Climbing up a tall rock

The name of this mountain is "Takai-iwa", "tall rock", very fitting as it sits towering above the highway entrance of Karuizawa. Thus I had seen it many times but never realized that there was a way to climb it. It doesn't appear in any of the many guide books about Karuizawa, as it seems to be unfitting for a "Resort town" with a big shopping mall to engage in serious outdoor sports. 

The mountain can be climbed from two sides of which I choose the south side. As there is no parking space at the entrance to the hiking path from a narrow road I left my car a bit away and thus got a glimpse of this autumn combination of flaming red maple leafs and a tree without any leafs but lots of bright persimmon fruits.

After hiking through some forest and then upward between big boulders the climb became steep up a ravine of sort with rocks that looked as if formed by concrete and stones but in reality formed during volcanic activity.

The top consists of two big towers with several tops connected by ridges. Autumn had finished at the top and I could thus enjoy an unobstructed view. This one is to the east side with the highway towards the Kanto plain showing in a few places.

And here a view of the late autumn colors of the forests below with Mount Asama sitting at the top

After crossing several ridges I decided to take the front path down with this point being the only kind of challenge. It only doomed to me later that I had somehow missed the biggest challenge, the "chimney" where  one would climb straight up the inside corner of the rock supported by a chain hanging from the top. This place isn't a major attraction, marking of the path with colored plastic bands was scarce and the bottom was totally covered with fallen leaves, making it even more difficult to spot the trail.

When taking pictures from the bottom a flash from the very top caught my eye and I realized two persons standing (!) on the flat top of the highest tower taking in the 360 degree view in disregard to any vertigo and the cold wind that was blowing. I knew than that the small path I thought would end at a small water outlet actually led further on to the "chimney"! But altogether I was done in two hours, so a "revenge" is coming up for sure.

Langes Wochenende in Toyama

Montag war ein Feiertag hier in Japan und wir nutzten die Gelegenheit meines nicht-arbeiten, um die Schwiegereltern in Toyama zu besuchen. Hinfahrt Samstag morgens, früh los, zehn nach sieben. Sandwich und Frühstück für Hannah im Gepäck. Diese fängt auch schon nach ca 20 min Fahrt an sehr durchdringend nach ihrem Frühstück zu fordern. Dafür schläft sie dann auch eine halbe Stunde später ruhig wieder ein und bleibt so bis kurz vor der Ankuft, welches sehr hilfreich war. Den Großteil der Strecke fuhren wir auf der "Autobahn", da unser Auto nur einen kleinen Motor hat dann auch meistens mit gemütlichen 90 km, bergab etwas schneller, machte sich auch ganz gut für den Spritverbrauch. Die Küste ist an vielen Stellen so steil, das ein Großteil der Autobahn durch Tunnels ging, und an ein paar Stellen direkt über dem Meer. Die Tunnelbeleuchtung war noch immer auf "Sparen" eingestellt, nur jede zweite, manchmal auch noch weniger, der Lampen brannte, was mir eigentlich besser gefiel, weniger stressvoll für die Augen.

Hannah hat es natürlich im grossen Haus sehr gut gefallen, sie krabbelte den ganzen Tag hin und her und überraschte alle indem sie die Treppe ins Obergeschoss erklomm obwohl sie vorher noch nie eine Treppe benutzt hatte!

Für uns Eltern war ein Mittagessen zu zweit auf dem Plan, wie immer Sushi, denn Toyama ist berühmt für die hohe Qualität des frischen und reichhaltigen Angebots.

Am Sonntag stand eine Kurzwanderung für die ganze Familie auf dem Programm von der Firma des Schwiegervaters mit anschließendem Bento-Mittagessen.

Am Montagmorgen machten wir uns auf dem Rückweg, diesmal aber nicht direkt, sondern mit einem vorherigen Abstecher nach Matsumoto. Dies beinhaltete eine längere Fahrt auf der Landstrasse, am Fusse der Nordalpen, immer geradeaus.

