Nakasendo and Kiso Road: Day 5

Karuizawa has a connection with Canada via the missionary, Alexander Shaw, who visited in the late 19th century.  He built a summer home there because it reminded him of his hometown in Canada.  Today the area seems to be a popular wedding reception destination, and some sort of writers/artists' retreat.  It bears to note, though, that it stands at the foothill of Mount Asama, one of Japan's most active volcanoes, and spewed hot rocks and a plume of ash just 2 years ago in 2015.  Maybe impending doom is inspirational for writers and romantic for newly-weds?

The wooden Shaw Memorial Chapel is at one end of the town, towards the Nakasendo trail

The Kumano Kotai shrine near the Usui Pass sits right on the border of 2 prefectures, Nagano and Gunma.  There are two Chief Priests representing the shrine for each prefecture, separate rites, amulets, seals and offices.  

The kids made another bid to ask for their wishes

We stopped for a drink at a mountain roadside cafe with a warm covered terrace with a view of the mountains.  This is also the reason that we were behind schedule and had to cheat in the last part of our walk by taking a taxi

But the detour was worth it!

The mountain ranges looked like they were painted

The trail on this day was across paths plushly carpeted with dried leaves and twigs, and enclosed on both sides by barren trees 

This plush...

We came across this abandoned bus somewhere off the trail, and a couple of abandoned buildings including several schoolhouses.  Ask us for our impressions of this area when we meet...

Ju's energy levels lasted him throughout the day, and he chatted non-stop with Sophie who was regaling him with stories of the activities for each level of the primary school years

Not kidding about the leaves...

The last part was downhill across rocky terrain but Ju kept his balance surprisingly well, given that he fell down 9 times throughout the 5 days 

At the village of Sakamoto, we realised that we would not make it to the Yokokawa station in time to catch our train bound for Tokyo, so at YL's insistence, we dropped in to a local community center and asked them to help us call for a taxi instead.  I would have walked the extra hour and took the later train...

That's the last station of the trail!

The slowcoach made it!

Gradually the train took us past this scenery...

...to this in Tokyo.

Et voila!  We completed our mission of walking the Kiso Road with the kids in one piece.  We had an amazing experience, a great workout, and some fantastic memories as rewards.

Here's the full stretch of the Nakasendo.  We tackled the middle portion of it, starting from Magome near Nakatsugawa, to Yokokawa.