Travel Plans

Unfortunately, I haven't had any opportunities for travel recently. I've been preparing for my upcoming trips. In July I will be going to Disneyland and DisneySea in Tokyo! I'm very excited about this trip, but we (when I say we I mean my boyfriend was searching and I was advising. hehe) had to find a good deal for this trip. Traveling from Nagoya to Tokyo is not cheap. It costs about 20,000 yen one way on the Shinkansen. Then we also wanted to stay for a couple days meaning we needed a hotel room. Of course, there are plenty of hotels around Tokyo Disneyland, but they are very expensive!

We did our best to find a reasonable price that wasn't ridiculously far from the park. We had heard that we could find package deals of hotel and Shinkansen tickets through JR railway and that is what we did. There were no package deals that included the park tickets. We ended up spending about 60,000 yen each for the train and hotel (2nights/3days) plus 10,700 yen for a 2 day pass. Considering all the options we looked at we felt this was a fair deal for staying at a hotel that's just a short bus ride away. (Some hotels were an hour away by bus!) We are planning to just pick up some food at the convenience store for breakfast to save a little money and spend a crazy amount of money on lunch and dinner in the park. lol

My second trip is in September. I will be going to my hometown for my best friend's wedding (I'm a bridesmaid), visit a friend in Santa Fe, New Mexico and show a friend around my hometown of Seattle! I will be gone for about three weeks in September so as you can imagine I have been working and saving up money for my trips this summer. This has meant that I have had to reduce the amount of travel around Aichi prefecture. I'm sorry for the lack of posts and this will also continue until I come back from Disneyland and then again until I return from the states. The good news is that I will have a lot of photographs to share after I return!

I look forward to sharing my experiences and until then I will be dreaming of the places that I can go to! If you have any ideas please through them my way! I will revisit through my collection of photographs on my blog until then. Here we go down memory lane until we make new ones.

~V

P.S. This is a photograph from last summer. It was at a summer festival in Nagoya at the old shopping arcade. They had some great paper decorations hanging over the shops and of course festival games! I think this happens every summer (I hope it does!). This giant octopus was made by Cafe Duffy if memory serves.

A Mini Garden Oasis

 Mandaraji Shrine in Konan, Aichi prefecture.

Who Doesn't Appreciate Flowers On a Sunny Day?

I'm not sure if it's a different type of Wisteria or if it's late in blooming, but the Wisteria's on this side were shorter than the others.

I have no idea what type of flowers these are, but the colors and the expansion of the petals were beautiful. 

This one was interesting, because they seemed to bloom in groups of two or three. Again, I have no idea what kind of flower this was.

Surrounded by Wisteria for the day

 It's images like this that made me think of grapes every time I looked at them.

 Everywhere people were like me, taking photographs. It makes for a pleasant memory to return to down the road.

 At Mandaraji Shrine there were more than Wisteria Trees here. There were other flowers like these.

Fuji Matsuri

 Fuji Matsuri in Konan. The purple flowers remind me of grapes.

 The shady areas were nice and cool on this day. A perfect day to be outside, but under the cover of shade.

 There were many families here doing this. Who wouldn't want their childs' face framed by flowers?

 

Wisteria Festival

The Wisteria Festival ended on the last day of Golden Week (in May), but this is an annual festival. If you missed it this year try to go next year! The Wisteria trees are beautiful with the way they drape down and move lightly in the gentle breeze.

 Just an FYI there are some bees that hang around these flowers. They aren't hornets or anything (I think they are a type of honey bee), but they were much bigger than bumblebees that I was used to seeing in Seattle. I was a little freaked out when I first saw them, but if you don't bother them then they won't bother you. So, just keep moving along and you will be fine like I was. : )

The Snow Wall of the Alpine Route

I have to admit when I first heard about the snow wall I didn't think much of it. It took some convincing by my boyfriend for me to come along on this trip. I hate to say it, but he was right.

If you look closely on the bottom left corner you can see that some people have drawn pictures in the snow. I saw some characters like Doraemon and Anpanman (I swear I saw Chopper from the One Piece manga drawn in the snow, too)

The wall was 18 meters tall at the tallest point on this day. I say point, but that "point" lasted for a while.

Looking at the wall of snow really made you see just how much it snows in this area.

Walking on top of the wall (sort of). It's all snow for as far as your eye can see.  It almost seems like there only mountains and that no cities exist on the other side (but don't worry they do!)

If you didn't have a chance to go this year I hope you will next year. The road to the snow wall and the mountains is usually opened sometime in May. You have to check the weather schedules to see if the pass is open or not. Of course, the snow wall will melt at some point, but the mountains will still be there. The view in summer and autumn are known to be just as beautiful, but not as cold!

The Snow Wall: Just the Beginning

Blinded By Snow

 

This looks like a good place for skiing. You would have the slope almost to yourself!

 While walking around here there is so much snow that you will literally have tears coming to your eyes. We were smart and forgot our sunglasses, figures right? The only respite I had from the blinding white reflection was by looking through my camera lens.

Also, I recommend you wear sunscreen otherwise, you will get a sunburn! I fortunately wear sunscreen everyday (at least on my face), but my boyfriend doesn't. His skin had turned red by the time we headed home.

A Snow Rabbit

 While I was enjoying this view I noticed a snow rabbit was enjoying it as well.

 One of the visitors decided to make a snow rabbit and give it a beautiful view to enjoy.

 (Taken with my GoPro)

(Taken with my GoPro)

 Looking down on Kurobe Dam. I can't believe how high up we were and this wasn't even the tallest mountain in the area.

 Such a beautiful place to enjoy a breath of fresh air.