Traditional Japanese farmhouse in rural Azumino

More than 100 year old Japanese traditional bungalow

There are four cosy tatami bedrooms, one spacious dining-kitchen room and one Showa-style living room. The kitchen is fully appointed with a gas range.

One traditional bathroom and rest room.

The nearest station is JR Nakagaya fourteen minutes ride from Matsumoto in the Oito line and a ten-minute drive from the bungalow. The nearest convenience store takes five minutes by car.

Surrounded by peaceful rice fields and beautiful vegetable, flower and traditional Japanese gardens.

You can also enjoy the breath-taking views of the mountain; the Japanese Alps.

As it’s set in the quiet countryside, you can enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep.

 

Postcard from...Tsuruga, Fukui

Northern Japanese Alps, from Toyoshina station

I took a detour recently to knock off a couple of bucket list train trips.

Firstly, I wanted to ride the recently extended Hokuriku Shinkansen all the way around the north coast to its new terminus at Tsuruga...and ideally explore that corner of Fukui and the northern coast of Kyoto. Unfortunately, that part of the coastline will have to wait for another visit, I think by car, given the relative inaccessibility of the area & the less the less than easy to get to places I'd really like to explore, around Wakasa Bay, without having to rush to make connections.

The earliest Shinano from Matsumoto was a beautiful autumnal sunrise ride, the Northern Alps beyond Azumino to the left (west) before the Chikuma valley appeared after the tunnels either side of  sleepy  Omi/Hijiri-kogen. And what an appearance - spreading out to the north with Nagano city sprawled in the middle. A fairly unique train journey given the climb the line makes to cross from Shinshu to Chikuma (the two geographical & historical halves of modern Nagano prefecture).

If you want some anorak information about Shinano click here and for the route, here

JR East E7

From Nagano you won't get much of a view, as the line carves through a number of tunnels at light speed - this train really does get a shift on. Super smooth, and before you know it you're cutting the corner of Niigata prefecture and decelerating into Toyama with the Sea of Japan on your right already. Eyes left (south) for a stunning mountainscape. This part of the line, openned in 2015 is extremely swift!

Our shinkansen slows down after Kanazawa, dropping south through Ichikawa & Fukui prefectures with fewer and fewer passengers. This stretch of line only openned in March this year (2024); Tsuraga obviously not the final intended stop. I am sure, once the final leg is finished to Osaka (in another 20 years' time?) the route will open up the region - and not soon enough - the Noto peninsula desperately needs better transport access & investment to recover from the hammer blows of earthquake & typhoon damage this year.

Kagayaki: Tokyo–Tsuruga, limited-stop service, since 14 March 2015
Hakutaka: Tokyo–Tsuruga, mostly all-stations service, since 14 March 2015
Tsurugi: Toyama–Tsuruga, mostly all-stations shuttle service, since 14 March 2015
Asama: Tokyo–Nagano, mostly all-stations service, corresponding to existing Nagano Shinkansen service introduced in 1997

Follow the yellow (or blue!) brick road

And what of Tsuruga? No time to explore the town but just enough to find a nest of Thunderbirds, the aged limited express that used to service the line up to Kanazawa from Osaka/Kyoto, hugging the shore of Lake Biwa. The views of the lake are limited, unfortunately, especially if you are not sitting by the window & cannot keep the curtain up. My fellow foreign travellers glued to games on their phones/and ignoring the historic sites across the water. Really, really frustrating ignorance (and your enormous suitcases are even more annoying).


Familiar limited express rolling stock (JR-West 683-4000); comfy enough but looks & feels 'tired'...good enough for my needs and the relatively short trundle to Osaka - the non-shinkansen line from Kyoto taking a little more time, but divested of the tourons a chance to enjoy the suburban corridor. No rush!

Kissing Thuderbirds, Tsuruga station

I'm glad I made the effort to sweep around the "Hokuriku Arch" - an area begging to be discovered more slowly. There is a rail pass for this region that would be good value & allow travellers to stop over & linger for a whole week. Inner trainspotter satisfied!

A postcard from...North Alps Arts Festival, Azumino, Nagano

 Another really badly publicised event in Nagano :(

I am lucky that one of my students is really into cultural & arty stuff, and is always trying to share! The Northern Alps Arts Festival (NAAF) had been going on all autumn, with installations in over 40 locations around Azumino (Omachi & Ikeda) but I doubt ANY information about this awesome event had filtered out into languages other than Japanese. FAIL!

