Nagano, Gifu, Toyama

So.... it has been one crazy and random weekend!!!
But I am officially a quarter of the way through getting to see all of the prefectures!!!!!
First, let me introduce you to Yuuma-chan. He is the mascot of Gunma, and will be traveling with me all over the country from now on.

Saturday was the Maebashi Hanabi Taikai (Fireworks Gathering), and there were like 3000 fireworks to be set off over a two hour period in the center of Maebashi. All of the new JETs were going to reunite for the first time to watch them, but I had to go meet up with Keith (papa) at Shibukawa station at 8:37 because the last bus to Ikaho leaves the station at 8:58... which totally sux, but that's what happens when you live in the inaka.
Anyways, we were shooting the shit, catching up with each other and then Keith was telling me how much he wanted to go to Matsumoto-jyo (Matsumoto Castle). And I am all about going to castles. Plus, this is my first chance to challenge my Everest and go to a few prefectures. We were also planing to go to this village called Shirakawa-go, but it ended up that we couldnt make it. I'll get to the reason later.
So, on Sunday morning we start out going to Nagano city to go to 善光寺 (Zenkoji) which is a temple that was founded before buddhism in Japan was split into the different schools, built in the 7th century. It was a pretty cool site, but it had been vandalized in April (i believe) of this year when they decided to pull out of the torch ceremony for the olympics.

After Zenkoji, we traveled west (i think) to Matsumoto city. This is one of the top three castles to visit in Japan, the others being Himeiji and Kumamoto. It is famous for its black exterior and roof shape. It has all kinds of different names, but Matsumoto castle is the easiest for me to remember.
After Matsumoto, we took a Highway bus through the Japanese Alps to Takayama in Gifu. The reason we were going here was to go to Shirakawa-go, which is one of the last traditional villages in Japan, and was the most recent addition to the World Heritage list. So we got there at about 8pm, and luckily Krystel lives there. So Krys met us at the station and we walked over to her part of the city. We ate at Gusto, which was amazing, because of the drink bar, and then went back to her place. There we had a celebratory beer, me for passing my quarter mark of prefectures visited, and Keith for passing his half way mark. Then we tried to plan our trip for the next day, kampai'd and talked till the wee hours of the morning.
The next day we got up and went to the station to get on the bus to Shirakawa-go, but we realized that their buses were kind of far and few inbetween, so we couldnt go and make it back to Ikaho by night. So we decided to go to Toyama and Niigata instead. This way, we were on our way back to Gunma and visiting places we've never been to.
Toyama was pretty nice, we stopped in this place called Inotani, which is on the outskirts of Toyama city before we got to the city center. We were there for about an hour, and it was a really pretty place in the mountains with a river running through it and a nice red bridge. The town was pretty tiny, and there weren’t that many people around, but it was a good place to relax and explore while waiting for our next train. When we finally got to Toyama, we were starving! Luckily we chose to eat at this REALLY good restaurant. Had Special mixed tempura don, which was like one big tempura of shrimp, ika, and scallops, all which come from the sea of Japan and are famous out of Toyama. I mean, this stuff was sooo delicious I am thinking of going back some day. After we had that awesome lunch, we went to Toyama castle. It was pretty small, and they were doing construction around the area, so we didnt go into the castle because it was just too far, and Toyama was just too hot to be walking around in unshaded area. But we did take pictures of the castle, which we agreed was good enough. The we got on another train and made our way to Naoetsu, Niigata.
In Naoetsu, there isn’t anything you can do if you are only there for an hour since it’s a beach city, and the main attraction is a park that is quite a distance away. So we just stayed in the train station, bought some onigiri, and watched the Olympics. From there we went to Nagoya and caught a shinkansen back to Takasaki, then the Joetsu line to Shibukawa just in time to hop on the last bus to Ikaho.