It is the Rainy Season, Day 4 in Japan

Up early this morning, a quick breakfast (things we picked up the day before at the 7-11), check out, and to the train station. We take the shinkansen to Tokyo Station where we change to the Nagano Shinkansen. It's about 1-1/2 hours to Nagano and only a few blocks walk to the Holiday Inn Express. The hotel was built for the 1998 Winter Olympics, so it is new but it's typically Japanese, small rooms, etc.

We set out for lunch, another food adventure as we windup at the top floor cafe at a department store. It is sort of an Italian cafe where we only semi-understand the menu. This means we wind up with three separate meals instead of two, which turned out to be okay. Nancy thought she was ordering a combo meal of a salad and spaghetti with a tomato veggie sauce while Kate ordered a casserole thing with cheese and mushrooms. After a very long wait two large bowls arrived -- salad over spaghetti and the tomato veggie sauce over spaghetti, both served cold. The casserole, however was nice and hot, cheese, mushrooms, cream sauce over rice.

We walked to Zenkoji Temple, a 1,400 year old Buddhist temple. The street leading to the temple is lined with interesting shops. We also passed a Ryoken, the older style Japanese inn; we were amused to see it had free WiFi. After only spitting, the rain became heavier (not to worry, we had our umbrellas). We did a little shopping on the way back including omiyage (gifts for friends).

Dinner came from the nearby Lawson's (like a 7-11) and included soba noodles, a specialty in this area as the buckwheat is grown in the mountains. We're watching World Cup again. This morning, as we watched Argentina vs. South Korea, I asked Kate if it was yesterday, today, or tomorrow -- with all of the time differences it's hard to tell.

Tomorrow we go visit the Olympic museum, torch, etc., and then it's back on the shinkansen to Tokyo and then a different shinkansen to our friends' apartment in Mishima.

Here are today's photos.