Kamikochi ♥ 上高地

Set off for Kamikouchi, a mountainous highland area of the Chubu Sangaku National Park, located in the Japan Alps. A beautifully pristine and well-preserved place, they do not allow cars into the vicinity, thus the only way to reach there is via bus. Today, I’ll be #aloneinthemountains again^^

You can purchase a round-trip ticket from Matsumoto to Kamikouchi at this machine, it’s blue to help you identify it (the others are green).

The ticket costs 4400yen, and must be used within 6 days, so you can spend a night or two at Kamikouchi. The ticket covers both the train and bus trips.

As with all the other mountainous areas I’ve been to thus far, almost all the other people going were seniors, carrying backpacks and wearing hiking boots. Don’t be fooled by the younger-looking people, this train also passes by a university…where they all got off!

I felt a tad out of place because of my bright pink bag, shorts and (lack of) footwear. As mentioned yesterday, my shoes broke. Rather, they fell apart; the whole thick sole.

Thus, I ended up going with the only other pair of shoes I brought, sandals.


View of a river while on the bus.


First sight of Taishou-ike, where I would start my hike ♥ The pond was formed when an explosion by one of the volcanoes spewed lava that blocked off the runoff path, and thus a pond formed.


Off to the nature trail~


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The row boats are free for visitors to use, just exercise caution while using them. I would’ve loved to go on it, but I’m #alonginthemountains and never rowed a boat before so…what do you think would’ve happened!

Beautiful view of the pond with low clouds. It was not so cloudy so there was still a reflection on the pond~


Saw a duck!


A bridge in the middle of the forest.


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The water is actually really clear!


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The willows on Kamikouchi


A portion of Tashiro Pond.


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Tashiro-ike, a small pond roughly 30-minutes further up the course from Taishou-ike.


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Other side of the pond.

After the pond, as you progress along the trail, you can choose to go along the river course or nature course. Of course I chose the river course because I love seeing water features in the mountains.

The river, Azusakawa, along the river course.


The water is so clear! (And also very cold!)



Another bridge~


Toilet in the middle of the mountains~

View of the meander of the river, I really enjoy sights of water features in harmony with greenery and mountains! They make beautiful scenery.

I love this picture ♥


#aloneinthemountains photo#6, love the backdrop! ♥


Valley and low clouds


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Bus terminal at Kamikouchi.

At the souvenir store at the Kamikouchi Bus Terminal, they sell different boxes of “special Kamikouchi” goodies. But actually, I saw the exact same special goodies at the Kurobe Dam store and Matsumoto Castle store, with the exact same packaging and contents, just that the name was different…And of course I’ll always make a beeline for the keychains section to see if there are any One Piece/Chopper keychains. Sadly there’s no Kamikouchi LE version, just the Shinshuu one, which I already bought at Tateyama :D The Shinshuu region is famous for its apples, so there are a lot of apple-flavored versions of products specially available only in the region, like apple KitKat.

I kind of fell asleep on the bus back, but woke up to catch the sights of winding river.


Also saw one of the dams. There was no discharge though, so the sight of the Kurobe Dam wins hands down!

Took the Kamikouchi line from Shin-shimashima back to Matsumoto, and explored shops in the station for a while before heading to the bus terminal.

Rode a bus from Matsumoto to Nagoya, a pretty comfortable ride; there were less than 10 people on the entire bus. And because it was a rather late bus, they had designated female-only seats. I arrived in Nagoya at around 11pm, took the subway to the downtown area of Sakae where my hotel was. Both stations were packed with salarymen and OLs waiting to go home.

Oh, the arduous task of lugging of luggage up and down stairs! And the horror being approached by creepy people who “want to be your friend”. Female travelers going solo, do take caution when being out late at night!