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The previous three days were the only days on this trip where we used a car. Everything moving forth is therefore reached only by public transport, which is a Good Thing.
Parcly Taxel: Like Germany, public transport in Japan is well-developed and extensive, to the point where the importance of any settlement can be effectively gauged by how many trains (JR or otherwise) stop there per day on average. Larger stations also have staffed ticketing offices, the “green windows” (みどりの窓口), almost always with colourful flyers advertising attractions easily reachable from that station.
Spindle: Is that an exaggeration? There’s only one station serving Matsumoto I know of, yet it’s a “core city” on par with Nagasaki and Nagano…
Parcly: I admit I didn’t research some of the details there.
In any case, we had our buffet breakfast at the Tabino hotel first, before riding the Shinano #1 limited express to Nagano. Only three stops were expected from my departure point, but the train paused at a fourth, Nishijō (西条), for a reason I never understood, and then railway staff sweeped the train checking tickets.
Spindle: Nagano Station looks very modern, with a cavernous concourse in line with one set of fare gates. On one wall of this concourse is a poster with the “Snowflower” emblem of the Winter Olympics held in this city and its surroundings the year Parcly was born (Nagano 1998, XVIII Olympic Winter Games).
Yet trains and walking/pegasus flying are not sufficient to reach certain out-of-town locations, like our next destination of Jigokudani (Snow) Monkey Park (地獄谷野猿公苑). For that we hopped onto a bus run by the local private operator Nagaden (長電), the romanised name of which immediately aroused Parcly’s stream of consciousness. A naga den? Was there a naga at the wheel?
Parcly: There actually was. I saw her guiding the passengers, themselves of many wonderful species, into their seats with her smooth slithering tail, including fold-out seats occupying the central aisle. Efficiency is a virtue – efficiency while staying neat is a bonus.
Spindle: One hour later we had arrived in actively snowing conditions at the foot of some hills, the designated path lined with thin, hard, slippery ice (similar in composition to pykrete) compacted and dirtied by hoofsteps of prior visitors. One more hour and we were at the park itself, sprinkled with snowflakes falling from the imposing trees above, a good proportion of them blown off the branches in bunches.
Fluttershy: The monkeys are Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). They have been provided with their own onsen and can climb up, down or across walkways within the park – there are no impassable barriers for them. On a larger scale one finds onsen water steaming and bubbling down the surrounding valley, hence the park’s formal name which literally means “Valley of Tartarus” – despite this you can bathe with the monkeys.
There was a very pronounced foreign tourist presence at Snow Monkey Park when I went there in real life, mostly because of Japan relaxing its Covid-19 policies in the autumn of 2022. I found an Australian walking up to the park and struck up a conversation, during which snow fell on both our heads. How silly.
Parcly: We had to scurry back to the bus stop by 2pm or we’d be stuck there for two hours. Scurry we did, but not before we snagged apple-flavoured ice cream and a triangular apple pie for lunch; the Shinshu apples are of the same kind fed to the monkeys.
Spindle: Back in Nagano we had enough time to visit just one more landmark. We chose Zenkō-ji (善光寺), the Buddhist temple around which Nagano was originally built; it has all the usual characteristics of Buddhist temples in Japan – prayer box, shopping and souvenir avenue before the main gate, fortune cookie-
Pinkie Pie: It’s not a cookie, windie! It’s a vending machine that dispenses “fortunes” that are more of an amusement than divination!
…though religious belief still persists in a surprising part of the population, which is cause for concern…
Parcly: For my part, I didn’t pray or touch the bronze Buddha statue inside the main hall, but I did see at close range a temple staff striking one of the bronze bells on either side of said hall at 4pm, which made me shudder a bit.
Thinking ahead to Tokyo and the New Year we quickly returned on Shinano #22 to Matsumoto, this particular train only making one stop in between. Another reservation, made the previous day, preceded our subsequent dinner at a family-run restaurant containing oden, horse meat, egg rolls and more paired with a now-accustomed-to cup of sake.
Spindle: On our way back to the hotel we took in one last impression of the city, Matsumoto Castle, where a winter light show was being projected on its walls. It would be appreciably warmer in Tokyo, and I lingered a little longer before wisping away with Parcly – the winter in this part of Japan, above its mountainous backbone, was passionately strong, but what would there be on the other side?
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