Trip to Nagano prefecture, a paradise of agriculture and hot spring

People call Nagano prefecture, "Switzerland of Japan". Actually, there are high mountains and elevation of the areas is more than 500 m (1,500 ft) high. We visit the areas a few times per a year recently so that we love the areas because of a paradise (or kingdom) of agriculture and hot spring.

In this time, our main purpose was visit to "new soba (buckwheat noodle) matsuri (festival)" in Asama onsen (a small hot spring town near Matsumoto city, which is the second largest city in Nagano).

In the festival, fortunately I got a soba (cold noodle and soy source based soup set) made by the 10th champion of soba making). The taste is great and the feeling in my mouth is wonderful.

Since I sometimes make soba (it is one of difficult hand crafts, I looked at the champion's soba making. It is priceless experience because soba-ko (buckwheat flour) does not easily become appropriate sticky ball. His handwork is a living textbook for all soba makers.

After that, I had to go to a large shopping mall in Matsumoto city because my son fed up with walk around countryside. He went down the escalator like a typhoon to see a toy shop.

During his toy watching, I also saw a local book store. The bookstore in the mall has many local books about map, sightseeing, food, culture, history, folktale, trekking, photo etc.

After that, we stayed a traditional hotel in Asama onsen area. The dinner is wonderful using local agricultural materials. The below dishes were starting. We also optionally ordered a small bottle of white wine. Because local wine is another joy of the prefecture..

Guess what sasimi below! It is my favorite one.

 Since Nagano is the mountain area, no fresh seafood. The sasimi is horse meat. In a Japanese traditional card game, "Hana-fuda" (flower card"), A horse is drawn in a cherry tree card. So, some people call horse meat, "Sakura" (cherry tree).

Next morning, my wife and I walked around the hotel. Because the area is a small town, it was not difficult to walk around. Below is the public center of the town, the place of Soba festival. Because the festival was held on Saturday and Sunday (Nov 1 and 2, 2014), some soba makers already arrived at their booth and had a small meeting and preparation of soba making.

It is late autumn morning. There are large clouds on the mountains around the small town. The morning air was fresh and cooler than Tokyo's one.

After walk, my son and I went to the hot spring bath at the top of our hotel. There is great landscape around. On Saturday, we took bath twice and took one more on Sunday!!! My son and I like hot springs very much. What an extremely wonderful hot spring bath Asama Onsen!

After taking hot spring, we moved to Azumino area. Azumino is very famous area because several essays, literature, magazine articles, and TV programs have mentioned there. Also, Azumino is selected as the most favorite area to live in after retirement.

We went to a horse center in Azumino Switzerland village to make my son get a short lesson of horse riding. I recommend the village because the village has a soba restaurant, a cafe, a local vegetable shop (this is cheaper but various vegetables in the area), a winery, and the horse ranch.

We spent 1 hour during my son's lesson. Behind my son and the instructor, we can see the mountains of the Japan north alps.

To eat lunch, we went to another shopping mall in Azumino. Let me introduce one unique shop in Hana shopping center. The shop below is naming "Kanten Papa" (meaing "dad's agar") held by a local large agar company.

Due to low fat ad low sugar, much dietary fiber, agar is preferable. The company offers various agar-based healthy foods that my wife had much interest in. Also, the shop provides coffee, green tea, and fruit jelly by free.

Also, Nagano is known as "fruit kingdom". The photo below is grape vein in Azumino Winery. The winery has a vine shop where many people enjoy wine tasting.. If you like wine, I recommend to visit there.

On the following day, we moved to south. This is the lake Suwa, the largest lake of the prefecture. There are 4 large shrines around the lake. The shrines have same name, "Suwa Taisha" (Taisha means a big shrine) because the shrines are dedicated to a great deity by season, who was described on the Japan oldest myth.

Our family like each shrine, in particular, each shrine has a hand-washing bawl with a hot spring. It is just a taste of Suwa. In windter, the lake is oftern covered by ice.

On the coldest day, a huge crack from one side to another side appears. Suwa people call the ice crack, "Omi-Watari". "Omi" means the diety, and "Watari" means "coming across".

Ancient Suwa people believed that the crack was the orbit of the diety's move from one seasonal shrine to next seasonal shrine.