20 October 2016
Still just a station
Eating pasta at the Nagano Shinkansen station
I have checked google, websites, google maps which these days shows you which areas of cities to find shops and restaurants by conveniently color coding those areas a strange apricot color. I can now confirm that Nagano is just the station.
There is no other city centre, I checked anything that might be on street view, those places are just a supermarket and nothing else.
This seems unusual for a city of 381,000 people in Japan. A city that once hosted the Olympics. A city with a huge number of tourist attractions nearby - although I havent seen any tourists around.
Oh well, this just means I will have dinner in the station, theres 100 options there.
Before that, I walked around aimlessly, taking photos of darkness and train tracks.
The main hobby of your average Nagano citizen must be drinking in tiny little bars, these are everywhere, in the most unexpected of places. I suspect they are invite only.
Now I am back in my room, ready for sleep, watching Japanese people debate the Trump / Clinton debate. Earlier they were using the news about that topic to teach people how to speak English, which was quite amusing, they spent a good 10 minutes analysing Barack Obama saying 'Stop whining' - (desu)
Creepy doll shop is in a stand alone building in the back corner of a large dark outdoor parking lot.
This is my hotel, responding to earlier requests to name it, Hotel Abest.
Station restaurant has every kind of omurice, not tonight for me though, maybe tomorrow!
After having 'floor made' soba noodles earlier today, I decided to watch these guys make them on a table. The problem was I watched for 10 minutes and they still did not get up to the making the dough into noodles part, just ever so slowly rolling out the large piece of dough.
I am still lapping the station. Unfortunately no bullet train went past as I was taking the photo.
This is actually an excellent store, despite the weird name of hard off complete with european accents above every letter.
I guess its like cash convertors in Australia, except they mainly buy electronics, high end stuff, and guitars, and guitar equipment.
Luckily there are none in Australia because I dont have room for any more stuff I dont even use.
These cuckoo clock looking things are everywhere, but each is different. I think they have an obscure graphic on them advertising what shops are on that section of street. Most of them should be blank then?
This is where all the action happens.
I decided on creamy pasta for dinner. Actually I think it was the least creamy option, and features many kinds of mushrooms.
Because I had a big lunch and then pasta for dinner, I decided on chocolate caramel coated chips for dessert.
The recipe has been improved this visit with the introduction of caramel! Even better than my previous favourite white chocolate ones.