I ride around Matsumoto for a while looking at the castle town area before leaving for Nagano, which was the half point for many spots up north, so while I was there I went sight seeing.
Nagano really is a beautiful city
Now Nagano is best known for it's position in the Olympic Winter Games. Best known to the Japanese for Shichimi Togarashi, which is a seasoned crushed pepper I am quite fond of, so is my dad. So I trecked up into the Mountains for Tofuguji Temple, where the monks make the peppers. The trecked WAY further into the boonies of the Forest for Ninjadera Mura. One of the three remaining ninja training camps, now an amusement park aimed mainly at children. Tofukuji is as far as the bus goes, and takes about an hour from the train station.
Tofukuji is actually three temples that escalate up the mountain, each flight of stairs is about 1000' in the altitude with my pack is was quite exhausting. Then about a 2 hour walk to Ninjamura
Going through the small town on the way
Finally at the park
The park, even though now aimed at kids, had an excellent museum hidden in the back
One of the attractions was the ninja house, a entire house built with mazes and puzzles requiring you to figure your way into each room
Since the japanese are not litigious like americans there was no "safety" measures to speak of, apparently the rule of the ninja and the park, if you can reach it, have at it, there were kids on the fuckin roofs of places, including a large Ninja Warrior like obstical course the kids were falling off of right and left, hell even I had a hard time.
