Toyama-ken a.k.a. SNOW COUNTRY

So this past weekend Michelle and I decided to be a little crazy (like always) and visit our friend Stacey that lives in Toyama. Toyama is FAR from me. Toyama prefecture is north-west of Nagano, and right on the coast of the Japan Sea. In some areas it has actually gotten colder this past couple of weeks than it was before. Weird huh? It snowed the entire time I was there, and I heard that it even snowed in Iwaki a little this past weekend.

So I left Iwaki Saturday night. My last class ends at 8, and the last train was at 8:20 so I had to sprint out of there! From Iwaki I went to Ueno, and then from Ueno I took the midnight train to Toyama. That same train stopped in Omiya where Michelle joined me :) It was a 5.5 hour train ride and so we brought along a little bit of alcohol and snacks to tide us over.

The Express Noto...it was VERY OLD train!! There were a lot of people taking pictures of it, I'm guessing it must be from the 70s or something because it was OLD!!!!!!!!

Our mess

"Hmm...this little can is definitely not going to do the trick..."



We arrived in Toyama at 5:15a.m. where Stacey met us bright and early!!! It was freezing! When we got to her apartment, she had a "happy birthday" sign waiting, and she and Michelle had got me little presents...so cute!! It definitely made up for last weekend, spending my bday alone!


Later that day we decided to check out Ainokura Villages in Johana. Ainokura village is famous for it's gassho style houses. People can go there and stay in the houses overnight, and during the summer you can camp there. Ainokura village is also a World Heritage Site, so it's land is protected.
It took about 2 hours by train to get there, and the further we went, the more "country" it became...


"We're not in Tokyo anymore..."

Johana Train Station

In the middle of nowhere


Freezing!

Welcome to Ainokura Village






Lunch at Ainokura




It was an amazing trip!! Most people in Japan will go their lifetime without ever visiting Ainokura. It was so beautiful, and so full of history that we really felt lucky to be there, despite the freezing cold...That night we had dinner in Toyama and went to sing some karaoke.




Monday morning we decided to take advantage of all the snow and go snowboarding up Mount Tateyama!! It was a breathtaking journey...it was just covered in snow!!! It felt like had walked through the closet to Narnia or something...

Arare, cookies, and ritz crackers...breakfast of champions


Snowboarding was quite an adventure. It was the first time any of us had been in such conditions!!! The powder was waist-high and really choppy at the beginning of the run...The beginner slopes were closed so we had to start at the top. It was so windy and snowy that there were times when you couldn't see five feet in front of you...At the beginning we couldn't even move, and had to trudge our way through the snow. We finally gave up and took our boards off and hiked half way down the hill until it smoothed out a little and we were able to actually snowboard...It was a lot of fun, and I'm really starting to learn the different types of conditions and how to adjust each one...the last time we went at Inawashiro it was the opposite where there wasn't a whole lot of snow, and it was hard and icy.










It was such an AWESOME weekend, I really liked Toyama! It was very country, but there are so many things to do! We are already planning our return in the summer so we can hike and camp-out on Mt. Tateyama when everything is green, NOT white. :)