What a waste! If ever there was a year to make sure you have maximum footfall from a very limited patronage, 2021 is it. I have lived here for donkeys' years - and I only found out about it during its last week, by accident.

On one gorgeous autumnal day, Amirah & I could only visit four installations with our tour guides from Chihiro Museum. Truly creative & breathtaking concepts, inspiring locations and generous backdrops...

What do you think? Check out all the rest on Flickr!

Best eateries in Azumino - a local's Top 10

1. Auberge la vie tranquille Azumino 

“Marvelous French dishes with great views of Azumino. The first and only Auberge in Azumino”

“You can enjoy fancy French food”

2. Okina (Japanese Soba)

“You can enjoy some very good soba in the restaurant with a wonderful view of Azumino and Japanese Alps “

“It’s really popular and kind of a famous soba restaurant”

“In the restaurant, most of time, full of people”

3.Teatime Garni

“It’s a cozy cafe in the woods”

“My favorite place in this cafe is the terrace seat” 

“The morning plate: omelette and mushroom sauce and garlic rice or muffin, baked vegetables and fresh salad, is lovely!!”

4. Nishiya besso (accommodation and restaurant, shop)

“Amazing old house!!”

“You can enjoy the very traditional Japanese course dishes. They are beautiful and tasty. The rooms are really interesting old style “

“You can also enjoy hot spring. There’s a outside bath, which is fantastic “

5. Soup Curry Hanjiro

“Original soup style curry. Tasty and volume with meat and lots of vegetables”

“Really popular one. Most of the time, there is a queue in front of the restaurant “

6. Suehiro

“A Japanese style barbecue cooked in front of the customers. Traditional Japanese food, yakitori ( barbecue chicken) and karaage ( fried chicken) , cold or fried tofu…everything is good!!”

“Very old restaurant relaxed atmosphere”

7. Stagione 

“Nice Italian restaurant. They cook excellent food with their own vegetables from their garden. Especially antipasto plate in amazing!! “

“Nice, charming interior and a good view of the garden and mountains.

8. Cafe Olika

“It has just opened in this early summer. A kind of stylish cafe. You can enjoy some lunch plate. “

“ There’s a charming garden”

“On the weekend, sometimes it’s full of people. There’s parking “

9. Gappidou Seipan

“Excellent home made campagne bread and some hard bread. They are really tasty”

“The shop is in wood. It’s really nice place “

10. Azumino milk 

“There are some interesting products and food made by their fresh milk. Pudding, Ice cream, drinks. Fresh taste is unforgettable”

Eating out in Azumino

Traditional food
Regional specialities-There are some restaurants where you can try regional food such as soba, mountain vegetables etc... Soba is plain buckwheat noodles, served hot or cold, with soy sauce and fresh wasabi(Japanese horse-radish). In spring, you can also enjoy variors kinds of wild mountain vegetables, especially tempura is popular. There are lot of soba restaurants in Azumino, so it is interesting to try soba at a choice of different restaurants.
Fast food-Traditional
Azumino fast food is Oyaki,which is a vegetable filled dumpling, usually steamed but sometimes baked.

Cafes
In Azumino, there are plenty of unique, individual cafes. Most of them are hidden away in the woods and constructed with local materials. You can relax with lovely birds songs, and take in the relaxing atmosphere and views. Bakeries are particular about natural ingredients, baking homemade cakes   and bread which are really popular and unique to each bakery.

Special nights
There are some good restaurants which you can go for a special night out such as someone’s birthday or anniversary. You can choose French, Italian or Japanese fare. They offer fine full course meals, most chef are well trained and have plenty of experience. Get dressed up and go eat out in style!

Location
In the town-the majority of restaurants in the town are casual, such as chain family restaurants. They are cheap and convenient.
Country side-these tend to be unique, interesting family-owned restaurants and cafes. In general these restaurants are tucked away, rustic unique and interesting interior, countryside decor and tend to be reasonably priced.

Teruki

The Railway Children - Steam trains in Japan

My mother's hometown is in Akashina, Azumino city. There're lots of things about a steam train. Then I always went Akashina, I would get on a train with my mother and sister. The steam train had run through the Shinonoi line from Shiojiri to Nagano until I was about ten years old.

