It’s a full day for a leisurely hike to Mount Tateyama. For a mountain over 3000 metres, it is incredibly accessible – the Alpine Route brought us up to 2450m in Murodo, with some good quality accommodation; and then it […]
After the indoor onsen last night, today we would be trying out an outdoor onsen for the first time, and then proceed to the Alpine Route! Norikura-kogen Onsen (乗鞍高原温泉) Matsumoto (松本) For our next destination, the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, […]
Kamikochi (上高地) Kamikochi is a popular sight-seeing destination for its good views of the nearby Northern Alps, and its walking trails along the crystal clear Azusa River (梓川). For the hard-core mountain climbers it is also the starting point to […]
A lot of people visit the Tatayama Kurobe Alpine Route (立山黒部アルペンルート) in early spring. In the middle of the route and also the highest point (2450m) of the route, the Murodo (室堂) station, is the famous “snow corridor”, a road […]
Sunrise We paused our progress at the 8th Station, but even there got fairly crowded. One could imagine the top would be even more so. Crater Walk One major regret I had in my first climb was that I didn’t […]
There is an old Japanese saying commonly translated to English as “a wise man climbs Mount Fuji once, a fool climbs it twice”. Though literally, it’s rather “it would be a fool not even climbing it once, (but) it would […]
Persistence paid off, we were finally going to see some sunshine today! Biei is full of postcard-perfect views of picturesque rolling fields, and our plan for the day was a cycling tour. This would’ve been a tough one if weather […]
Rain continued from yesterday. It didn’t get better after morning, so we headed out anyway around noon. Furano is almost a synonym for lavender, and there are many lavender fields in the area. Without a car our options were somewhat […]
Common impression of Hokkaido is this endless countryside with forever blue sky. But of course, the reality can be poor weather. It turned out spending some time in the city wasn’t so bad after all, when encountering weather like this. […]
Hokkaido is the best place in Japan to escape the summer heat. This is our first trip there and with just over 3 days available, I went for the common summer favourites: Furano lavender fields and Biei countryside. Asahikawa Airport […]
It was almost Golden Week. I had made a Fuji-related trip around the same time in the past two years, so I thought might as well make it a tradition. Also same as before I based my trip on a […]