Spontaneous Trip to Kamikōchi!

Jaime Wong
Apr 29, 2018
2 min read

We set off from my place at around 12:30am. Since I wasn't driving today I just slept in the car. Arrived at Sawando parking lot at around 4:00am. You’re not allowed to drive private cars into Kamikōchi because it’s a natural park, so you park at one of the parking lots, and take the bus or taxi into the actual reserve area. We bought our bus tickets (since we were 4 people, it was ¥1850 for a return ticket per person) and boarded the 4:40AM bus. Arrived at Kamikōchi bus terminal at around 5:00am, and started the hiking trail! Rather than a tough hike up mountains, we just did the leisurely course through the forests and along the river. The scenery was really gorgeous, because the surrounding mountains still had some snow on them. The water was also super super aqua blue! It really reminded me of New Zealand, there were a ton of scenic similarities. We went to the first few major spots (bridge, lake, etc.) before having breakfast at a restaurant lodge place. It felt really weird because we’d arrived so early and been up for so long! It felt more like lunch, even though it was only like 8:30am and still our breakfast. I had the 牛丼 and Uji matcha tea with ice cream, which was actually really nice! Rested there for a while and gathered up our strength before continuing on with the trail. The park was actually a lot smaller than we thought, and we finished seeing all the major spots around the main area by noon. Had some ice cream while waiting for the bus, and then made our way back to the parking lot. Since we finished with Kamikōchi so early, we decided to drop by the wasabi farm in Nagano on the way home. We had wasabi soba and wasabi ice cream while there (it was pretty crowded!) and they were actually both really nice and refreshing. The wasabi flavor wasn’t too strong at all, it was more just like a subtle hint. There wasn’t much to see at the farm, and we were mainly there for the food anyway, so after we finished eating the ice cream we drove home. Reached my place at around 19:00, and then we went to the onsen near my place to finish the day off.