It takes 20 minutes to get Akashina station from Matsumoto. My mother told me not to open a window widely. Suddenly the smoke entered in the train depend on the wind direction. The seats were made of wood, so it was not comfortable to sit. But it was a cozy space with my family.

My grandparents house and rice fields were by the train line.  The house was on the higher place than the Shinonoi line. So I could see the magnificent figure of the steam train, when I went out of the gate. In front of the rice fields, there was a small crossing, then the train whistle blew. I liked to watch the steam train at that time.

In early summer, I played with my younger aunts while grandparents planted rice. In fall, the season of rice harvest, I always waved the passengers in the train from the rice fields. They waved back from the windows. I wondered where people were going? At that time, the train was not so fast, I could see the features of people. It was really interesting.

Posted for Hiroko

Blue LEDs & Nobel Prize winners

led_blue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I usually see 2 lightings at least in Winter. During this winter season, I saw the lighting at TOKI NO SUMIKA (時の梄) in Gotenba, Shizuoka and at ALPS Azumino national goverment park in Azumino city. Those lighting were very beautiful because the lighting of various colors were used, and it really got to me.

When I saw them, I remembered 3 doctors who invite Blue LED and won a 2014 Nobel Prize. If they don't invite Blue LED, I can't see a part of the colors we saw in the lighting and the lighting can't touch me or other viewers emotionally. If they don't invite Blue LED, we can't see clear electronic signboard for easy understanding at station and on road etc.

A few years ago, I saw a news that professor Nakamura went to court for asking his recompenses of inviting Blue LED to his previous company. When I saw that news, I surprised its amount (60 billion yen) as his recompenses and didn't know whether the recompenses were suitable, or not. But this time, I learned what effect Blue LED has for our life and industries and was glad that 3 doctors' research was recognized and was known very well.

An after reading task, by Ritsuko (graded reader "CHOIR Boy)

My home town - Azumino

DAIO Wasabi Farm (Azumino, Nagano, Japan) (Photo credit: t-mizo)

Dear Marcello,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Azumino is located in Nagano prefecture.

You will come to here in about three hours by express Train from Tokyo.

In the recommended spot, hot springs, museums and wasabi garden.

Wasabi garden is the most popular tourist place in Azumino.

I think trip's best season is early summer.

It is almost sunny and temperature is around 20 degrees in May.

Winter is very cold. Sometimes temperature becomes -10 degrees.

But you can enjoy in winter.

Because you can watch swans, and enjoy illuminations in national park in Azumino.

Please come to Azumino.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

K Maruyama

Posted for Kazuko

Young Medical Learners get hands on experience with professional guidance

The best kept secret of the festival at the Children's Hospital festival last week was the chance for children to touchy-feely with all kinds of things, the way doctors and nurses like to!

All aspects of health care could be tried out, explained very easily and quickly hands-on. Children could try to use an ultrasound machine (to see what kind of fruit was hidden in a jelly pack!); they could mix ingredients to make new medicines; they could give a lifelike baby doll a warm bath, injections and swab wounds; they could listen to heartbeats & take pulses, check other vial signs...they could even have a go at making stitches in a very real pig's heart. Brilliant experience (if you have the stomach for it!) and I hope inspired some youngsters to study science more. Certainly not everyday you can get live tuition from a heart surgeon on a real heart!



Download the slideshow at http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/SlDMLkhguj/

Throwing up with an audience - juggling in hospital!

Usually, the Quad in the middle of the hospital is a nice quiet place to sit and think, enjoy a bit of sunshine and escape the 'hospital' feel of flourescent lighting and the faint smell of disinfectant. On festival day, it became the home to a procession of cunjurors, mimes, jugglers and street performers. As you will see in the slideshow, they had their little audience (not their lunch!) in the plam of their hands.

When a hospital turns into a music & dance venue!

A very nice way to jolly up a hospital is to have a carnival in the main entrance! The Nagano Prefectural Children's Hospital pulled out all the stops and had African dancers, Hula girls, an apparently famous lady in a stripey PJ suit, the local school band, a folk band, a parade of mascots, and a Q & A session with two players from our local Matsumoto Yamaga football team - no surprise they were very popular and accounted for all the green football shirts being sported!

