An uneventful flight, we arrived and headed to the train to town. We planne on staying in Tokyo one night and head out to Nagano the next morning.
I was non participatory when it came to planning this trip. And Bill had made some travel planning mistakes. We had a hotel near Tokyo station and we were going to be traveling in and out of Ueno Station. No biggie, just a bit more time on the metro. We finally made it to our hotel around midnight. Hokke Inn was to be our home for the night. When we arrived there was a sign for a public bath and people kept coming downstairs in bathrobes. I was very concerned we were not going to have a bathroom in our room.
We got to our hotel room and low and behold there was a bathroom. Yay! Very relieved to be able to use the bathroom in our own room.
I ment to take a picture of the tiny room. But forgot. It was larger enough for a 14in walk way next to a double bed. The baby's bed went right by the door. Not a whole lot of room, but good enough for one night.
The next morning, Bill got up and checks out the public bath. You rinse your self off and then soak in a warm pool. He said it was really nice. Not totally sure I want to bathe naked in public. But I am glad Bill had a new cultural experience.
Once we were all packed and ready, we set out to board a train for Nagano. I have to say, I have done Tokyo metro with out child, pregnant and now with child. It is not easy walking in and out, up and down all the stairs. I was exhausted and we had just begin our journey. We bought our tickets and boarded the train. It was going to be an almost 2 hr ride. 
Theo is intently starring at the Giraffe. Bill has named the giraffe Pig- to thoroughly confuse our child. Here is Bill in front of the Olympic sign.
This is some traditional New Years decorations at our hotel.
Baby bear on the subway!
We ventured out into town to see Zenkoji temple.
Here is a zen garden with snow and mountains in the background. So pretty.
We walked through the tombs, I think they are really neat and quite peaceful. Not creepy like a cemetery.
The Buddhas with their New Years attire!
This is looking out on the temple complex , there were lots of temples and pagodas.
This is a fence made up of thousands of tiny Buddhas. So cool looking.
We have been to lots of temples. But this one was especially pretty with the snow.
Here is the main drag leading up to the Zenkoji temple area. It was lined with vendors.
We stopped for a snack, we had a soba crepe. It was warm and tasty!
Theo sleeps a lot when we walk. He was holding my sunglasses for me.
Here is the proud papa and the little one in his yetti suit.
After seeing the temple we took a taxi a ways out of the city to see the Olympic stadium. I am not really sure how this town hosted the Olympics. Their public transportation system does not get you everywhere you need to be.
We walked around stadium and enjoyed the lovely weather. But we didn't think about how we were going to get back to the city. The taxi left us. So our only way out was to walk towards a train station 4km away. So we set out hoping to come across a taxi to take us to the train station. We walked and walked and walked. Finally we hit the Main Street. The entire time we were walking it seemed like we were in small town America. It was a quaint, sleepy area and felt really American. Aside from the konji everywhere, you could have fooled me and told me we were in middle America somewhere.
Once we got to the train station, we got on the train and headed back to Nagano. We had a 7:15pm reservation at Fujiya Gohonjin. We had an 8 course meal. In the next post, it is all about the meal.
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