1 August 2009

Another weekend, another getaway! This time to Karuizawa, which we mainly chose because we could get there in just over an hour from Tokyo using the shinkansen, and because it is in the mountains and therefore likely to be cooler. Given the short journey time and the fact that it was over Emily's lunchtime, the trip was easy. By the time we'd eaten our packed lunch together we were halfway there, and she didn't even get as far as roaming up and down the aisles.

When we arrived the mountains were wreathed in low cloud, but it was certainly several degrees cooler than Tokyo and the air felt cleaner somehow, though Karuizawa is a busy place. It is one of the principle resorts for city-dwellers, with hundreds of holiday homes tucked away in the woods all around town, from glorified chalets through to the almost palatial (and ugly). The place was 'discovered' by an Englishman in the late 1800s and there is a strong British theme; there is more mock-Tudor here than in the average Essex town. The main drag is a good mile long with lots of nice little shops, boutiques and cafes; without Emily in tow I would gladly have spent an hour or two browsing in them.

We got some gen from the Information office at the station and then boarded a bus for a twenty minute ride up into the hills to Shiraito no Taki (White Thread Waterfall). We joined the dozens of tourists going to view the horseshoe falls that have about a 10 feet drop but are a couple of hundred feet round.

Having taken the falls in, with plenty of time to kill before a bus back, and a sleepy Emily to lull, we walked off along a hiking route which quickly took us away from the throng. Most people were probably put off continuing along the path by a set of vertiginous stairs that had me wavering a bit, but once we'd puffed up more than 120 of them at about a one in two angle, we found that it levelled off into a pleasant ramble among the trees, with just insects and birds and a rare person or two to accompany us. I almost felt that we could be back at home as there was little to say that we were in Japan - further down there had been a lot of dwarf bamboo undergrowth but up above it was mainly ferns under broadleaved trees. We walked for twenty minutes or more and Emily woke soon after we had turned back.

She wanted to get out of the carrier and walk, of course, and she seemed to enjoy strolling along with us, picking up the odd twig and larch cone. We had spotted several huge caterpillars that were almost fluorescent yellowy-green, but luckily Emily didn't see any as I was worried that they might be poisonous.

As we approached the waterfall again it came on to rain, and within minutes it was torrential and thundery. There was still half an hour to wait for the next bus so all we could do was huddle in a makeshift shelter next to a food stall where they were doing a roaring trade in fish speared on sticks and cooked over charcoal.

Back in Karuizawa we got off at the top end of the main street and soon found a nice cafe where we could top up with coffee and a cake and wait for the rain to stop before returning to the station. Emily got quite a long way down the road under her own steam but we had to prevent her from running into half the shops along the way. We picked up the local train to make the final short journey to Miyota where we were staying. The line skirts round the base of the local volcano, Asama-yama, whose 2500 metre peak was unfortunately not visible. At Miyota we were collected by the pension owner who drove us up the hills another 10 minutes to their lovely wooden lodge, Pension White Cloud Blue Sky. It turned out that he was a former salaryman who had had enough of the rat race and downshifted: probably a common story up here, given the proliferation of pensions and B&Bs.

Our room was small but adequate for one night. I quickly laid out our futons before it was time for dinner. Emily joined us, though she had her own food, which she picked at. Of course she preferred to try ours, though most of it wasn't really suitable for her. We just about made it through the meal without her spoiling it by getting upset. When they saw Emily, the only other guests, a young couple, must have realised that they were not going to have a tranquil or romantic weekend away.

We took Emily up to bed and gave her a bottle of milk, having no en-suite in which to bathe her first. But after I had put her in her sleeping bag and turned out the lights she was awake and moving around for a good half hour. I lay there quietly with her listening to her recitation of her favourite words. 'I love goki' featured heavily. Finally she gave in and I was able to creep out and join Nick for a while in the small lounge area. We had a bottle of Japanese wine which tasted more like white grape juice but was apparently 12%, and watched some truly inane Saturday night TV before tiptoeing back into the room for a nice early night.