea was awesome. It looked like those documentaries about the Antarctica or something hehe.

The fortress in the islands was huge and worth visiting it. Also there were very nice views both of the city and the partially frozen Baltic sea.