Ich hatte immer angenommen das dieses lange Tal sich durch den Fluss, der dort fließt, gebildet wurde, aber nach 3/11 stellte ich fest, das dieses die Grenze zwischen eurasischer und nordamerikanischer Platten ist! Selbst die Alpen sind ganz ähnlich denen in Europa, durch Plattenverschiebungen entstanden.
In Matsumoto besuchten wir die berühmte Burg, leider nur von draußen, denn dadurch das es aufgrund einer Veranstaltung sehr voll war, hätte eine Innenbesichtigung mit Hannah zu lange gedauert.

Anschließend noch ein Spaziergang durch das Nachbarschaftsviertel mit Besichtigung einer alten, wiederhergerichteten, Schule. Original erbaut in 1876 von einem japanischen Architekten der versuchte westliche Elemente mit einzubeziehen.

Die kleinen Schultische und Stühle in einem Raum zum Ausprobieren waren genau die richtige Grösse für Hannah!

Das Eingangstor gibt ein weiteres Beispiel westlichen Schaffens: neben den auch innen verwendeten Drachen und Wellenmotiv schmücken ein paar Engel das Dach und halten den Schulnamen hoch

Seit ca 1 Woche beschäftige ich mich mehr mit Google+ und habe dort schon etliche Fotografen getroffen verschiedensterer Stilarten. Dies hat zur Folge das ich meine Augen jetzt immer weit geöffnet habe die Licht-und Schatteneffekte zu entdecken, kleine Details, die für sich auf einem Foto sehr schön aussehen würden, wie zB. dieser Handlauf am unteren Ende der Treppe, die viele Benutzung hat die Form sehr weich gemacht und die schön verlaufende Maserung noch deutlicher zum Ausdruck gebracht.

Die Fahrt von Matsumoto bis nach Hause wieder "durch" einen Berg, denn unser Ort liegt gewissermassen in einem "Nachbartal", mit wenigen direkten Verbindungen. Und auch die Strasse, die wir benutzten, ging lange ein enges Tal empor, 8% Steigung, dann in einen Tunnel, wo der Abstieg bereits wieder begann. Hannah war ziemlich erschöpft vom vielen Autofahren, und Hiromi vom vielen "entertaining" auf dem engen Rücksitz.
Wieder in Karuizawa angekommen, habe ich das Gefühl das der Herbst während unserer Abwesenheit Einzug gehalten hat, es gibt schon viel mehr rote Farbtöne in den Bäumen als letzte Woche. Ich hoffe ich kann die Zeit nutzen und einiges fotografieren, mein neues Wissen und Wissbegierigkeit zum Ausdruck bringen.

Family Outing

We finally have our "family-outing" gear together: I got myself a big Kona Mountain Bike (Model "Fire Mountain" which are exactly the readings for the two kanji that describe "Volcano" in Japanese, very fitting because one sits quite close to here!) after my "fake" Louis Garneau double-suspension cross bike crashed out under me, the design of the Japanese company that sells the bikes here apparently couldn't cope with my "bloddy foreigner" weight, also it might had to do with the fact that I never did any maintenance on the suspension! Hiromi still has her Bianchi Passo lightweight bike, also I mistreated it for the few months during which I was without my own. And for Hannah we found a Hamax Baby seat, which is attached via adapter to the seat post with two detachable pipes, making it easy to use on a different bike and most important works like a suspension, making Hannah swing up and down when we hit the rough sidewalks here. Actually on the first trip some of the milk that she had sipped before departure did swing up only and not down when she did and somehow found it's way out, but Hannah enjoyed the ride nevertheless.

Unfortunately autumn has arrived by now in Karuizawa, not letting the temperature rise above 20 degrees, so it's hard to fit a longer ride into Hannah's busy schedule of eat, drink, sleep as I am not sure whether she could sleep on the child seat with the large helmet preventing her from leaning her head against the back rest.

So we made just a short trip in the afternoon and stopped at a Cafe called "Le Petit Nid" which pleasantly surprised me by offering quite professional service without too high prices, as many places around here that are built in the vicinity of the many summer-house areas think it's enough to have about 2 kind of cakes to serve, charge good money, but do a lot of talking because they are run by old-timers, retired workers who do it more for fun than anything. And the owner is an avid biker as well it seems, having two Bianchi bikes and two other Italian road bikes standing around and inside the cafe. Unfortunately he was to busy with orders as to engage into some small talk about Coffee and Biking, so we might just have to visit that place again.

