From mountain vegetables to mountain peaks... one weekend!

I owe so many people a catch-up note that I decided to take the easy way out and just write a blog post.  Sorry guys.  May isn't looking any better schedule-wise, so how about we plan a catch up around early June?:)

All of our goodies!

One of the main reasons I wanted to live in the inaka in Japan was I thought that it would allow me to get a better glimpse of traditional Japanese culture.  So far, that hasn't been the case, so when I heard about an opportunity for a wild mountain vegetable gathering tour hosted by a local couple, I jumped at the chance.

Mmm, lunch!

Apparently springtime was traditionally a time when Japanese people gathered many wild vegetables from the mountains because it was too early to plant a garden.  We were hosted by a Japanese couple recently returned to Nagano in their renovated former-warehouse home built over 100 years ago.   Currently, they keep a small farm of apple and pear trees, as well as two rice paddies.

They introduced us to three main types of wild vegetables: wild onions; udo, more commonly known as mountain asparagus; and something that sounded like "jelly" which I was not interested in because there are two types--poison and not poisonous--and A and I both had a hard time telling which was which and were terrified we'd picked the wrong kind and poison everyone.

Picking wild onions.

After we finished picking the vegetables, we returned to their home and helped cook lunch.  I finally learned how to properly make tempura without spattering myself with hot oil, and we made 3 different kinds of salad using only miso and sugar.  I couldn't eat the salads, but the tempura was delicious, and it was a great opportunity to learn about traditional Japanese culture and practice our Japanese conversation.:)

Snow walk.

The next day we took the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route.  Here's the link here: http://www. alpen-route.com/en/  Basically this route goes over the mountains between Nagano (our prefecture) and the prefecture on the other side, Toyama.  We only had time for a day trip (and staying was cost-prohibitive) so we went to the halfway point near the Tateyama mountain range.  It's perhaps most famous for the giant snow wall that is dug every year on one of the roads near the halfway point, Murodo.

Walking around the base of the Tateyama range.

Mt. Tateyama is a very well-known mountain in Japan, and it's highest accessible peak, Mt. Oyama is just over 3000 meters.  I really wanted to summit it, but unfortunately the route required both crampons and an ice axe, which I'm not very comfortable with.  So I set a new goal for next year--find a group or guide to help me do some winter mountaineering!

I want to climb.....:(

The Tateyama area is also well-known for it's skiing, snowboarding (no lifts, obviously!) and winter campground.  Why you would want to do any of those things when winter just ended is beyond me, but to each his own I suppose.  Most of the trekking courses are meant to be done in summer, as they feature ponds, flowers and wildlife that are not present this early in the year.  But the trek in winter is eerily quiet,
despite the small pockets of people, and everything looks clean and sharp.

Hot springs.

We did get to trek around some sulfurous hot springs, which (as the numerous signs warn you)
have poisonous gases so you are not allowed to get too close.  We took advantage of the highest onsen (hot spring) in Japan at 2410 meters and peeked into one of the calderas of Tateyama.

The last section (or the first, depending on which way you're going) of the route takes you by the Kurobe Dam, which I think is the tallest (or maybe the highest) dam in Japan.  To get there, you take the longest single span ropeway in Japan.  It's a journey full of notables.:)  At any rate, the ice was just finishing melting off the lake, and the early morning light gave us some gorgeous views to start our travels.  Clouds moved in on the way home, so we were very thankful for our perfect morning weather.

Kurobe Dam and Kurobeko.

The Alpine Route is also fairly unique because you take many different kinds of transportation.  Just to get to Murodo, we first took a trolley bus, then a cable car, a ropeway, and a trolley bus again.  There are many stopping points along the way, or you can just muscle your through the 500 Chinese tour groups and get to where you need to go.  Nothing against Chinese tour groups, I just found it odd that almost everyone there appeared to belong to such a group.  Everyone else--Japanese people, Westerners, other Asians, etc.--were in the minority, which is so far unique in my experience in Japan.  I guess we tend to stay away from such popular attractions, so our exposure to tour groups and the like is fairly minimal.  At any rate, I recommend the Alpine Route from Ogizawa to Murodo, with an added bonus of free and convenient parking at Ogizawa to offset the rather expensive cost of the Route ticket.

Ropeway car looking down towards Kurobe Dam.