tateyama-kurobe alpine route

The Tateyama-Kurobe Alpine Route, or TK Alpine Route as it is also called, runs from Ogisawa in Nagano prefecture, through several mountains, across the Kurobe Dam and over to Toyama prefecture.

To get from one side to another, you need to take 5 different modes of transportation--electric trolley bus, cable car (finicula), ropeway, your feet, and bus.

The thing about this route is that you need to take it from one side or the other you can't start in the middle or part of the way.

Our day started at 5:30 a.m. in order to catch the bus with everyone at 7:30 a.m. to Ogisawa in Nagano.

We then stood in line to ride the electric trolley bus, a 16 minute ride (and it is exactly 16 minutes!) from Ogisawa to Kurobe Dam.

When you reach the dam, you walk across it to get to the next mode of transportation.

The dam was finished in 1963, is 186 meters high (610 feet) and is 1470 meters above sea level.

I remember visiting Hoover Dam, but I don't think we were able to walk across it.

During the summer months, you can see the water flowing from the dam. It was something to be able to walk across it.

The next mode of transportation is a cable car (finicula) and runs from Kurobeko to Kurobedaira.

Exactly 131 passengers including the driver take the 5 minute ride...though 5 minutes seemed longer when you are packed into a vehicle as tight as sardines. (you should know that the passengers to the left of the car are all gonna fit...)

The grade was 31% though it seemed more like straight up.

One thing we tried was oyaki. This is a famous food item in Nagano prefecture made from fermented buckwheat dough.

It is filled with veggies, fruit or sweet bean paste and then roasted in a pan. After it is roasted, it is then steamed and served hot.

This particular oyaki was filled with nozawana (mustard greens), a popular vegetable in Nagano prefecture.

Piping hot, this was delicious!

From Kurobedaira, we then took a ropeway to Daikanbo.

If you notice atop the cable of the ropeway, a worker is "riding" on the wires.

He actually rode this from Daikanbo to Kurobedaira, a 7 minute ride, to check the cables. We found out that they do this once a day to make sure the cables are in check.

I wouldn't want his job!

If I am not mistaken, 120 of us rode in one car at once! I'm glad the cables were checked right before.

The view from Daikanbo is spectacular! The Alps of Japan as well as many other mountains can be seen.

From Daikanbo, you take a 10 minute electric trolley bus ride to Murodo.

Amazingly, we were able to sit on this part of the trip.

When you reach Murodo, you are 2450 meters above sea level.

One reason of going this high up is to see the yuki ootani (snow gorge). This is a man-made gorge that runs from Murodo down the winding mountain road to Bijyodaira.

The gorge is cut with snow plows and other machinery and this year the highest area reached 17 meters (56 feet). (some other years it went as high as 24 meters! (78 feet))

They allow you to walk 500 meters (1640 feet) of this gorge and boy, is it something to see!

We then took a bus down through the gorge to Bijyodaira, it was kinda scary and kinda neat to ride through the gorge (I have a little video attached at the end).

At Bijyodaira, we had to wait for our turn to ride the cable car (finicula) down, so while we waited we checked out the station.

There are two large cedar trees in front and there is a legend that Saeki Ariyori fell in love with a princess. She climbed up Tateyama (Mount Tate (ta-tay)) to see him but he said he would not see her again until he developed the land in the area. So, she made her way down the mountain and on the way, she prayed to a sugi (cedar tree). After praying to the tree, they were married.

It is said that if you pray 3 times to a cedar, your love will bloom. For this reason, cedar trees in this area are also known as "bijyosugi".

Finally it was our turn to ride the cable car down the mountain to Tateyama station.

The grade was 29% and seemed steeper than the first cable car ride.

This particular cable car route was used to haul materials for the building of the dam, and they still have a freight car attached.

From Tateyama, it was back to Osaka. Dinner was on the fly at about 9 at night! What should've taken us 5 hours, took us longer and we made it home just as the day changed to the next.

Even though the traffic was really bad, we were happy we got to experience the TK Alpine route...for all the modes of transportation (one way) it cost 8060 yen (about US$80.60).

If you get a chance to, this is one thing you shouldn't miss!

I've uploaded several videos from Murodo (the snow gorge) here, here, and here.

Hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did!

osaka-nagano

It is Golden Week, which means many people have several days off in a row. It is probably the only time the Japanese take many days off in a row during the year.

This means that EVERYBODY is on the road...and I mean everybody!

We took a two day tour to Nagano and Toyama. Our tour group met in Umeda at 7:30 a.m., the bus was filled with some families, couples and some travelling alone.

After making sure that everyone was on board, we headed towards Nagano.

Unfortunately, since everyone was on the roads, what would normally take 5 hours, took us 10.

Lunch was originally planned at a soba shop in Nagano, but had to be cancelled because of the traffic. (You should know that Nagano is known for their soba)

So instead, lunch was at a parking area along the highway we purchased some takomeshi (octopus rice), ika yaki (grilled squid) and tenmusu (tempura musubi).

