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15.10.2016
Our first stop was Toki (on the way to Nagano). Driving took us the whole morning and a bit of early afternoon. We chose the station pretty randomly, but it turned out to be a good decision. The building itself was very impressive (Chris liked the concrete walls mixed with wooden structures) and it was home to a lovely Japanese pottery centre! If I could, I would have bought the whole shop worth of beautiful tea sets, bowles and plates! Strolling around the area, we managed to get a few good snaps of the sunset and, as it was nearly dinner time, we cooked a quick (surprise surprise!) pasta meal and decided to go to an onsen. The silly sat nav took us to a place which didn't even exist, which forced us to drive another 30 minutes to another onsen. - Made us pretty grumpy, but the actual place was really nice. (Beautiful wooden building located in park).
16.10.2016
That day's main mission was to find a coin laundry, as we were running out of clothes to wear! Sat nav wasn't particularly useful, but being very lucky, we happened to drive past a laundrette. It took us some time to buy a detergent in a shop (standing with the tablet like two morons, hopelessly attempting to translate the hieroglyphs on the labels!) and figure out how to use the washing machines! Couple of minutes and hundreds of yens later, we could relax in Troy, read our books and wait for the wash to finish. Got a tad apprehensive, letting our laundry to be dried in a monstrous gas-powered drier, but having taken our usual size (!) clothes out, we were ready to set off again. The landscape on the way was beaitiful. We drove past some charming Japanese villages set in the valleys; surrounded by autumn trees and mountains and stretched along the rivers. Our stop in Shiojuri wasn't that special, but had a nice lake nearby.
17.10.2016
We only treated Shiojuri as a stop for the night, so the next day we made the rest of our jourey to Nikko - our final destination. On arrival, we decided to go for a quick walk to see the area, as our station was right in the middle of the city centre. The weather wasn't that nice and there wasn't much to see either, so we had our meal and coffees. Oka - a very kind 69-year old man from Osaka - joined us and we had a nice chat.
18.10.2016
We were barely awake, when we met Oka outside our camper, happily announcing he found a sake factory opposite our car park and... made a reservation for us for 8 o'clock in the morning! We obviously thanked him and bursted out laughing, as he walked away. It was after 7, and we didn't even have breakfast! We ran to the factory and asked if it's possible to change the time, but the only English speaking person could show us the place before 9am. Oh well, we had a quick breakfast and went to try sake! Turned out it was a family business set in a small, traditional looking factory. The man was kind enough to show us around and explain the whole process of sake making and didn't expect a penny in return. We did some tasting - Chris had to spit it out as a driver! Surprisingly, I quite liked the taste, so we purchased a small bottle (also as we thought that's a good way to say thank you!). At the station, we also met a lovely couple from Japan Campers (same place we got our Troy from!). They were from San Francisco and were travelling with a 9-month baby. (Doing pretty well!) That day we decided to see the World Heritage shrines and Lake Chuzenji. We started from the Sacred Bridge and the temples. It was a lovely area in the woods to have a stroll around, but having seen shrines and temples before, we took our pics and headed straight towards the lake. There was a special, very windy road up the mountain to get there, which made me a tad car sick at times, but was truly beautiful, especially now, in the autumn. Sometimes, trees covered in yellow and red folliage were surrounded by the dense myst, which made the view even more spectacular. The lake was indeed worh visiting and was quite a tourist attraction. We had a walk around and found a very welcoming, little café in a wooden hat overlooking the lake, where we treated ourselves to a lunch and coffee. Afterwards, we saw two waterfalls - autumn colours made them look even more stunning! On the way back to the station, we stopped at the onsen for the last time! Actually, we couldn't wait to have "casual" showers again!
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