Jan Visits Hakuba - Beautiful Mountains & More


While in Hakuba, we stayed at Shirouma, a typical Japanese budget ryokan. They serve very traditional Japanese food, in other words lots of weird vegetables, plenty of dead fish, and little meat (if you get the picture). Great place though.	Dinner at Shirouma.

We visited several other places while in Hakuba, but I especially enjoyed our lunch at Cafe Walden. Built of wood apparently imported from Finland, except from the fabulous curry, the place smelt and felt like Scandinavia.	Matsumoto is the largest city in southern Nagano, is surrounded by mountains and is acclaimed for its beautiful views. It also offers some interesting buildings, such as this fine example of a book store.

The most famous sight in Matsumoto is probably Matsumoto Castle, which is listed as a National Treasure of Japan.