You can download the slideshow here (free) http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/QGPXI1KqeZ/

One big balloon and glowing smiles

I have to admit I volunteered eagerly to be able to photograph this year's festival at the Prefectural Children's Hospital. The red roof is a familiar landmark (which I am sure the helicopter ambulance pilots appreciate) out in the fields of Azumino. My school has deep ties with the hospital, going back over a generation and still going strong now. We really do know how much good is done there, and how much the staff care about the children in their care. We know that some of the patients are very poorly indeed, and others just need to be there for a long time. It is a beacon of hope, as well as excellence.

Once a year, they open their doors and put on an event for visitors and patients. It is remarkable how many people attended, but not that the place was buzzing with tenderness and love. From dawn, a hot air balloon all the way from Saku was anchored, then inflated, in the car park, offering rides above the hospital roof for a pristine view of the Alps on a beautiful clear morning. It was wonderfully heartwarming to see clearly unwell children be brave again, and enjoy the thrill of a very unusual ride. A very big 'wow' event.

Click on the slideshow below for all the smiles!


You can download the slideshow (free) at http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/9p4ld9OFML/

Exploring guide to Azumino/Hotaka launched

Avid readers will remember I taught a few classes very early in the spring, up the road in Hotaka, for the Azumino City Tourist Association. I was not the only one! There were also classes given in Chinese & Korean - younger, prettier, better teachers they were too...

Wednesday evening was the wrap party, but actually a lot more importantly it marked the launch of the English, Chinese & Korean language Exploring Guide. While the teachers hogged the limelight, the very hard work of a few local people seemed to go largely unnoticed. Step forward Whitney Conti in particular, who I know has been burning the midnight oil getting maps properly annotated, photos properly proportioned, full stops in the right places (been there done that, with Matsumoto & Norikura already!). Check out the good work here

Now, no matter the hard work of well intentioned volunteers & neo-natives, if the locals don't get their act together & get the basics sorted? I mean, the super simple stuff like menus, credit cards, sign posts? After that, even a little bit of imagination would go a long way - you know the social media dimension...get a fan club on Facebook, or Twitterise themselves? Think about Google maps & Doublesquare...

Something better than nothing? Yes, for sure. Late entries? Absolutely. Shinshu's best kept little secret for discerning travellers? Could be.

Azumino tourism class 105

My plan on Wednesday evening with the Azumino tourism group was to encourage some heads up communication. I think I achieved this goal nicely, with a very simple puzzle - actually intended as an "ice-breaker" - but which turned into a class defining exercise.

The ice-breaking plan, with about 13 students, was for pairs to match up very short conversational exchanges such as "I hope England win the World Cup" (a personal favourite!) > "So do I".  I had no idea about the level of people coming this evening, nor any guarantee on numbers, so this seemed like a sensible place to start. In the end, it turned out to be a very good place to start! Our average level was 'shy'!

In my experience, it pays to let an activity run if you have the time to spare; as a learner it can be very frustrating to have 'time' called before you are ready. The luxury tonight was actually having lots of time. I lent a hand here and there, but I didn't want to turn this into a 'firefighting' exercise; instead a nudge in the right direction eg OK, that is a yes/no question, but the answer is more subtle...

I was a bit surprised at how long this exercise took, but it showed that even very simple exchanges need activating. "How are you?", "Can I sit here?", "Can I help you?" are all the beginnings of international friendships...Everyone found this a bit hard but at the same time realised they have some work to do if they want to 'survive' encounters in English successfully.

After a quick break I asked students to work in pairs, giving each other directions on a simple grid. (One recurring request has been to practice directions). Simple is best, as is the need to avoid over complex maps right now. Very simple imperatives (commands), nevertheless demanding clear delivery & checking skills - when was the last time you stopped for directions but didn't listen carefully enough & got lost again?! This worked rather quickly, because as expected there was a degree of 'cheating' going on - looking over each others' shoulders, pointing & translating...OK, first time is a bit 'wobbly' as they probably have not done something like this before.

The real fun began when I asked the group to break up into teams, with one artist to work at the nice big board at the front of the room, and two/three 'directors' per artist with the instructions, seated at the back of the room. Intended to be noisy and competitive, it worked. Each groups grid or finished product on the board was different, so cheating really didn't help! The artists did a fine job interpreting conflicting instructions, and most of the directors really got into the mood, gesticulating wildly and miming, trying to 'win'.

