After an exciting win and celebration last night it was an early morning for my flight to Tokyo. Everything went smoothly and was off the plane and on the train into Tokyo. From there I took a train towards the mountains. I transferred in Nagano on to a smaller local train to a place called Yamanouchi. The train ride was beautiful heading towards the mountains and the fall colors. Hard to take a picture on the bullet train, was getting dizzy at points and I am pretty sure We went right through mountains. There was no snow to be found except they had a strip of snow clearly man made and people were skiing. Was very odd to see! I felt like I was taking the train into the abyss.... Less and less lights and then let off at a very quiet train station and everything was dark. Again I had the lost face on and a nice man asked me where I was going.... He pointed me down a dark alley!! Yikes!! Sometimes you just have to trust and I headed down the dark alley and I found my hotel. Hmmmm how can I describe this hotel. A bit on the verge of sketchy but not really. They have an onsen here but I am exhausted and did not partake. Probably in the morning as I will likely be up at 5am!! I found some ramen and a very big beer. The water here is the first place that I have not liked it. I also found an ice cream vending machine! They have vending machines for everything! Today I had a hot chocolate in a bottle, was very odd drinking a hot beverage out of a plastic bottle! I have a feeling I will wake in the morning and will walk outside and find that I am really in a little magical place! I saw a very need little wood shop I will have to check out without my pack on! Off to see the snow monkeys in the morning. They have a shuttle so I will take that up in the morning. I have acquired a cold over the past two days so I hope I sleep tonight. Another big day tomorrow!