Japan (Nagano-Tateyama Kurobe-Tonami) - Day 3 - 18 May 2012

We started the day quite early in the morning. At around 8.15 am, we departed from the hotel to commence the highlight of the tour - Alpine Route Snow Corridor in Tateyama-Kurobe. When were about to leave from the parking lot, the okami herself sent us off. Before, she even greeted us one by one in the exit of the hotel. We managed to take some pictures with her.

My breakfast. The soumen (cold noodle) was delicious!

 The journey by bus took about 2 hours. At around 10.30 am we arrived at the entrance. It was freaking freezing cold! We felt like fools because we didn't prepare anything except the thick jackets given by the comittee. I even wore sandals! We didn't expect the weather would be this extreme and the tour company didn't tell us too! I was panicking how we were going to survive in this freezing weather. My sister managed to find a pair of socks given by Singapore Airlines before, but that's all.

Luckily, there was a gloves seller there, but she didn't sell socks! We asked her where we could buy socks, and she told us upstairs at the souvenir shop. We quickly rushed there and finally managed to secure 2 pairs of gloves and a pair of socks, which costed us about 1,100 yen T_T.

We tried some means of transportations to reach the peak until we finished the whole trip. First, we rode the trolley bus to get to Kurobe dam, which was indeed very beautiful (and freezing cold as well, we were glad we decided to buy the gloves and socks). Then, we rode the cable car, continued by ropeway, and another bus. We finally reached Murodo Peak at around 1 pm, and it was very crowded. We ate lunch first at the restaurant there, it was a set meal with nabe (Japanese style hot-pot) and it's quite delicious.

Set meal for lunch

During our lunch, we were informed that the Snow Corridor was closed for walking and sightseeing because of the heavy snowfall! So we couldn't walk under it, see and experience it! We could only see it from the trolley bus. What a disappointing news! Then, they told us that the observatorium upstairs would be opened for public, so we could see the Snow Corridor from the top. However, when we went there, we almost couldn't see anything except snow which fell to the ground. Everything was white white and white, and it was really slippery and cold! We could only stand it for about 15 minutes, and then after taking some photographs, we just went back inside and went downstairs to explore the shops.

At 2.30 pm, we rode the trolley bus to see the Snow Corridor. I got the seat in the middle, so I almost couldn't see anything. The rode took quite almost an hour, and I almost slept in the journey. After the trolley bus, we still have to ride the cable car. After some time to do final shopping, we went back to our hotel in Tonami - Tonami Royal Daiwa Hotel, and arrived at around 6 pm.

Luckily the hotel is equipped with an onsen too, and this time there were indoor and outdoor onsen! We were happy because finally we could also experience the outdoor one! After enjoying the onsen, we had a nice dinner set with the girls and then the four of us had a little chit-chat session in my and my sister's room while drinking sake (Japanese traditional liquor) together before went to bed. It was a fun, but the sake tasted not really nice!

Hello Kitty corner inside the hotel

Delicious set menu for dinner