It was another early start for us since the journey to Kamikochi would be a long one. We got up at 7am and went to have breakfast at the dining room before hitting the shower. We checked out at 9am and waited around for the Ryokan staff to get their car ready to drive us to Matsumoto Station.
The weather was really good that day, clear blue skies and the temperate was just right. I really liked the weather in Matsumoto but I can't imagine how cold it would actually be down there in winter?
Last one before leaving!
Once there, we went to the tourist information counter again to ask for directions. Luckily this time, it wasn't much of a hassle to get to Kamikochi since there was a direct bus, it took about an hour and a half to reach Kamikochi but the journey was well worth it. The bus drove up the mountain, passing by a lot of lakes, ponds, farms and towns. When it got nearer to Kamikochi, everyone in the bus went "woah" when the alps were in sight. It already was so breathtaking from the bus, all of us couldn't wait to get down.
Once off the bus, there were a lot of hikers and people with camping equipment around. Little sis and I sticked out so much because we weren't in hiking entire and little sis was wearing platform shoes. There were several souvenir shops at the bus terminal, we didn't get anything just yet and walked straight towards the alps where Kappa bridge was located.
Walking alongside the river, we just couldn't wait to take photos. We saw a small stairway to get down to the river and immediately ran for it. I took a couple of polaroids that turned out so nicely. There was a family having a picnic next to the river, which I thought was so cute. The water was so clear and the alps looked so pretty. It wasn't exactly very crowded for a public holiday, thankfully. We took our time and took many many photos and once we had enough, we walked to Kappa bridge.
Just beside the bridge, there were some shops and stands, selling mostly soft-cream and other souvenirs. There was also a tap where you could actually take water directly from the alps. To my surprise, there were some artists with their easel positioned nicely infront of the alps, painting away. I always admired people who can paint landscapes, it's seriously not my forte. I failed my landscape painting class back in art college, lol.
It was quite difficult to get a shot on the bridge since there were so many people walking by, stopping to take photos of themselves, the alps, everything. I don't blame them though.
On the other side of the bridge, there were more shops. There was also a restaurant and several hotels. Both little sis and I didn't know that Matsumoto is known for apples, there were a ton of apple flavoured stuff at the shops. In the end, we didn't get anything but soft-cream and sat on one of the benches near the bridge. There were some ducks walking around as well, I never liked ducks since this incident in Melbourne two years ago, haha.
After lazing around for a bit, we walked around the area near the bridge and got bored, so we decided to walk to Taisho Pond. It was about 3.3km away from the bridge, so we took our time and walked along the river. We would do some random stops to get close to it and take photos, every stop looked different. It was a really nice walk but there were a lot bugs on the way, some of them would stick to our clothes.
Halfway through the walk, you could choose to take the forest trail or river trail, little sis and I thought it would be interesting to take the forest one since we have been walking by the river for almost an hour. So we decided to switch and it was a bad decision because there were even more bugs and also, mud on the forest trail. Why didn't we think of that before hand? There was also another bridge halfway through the trail.
We finally made it to Taisho Pond, and the view from there looked different again. The pond wasn't spectacular like the river or anything, it was just really brown. Not the disgusting, dirty kind, but that shade of brown was pretty.
We didn't spend too much time there as it was already 3pm, and we had booked tickets for the bus to get back to Matsumoto at 4.45pm. So we decided to take a slow walk back to the bus terminal. This time, we opted for the river trail since the forest trail wasn't that interesting.
Again, we stopped randomly to take even more photos of the river.
Basically, the whole conversation of the day was "it's so pretty". Both of us didn't want to leave and we promised each other that the next time we travel together and get the chance to get to the alps again, we should book a hotel over there so we can do some stargazing. I bet the stars would look fucking amazing near the alps, maybe if we're lucky, spot some shooting stars and make wishes too?
We got closer to the bus terminal and decided to take the longer route back since there was still a little time to spare. We walked at the other side of the river, covering the Weston Area. There was where all the hotels, cabins and lodges were.
We slowly took the time to get back to the bus terminal, where we got mushroom (autumn special) steamed buns and some fried chicken because they smelled so good. We waited around until it was 4.45pm and board the bus to Shin-Shimashima train station. There wasn't any direct bus back to Matsumoto. Most people slept on the bus, including me. Waking up in between and would stare out of the window and think, how lucky it is for us to spend the day here as the bus slowly drove down the mountain.
We got to Shin-shimashima station at about 6.30pm and it was really chilly. Thankfully, we didn't wait too long for the train to arrive to bring us back to Matsumoto Station. It took over an hour to get back. Once back, we rushed to get on the Shinano Limted Express back to Nagano.
Little sis was reading her travelling book along the way and it recommended that we stopped at Nagano Station to get some famous miso ramen near the station. The ramen place wasn't hard to find, and it was only a 5 minute walk away. We both ordered big bowls of miso ramen and were too hungry to even take photos of it but it was so good, definitely worth the slight detour.
We got on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo at 9pm and arrived at almost 11pm. Arriving back in Tokyo definitely hit us hard because of all the high rise buildings and crowd. Thankfully, the journey back home wasn't that bad. We were both really tired when we got home, we both took a nice long warm shower and passed out till the next morning.
I didn't know that there were alps in Japan, let alone 3. The next time little sis plan to go to the alps again, we will definitely stay for a couple of days just to be away from the city and like I said earlier, stargazing. There are way too many things to do to finish all in a day. We plan on dragging our parents with us since they haven't been to the alps before and they're already turning 60 soon.
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