Hannah's Hiking Trip

Two months ago I had bought a baby-carrier backpack from Mont Bell to be able to enjoy the beautiful natural surroundings of Karuizawa with the whole family and we had tried it on one occasion. I was quite satisfied with it: Hannah looked comfortable riding in it, the buckled harness would keep her safely even when I would do a total flip-over and the load was not too heavy on my shoulders, plus it had good storage space beneath the seat. So I decided it was time for her hiking-debut "Yama-girl" as they are called in Japanese, to describe young gals going into the woods in proper yet fashionable outfit adapted from the old saying "fashion follows function". We have a small hill very close by by the form of a bowler hat, rather steep sides, but more or less flat on the top, and with only about 600 meters in hight it would mean a hike through the woods with a splendid look-out at the top. I had hiked it once before from the east side which turned out to be an asphalted road zig-zagging up the side to be used by the forest workers. This time I chose the south-west path which would go through the forest on a more gentle slope. In winter this area seems to be the "hang-out" for the local monkey group (and I had actually spotted them before) but we didn't see any bigger species including bears that also make some rare appearances. There actually was a notice at the entrance of the trail with warning about bears and an updated notice about the "appearance" of one only one week earlier. This seemed to be the strongest alert over "sighting" and "foot prints". So I was rather happy that we didn't  set out in too early time and had a bell to make some noise since our baby proved "noisy" only for small part of the trip.

The Yama-girl all dressed up at home

Ready to "hit" the trail, a bit nervously chewing on her toy

The one who is really "hitting" the trail with a load of about 13 kg on the back

Nice forest trail, fresh green and even fresher air after a few days of heavy rain because of a Taifun

All this was too much for our fresh Yama-girl; after less than 30 min, she felt asleep swinging on my  back

A few flowers still blooming

As well as some trees

The rather uneasy part of the trail, planks with non-slip surfaces and slats across them above the ground, but some parts rotten and sunken away, where we had to tip-toe forward.

After a bit more than an hour we had finally reached the top, covering about 600 meter in height difference. Hannah was finally waking up from the fresh breeze at the top

My two Yama-girls, one very seasoned and one just doing her first steps experiences regarding Nature

We had some Bento lunch, stretching our strained legs and relaxing for a while before starting the descent

Where we again met some delicate flowers

And again someone felt asleep

Deep in Dreams

On our way home we had a well-earned coffee-break with cake, 3 pieces for the 3 of us:

I had half a piece from Hannah for carrying her

My wife had half a piece to pass on to her later as Cassis-Latte

And Hanna had her usual energy drink: Oolong tea

My off-day

Today was my last off-day before the epidemic rush of tourists starts this weekend with the "Golden Week" holidays. Off means no work, and mostly no phone calls from the boss, but of course not off from family life, so this is how today went:
After breakfast I went for a walk with Hannah to give my wife the chance to clean the apartment. As it was very warm I didn't mind at all, taking our sturdy "Quinny" 3-wheel baby buggy. The fresh air and the green starting out in the gardens had some energizing flavor, and after a few hundred meters I changed from fast walking to light jogging speed, handling the buggy (front wheel locked from going sideways) sometimes with both hands, sometimes with one to see the effects of my running posture (one hand feels better for the back..). So we cruised  around the neighborhood, found that the bakery at the outlet mall was only opening at ten, went the other way and discovered that Hannah had fallen asleep, something she usually won't do in the buggy, so I guess it has to do with the speed of things passing by, cause she is a very good sleeper in the car, but again only when it's moving.
After lunch I dropped my wife and Hannah at the baby-group, than went to to some gardening

It still looks all a bit disorderly, but than again, removing a blanket of weed and than digging out stones and gravels by the bucket does slow down the pace

After a short two hours (wherein short does describe the achieved and in no way the efforts) I picked up my two girls again. This little one with the bulky arms isn't too happy about being strapped in.

We than drove to a nice old and quiet cafe overlooking a lake and Mount Asama as a backdrop.

Hannah was at first a bit surprised about sitting on a big chair all by herself but soon relaxed and started happily banging around as usual and checking out the surroundings, luckily not yet running around but only looking here and there

In the end though she fell asleep happily in her mother's lap