Having recognized that alomost all the posts on this blog are realated to sightseeing within Nagano, I dare to post this info on tranportation from Tokyo as I thought this is quite useful & helpful for anyone planning on visiting Karuizawa and its nearby town. Most visitors to this site wants to know not only the places to visit but also how to get there and how much it costs! Believe or not, you can come to Karuizawa from Shinjuku, Tokyo by bus for just 2000yen! It’s an amazing price and less than half of the cost of Shinkansen from Tokyo. But the down side is that it takes about 2 hours 30 min, which is about twice as long as Shinkansen. The bus arrives at a parking area win Karuizawa Price Shopping Plaza New East.
For details visit the bus reservation page at Rakuten Travel
(Find the bus route ” KR421 ” in the list. Using Japanese web sites for booking public transportation and hotels is always headache. And unfortunately this is not an exception. Price may vary by season and day of the week.)
Bus to Karuizawa
Have you been to a no-en farm in Japan? The farm I’m writing about here is a little different from normal farm (no-jo, no-chi in Japanese). It is no-en, like a small nature-oriented amusement park with restaurants and shops etc. Matsui No-en is one of the best known no-en in East Nagano area. It was about 30 minutes drive from our house in Karuizawa. When I and our family went there, it was still during summer vacation. So its car parking lot was almost full even before the lunch time. Matsui No-en had a lot to offer for families. First of all we had a BBQ lunch with fresh vegetables (which we believed were cultivated in the Matsui farm) at a restaurant inside the farm area. We fished trouts in a fishing pond. Then we went to apple picking. And before we went home, we had a big, blueberry flavored ice cream. Matsui No-en is in Komoro, West bound from Karuizawa, about 30 mintutes by car. It was a good, easy half-day get away from home. There are only Japanese spoken staff, but they are all friendly and helpful.
Anyway, the Harunire’s ” nire ” or “ nile ” is an elm tree. The place is surrounded by about a hundred elm trees and there are 14 shops including eco-modern style restaurants, cafe and souvenir shops etc. I actually liked the area’s atmosphere created by Hoshino Resort and personally like the way they do business. Some may still prefer Prince Shopping Plaza but Harunire area has different stores and goods. I visited there about two weeks ago so there was not much traffic in and around the parking lot but to tell you the truth, I’m a little worried the lack of parking space during summer season and the golden week. So the best time to go there is before lunch time or after 5pm.
Shiraito-no-taki Waterfall is one of the most famous sites with great nature in Karuizawa area. While its height is only 3 meters, the width is about 70 meters long. Surprisingly, the water’s temperature is not so cold. The reason is because the water is not originally from river or rainfall, but is gushing out of rocks. Also the amount of water coming out does not change much throughout the year. I thought the water contains a lot of minerals so I wanted to taste it. But I did not since no one around me was drinking it.
TK-syusyu
While my stay in Karuizawa, somtimes I go to Tombo-no-yu, a communal bathhouse at Hoshinoya area with my wife and son. But we do not take bath so often, but rather spend 1 or 2 hours around the bathhouse. There are some hills with a little path on a grass field and there is a cafe next to the bathhouse.
