Hakuba & Kiso Valley

We left Matsumoto with a light drizzle falling.  We made our way to Kiso Valley to visit the old post town on Nakasendo.  What a lovely little town.  We strolled along the quiet streets and the rain stopped.  This town was used to accommodate travelers that would rest before or after making their trek through over the mountains. There are many springs there and we came across a lot of them in the town. 

From the Kiso Valley we made our way to the Dai Wasabi Farm..but first we had lunch!  Soba noodles was the main course, these are made from buckwheat and are delicious. You mix the onions, wasabi into a broth and immerse the noodles, very yummy! Below you can see the restaurant and the lunch.

 Our tour guide at the Daio Wasabi Farm was an interesting man, he had been a newspaper reporter before retiring.  He told a lot about wasabi growth, how direct sunlight has to be avoided and how the water that is constantly being fed through to the growing plants has to be 13 degrees Celsius.

 Here is the rows and rows of wasabi.  The plant can only be harvested once, then it's back to Square 1 :-)  From the Daio Wasabi Farm we took the hour drive to Hakuba!  What an incredible drive, past fields and fields of rice paddies into the Japanese Alps, absolutely breathtaking!!!  Rice paddies grow in front of homes, they can be for their own use, or sometimes they sell the rice.  This area of Japan produces their best rice.

We arrived to Hakuba after a beautiful drive!  What to say about Hakuba is why you've got to go! Ski 10 unique ski fields with one lift pass. The average snow depth for the Hakuba area over is over 2.5 metres, incredible!!  There are plenty of restaurants, onsens as well as snow monkeys! :-)  We did see 2 of them on our mountain climb.  There are day tours organized during the winter season where you can see them up close enjoying the hot onsens.

We were taken up on the chair lift, what a sight to behold, makes me want to go back to Japan to ski, something that I had never thought about when I would think about Japan.  Hakuba is the area in which the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics were held, so there is some pretty good trails and terrain!

Sadly, we had to leave Hakuba and Japan.  Tomorrow we wing back to Canada!