Ice well & truly broken, an intense and fun large group class finished with everyone tired & cheery. Well done everyone!

Azumino tourism 104

I was briefed to teach a group of 16 or so people in the local tourism industry on Wednesday evening. They had decided they were 'intermediate' level. I had decided this might be an ambitious estimate (if the other options were 'zero/beginner' or 'advanced'), especially in my experience earlier in the day.

I was expecting a group who were involved in running museums, galleries, outdoor activity businesses etc, so figured I'd base this lesson on my experiences working, travelling, and taking tours to New Zealand. The ideal material was listening to a fast talking foreigner (Scottish) talking to a Kiwi (tourist info officer). After that, the scene was set to have similar exchanges modelled on the original, then to less structured work based on their own backgrounds & demands as potential tourists.

Having four guys from the same business was a blessing; my original role play idea became a lot more realistic as I challenged them to do some sales/respond to enquiries, and the rest of the group to get some key info as well as a discount if at all possible.

Now, some of the people who came along were not 'intermediate' level by any stretch of the imagination, but even they realised that if a local retiree can batter them down for a discount or answer simple questions (from people who know their product/service) then they'd better pull their socks up. I was delighted with the effort everyone made this evening, becoming 'genki listeners' and responding to what potential guests would like to do.

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Azumino tourism 103

On Wednesday afternoon I was asked to teach a large group of people in the tourism business a few 'useful' things. I have never met this group before and was totally unsire about their level, abilities, motivation, goals etc. I also knew that this was a 'once off' so little chance of establishing much of a relationship with my clients.

As this group was self-diagnosed 'intermediate' (what criteria were used, please?!) and apparently were used to using English in their workplaces (hotels & restaurants predominantly) I figured a 'conversation-style' class would be old hat & pointless. Also mostly self-employed, probably at least my age (21+)...I might not teach them anything new (I didn't want to try anything 'too hard' and be pulling teeth all afternoon) but at least I could give them the kind of class they may not be so familiar with. Maybe even allow them to realise they need to brush up on a skill or two.

I challenged them to read an email from an inbound tourist asking for info at a hotel (in Turkey), and to identify why the writer was writing, and to 'describe' the layout of the mail. The long & short of the rest of the (2.5 hr) lesson was to use that email as a template & write our own email (pencil & paper for now) requesting info, before 'changing hats' to read an incoming email, decipher it (and then realise that the layout is vitally important!) and compose a professional reply.

Outcome? I think the realisation was that 'I always do this' or 'I always say that' is not the same as the having the desired impact. Which in an email to potential customers is often a one-shot deal.Well done team!

Man in the news

Tourism 101 in Azumino

Image via Wikipedia

Luna was asked recently to help the good people of Azumino get a step ahead in their ambitions to develop tourism locally. Jim has been involved with the Yokoso Matsumoto project for a couple of years now (as has Tana more recently), and is glad to be contributing to our neighbouring "city's" outreach too.

This evening 20 local business operators in the local tourist industry took part in a two and a half hour introductory workshop with Jim. All participants were self-declared "beginners" (some more so than others). The aim this evening was to give a lot of encouragement, as quickly as possible, in genuinely useful situations. For Jim, it was actually unusual to have a group of people in such urgent need of even basic English - and therefore very challenging to provide relevant, simple language.

How do you satisfy 20 people from different sectors of the tourist trade with little in common other than location and a large 'fear of English' factor? Not possible. What you can do is facilitate their latent learning (8+ years through school for a start) & in-service experience to speak up - with a template. Give them a pattern to form their language around, show there is a place to start and that they 'can do'.

Today, speaking was top priority - overcoming that "Oh my God. A foreigner has rocked up & wants to check in" syndrome. Name, rank & number. Observe, practice, do!

Some useful language - counting is 'different' in Japan. Foreigners don't know katakana (the most useless script ever) so "How do you spell that?" has to be Q1a at a hotel/ryokan, doesn't it?

Time flew; the Shimin Times lady came, flashed, and went. Everyone made new friends, English questions and answers in the air (Jim's threat to charge Japanese usage with a beer tax was taken seriously). Everyone got the chance to practice some simple exchanges, and it looked like everyone relaxed and got a lot out of the evening.

What do you think?