Less than one month from our 1st trip, we already went on to our 2nd trip — Karuizawa!
This is a resort area between Kunma & Nagano, northwest of Tokyo. It is popular in the summer because of its cooler temperature and a lot of trees… In Autumn, it turns to be a popular place to see the colorful leaves! And that is our Mission — to see the Colorful Leaves!
This time, we tool the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Nagano, and cycle back to Yokohama from there.
This is the 1st time for me to take the Shinkansen with a bike, so we were nervious…
We researched & asked the ticket counter to make sure that our reserved seats were at the last row, so there were space behind our seats for the bikes. In fact, we reserved the seats next to the baggage rack!
In fact, as soon as we arrived, we had already passed by the headquarter of a famous shop for Kamameshi (rice, veges, meat cooked & served in a small pot) called “Oginoya”, so we had an early lunch!
Soon, we already arrived a beautiful major park for slight-seeing. Actually, this park used to be a war zone in the past…
We went on to visit some old houses… The Japanese gardens were so beautiful and peaceful. and there were so much details on the furnitures or walls…
Haha, this was the toilet. Actually, it is not so different from the modern Japanese style toilet!
We hurried to visit an old Japanese castle before it closed at the evening. We were so lucky to see it with sunset, it’s so beautiful!
Unfortunately, after that, we had to ride in the dark to our hotel… but noonlight is nice too!
The next day, we continued to ride on the road, which was very relaxing. Some ups & downs the hills, but we have minimal loads on our bikes because we only stayed at hostels this time (thanks to “Go To Travel” discount, even our Shinkansen ticket was half-priced!)
We didn’t need to go far to look for flowers & colorful leaves… They are just on the way!
Thank to hubby, we stayed at a public recreation facility, which is used mostly for students to practice their sports, but this facility is also open to public, have big rooms, hot bath, dinner & breakfast served at low price (within our USD 20-30 per person per night budget).
Again, we stayed at some business hotel on the way, had some traditional Japanese soup noodles as lunch on the way.
This was our Thai dinner. We found a quiet family-style Thai restaurant walking distance from our hotel. Due to the Pandemic, all the restaurants close by/before 8PM. We had to hurry…
This is pumpkin desert (typical in Autumn) from convenience store. Isn’t it pretty? The convenience stores in Japan serve really high quality & low priced foods. This is about USD 3.
We had breakfast buffet at hotel, yeah!!
I love the fields & nature, maybe because I grew up in cities.
Haha… at night we went drinking on the streets again. Passed by and found this cute big doll from 2nd hand shop (about USD 5?)
Breakfast set at some chain coffee shops… There are quite a few good ones, not only Starbucks in Japan.
Back to Yokohama!
This house has beautiful tropical-looking tree, and it was such as sunny day!
ROUTES:
Day 1 – take Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano; stayed at Nagano
Day 2 – stayed at Kazakoshi Park, Karuizawa
Day 3 – stayed at Honzo, Saitama
Day 4 – stayed at Kawagoe, Saitama
Day 5 – back to Yokohama
TOTAL: about 237km