I was surprised how much octopus was actually in the rice! The grilled squid was quite tender and the tenmusu had way too much batter on it.

The parking areas along the highway have hot foods too, but since we were on a schedule, we didn't have a chance to sit and relax.

To make matters worse, whenever you go anywhere in Japan, as it is in many other countries, the line to the women's restroom is almost always very long. (Older Japanese women are known to invade the men's bathroom whenever they see that it isn't too busy, watch out guys!)

Many times, when we made a pit stop somewhere, we only had a couple of minutes...To eat or go to the bathroom, that was the question. For me, even though I was still hungry, the bathroom almost always won...

Travelling on a bus with many people, you can't just ask them to pull over...though at one point, the traffic was so bad, they did and the men and little kids jumped off to pee alongside the bus...eep!

By the time we arrived in Azumino, Nagano, it was 5-ish.

We had originally planned to see a wasabi farm in the area, but that was nixed because of the time and we ended up only going to an art museum.

The Chihiro Museum is dedicated to an artist named Chihiro Iwasaki. She is famous for her watercolor paintings of children.

It was a nice museum, though I wish we could've been able to visit the wasabi farm too.

From Azumino, we travelled another two hours to our hotel in Hakuba, which is also in Nagano, called the Hotel Green Plaza Hakuba.

The outside of this hotel looked like what I would imagine chalets or ski lodges in Switzerland would look like.

Dinner was a buffet, but by then, I was already feeling bus-sick, so only ate a little.

All in all, it was a long day and the next day, the highlight of the trip, would be even longer...stay tuned.

Chihiro Museum
3358-24 Nishihara, Matsukawa-mura
Kita-Azumigun, Nagano
Phon:e 0261.62.0772

Hotel Green Plaza Hakuba
12860-1 Chikuniotsu
Otari-mura, Kitaazumigun, Nagano
Phone: 0261.82.2236

It is Friday here, and we are off to visit MIL, hope you have a great weekend!

kibidango

Awhile back I had written about kibidango.

Well, Satoshi had a business trip to Okayama recently and brought back some kibidango.

These were different from the ones I had previously written about because they weren't covered with kinako (powdered soy bean).

These were quite tiny and perfect with some green tea.

Oh and today is Boy's Day, well, they now call it Children's Day.

I ran into a dressed up Colonel Sanders and had to share...he is dressed in an origami kabuto (helmet) for the occasion.

sliders & stir-fry

Made some tandoori chicken the other day.

For dinner the other night, we cut up some pieces of chicken and added some grilled zucchini to some pumpkin rolls to make them into a sort-of slider.

Lots of flavor, a little sweet from the roll and spicy from the chicken...delicious!

With the leftovers, the next night I made a stir-fry.

I sauteed eringi mushrooms, zucchini & asparagus in some olive oil and then added the sliced tandoori chicken to heat through.

Simple and delicious...my kind of meal.

*we're on a little excursion, will moderate comments when I return.

xiang chang mochi rice

Xiang Chang is the fresh version of Lup Cheong, a sweet Chinese sausage. (Lup Cheong being the dried version.)

I wanted to try making a dish that my mom used to make in her rice cooker using mochi rice (glutenous rice).

I couldn't find a recipe for it on the web, but found a recipe in a local cookbook I had.

It called for cooking the mochi rice then stirring other ingredients.

The original recipe called for bacon and shiitake, both of which I didn't have.

I instead used what I did have and put in some eringi and the xiang chang.

The recipe adds oyster sauce and some shoyu and I did just that, but there was something lacking...flavor.

After having this for breakfast with a sunny side up egg, I emailed my mom and she told me that she adds chicken stock when she cooks the rice.

I have one more piece of xiang chang in the freezer, I'll add chicken consomme blocks when I cook the rice this time, I hope it will turn out nicely.

I gotta share with you a funny story about this dish. When I served it to Satoshi the other day, he takes a bite and says, "tastes like mochi rice". I told him, "that's because it is"...oh, well, I thought it was funny.

*we're off on a little excursion...I'll moderate comments when I get back.

re-vamp

Previously, I used to make my stuffed bell peppers like this.

Now, instead of using pre-made sauce, I make Ellie Krieger's "Easy Tomato Sauce" and top the stuffed bell peppers with them.

For the filling, instead of just putting onions and Italian seasoning. I now add some minced carrots and zucchini whenever I can (zucchini is not always in the markets).

Maybe a little healthier? Hopefully.

shobei

Awhile back I received these namafu manju from a lady in my French class.

Namafu is wheat starch. The outside of these sweets are made with the wheat starch, it sort of tasted like tofu (soy bean curd).

They are wrapped in fresh bamboo leaves called sasa.

When you unwrap them they are quite wet, even a little slippery.

The insides are filled with different creams like chocolate, cinnamon, etc.

She gave us 5 different flavors and this particular one was sakura (cherry blossom)...delicious! (Thank you!)

Shobei
1-3-1 Higashi Noda-machi
Miyakojima, Osaka
Phone: 06.6351.1255
Closed Sundays & Holidays