Nagano Album
	This is the home of Mr. Takei and his wife, Masako, in the town of Saku in Nagano prefecture. He's a retired businessman and she is a delightful and charming woman. This is the tokonoma, the special alcove in all Japanese homes in which favorite artworks are displayed. This was my room, with my new jinbei - pajamas. The sliding door - shoji - leads to the balcony. The vase at left is a nice example of my favorite type of Japanese pottery - bizen-yaki - unglazed stoneware from Okayama prefecture in southwestern Japan. The flower is also one of my favorites, flat-topped hydrangea - gaku-agisai. Here is Masako going into the hot sulphur spa at Kusatsu, a small town east of Nagano. At one time it produced sulphur in the middle of town, from the spring below. As the sulpher rich water flowed down from the spring it was directed into the long rows of boxes. Flowing from one box to the next, the sulphur would sink to the bottom. When full, the boxes would be emptied and the process would continue. A labor intensive enterprise, the industry fell to the low prices of imports produced by a mechanized process. Here are the Takeis walking along the path in the monkey park at Jigoku-dani. The monkeys were everywhere and it was great fun to watch them at play. Zenkoh-ji is one of Japan's most famous Buddhist temples. It houses the first image of Buddha brought to Japan, from Korea in the 6th century. There are three gates one must pass through to get to the temple itself. The outer gate is at the right, the middle gate below left and the inner gate below right. The main temple. And here it is on New Year's, one of Japan's two major holidays. I thought the most amusing sight was this vending machine for religious talismans. They are made of beautiful embroidered silk and people use them like Catholics use St. Christopher's medals . . . they hang them from back packs or from rear view mirrors in their cars, etc. And they carry different 'prayers' for different needs. For example, the one in my car is for travelers, as is another one on my backpack. Students can get them for 'aid' in studying, or to get well. Parents can get ones for their children's health, or for success at work. But this was the first time I had seem them available in a vending machine, although perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised since Japan has, at last count, over 20 million of them, or one for every 7 people! This is the famous Garasu-jo, or Black Castle (garasu means crow), in Matsumoto, the major city in the broad plain on the southern border of the Japan Alps. One interesting feature is the hidden floor. From the outside it looks like there are 5 floors, but actually there are six. One has no windows, so people and soldiers could hide there and surprise any invaders. To the right is the magnificent Takase Valley in Japan's northern Alps. The tallest of these peaks are over 10,000', and the two dams visible help generate over 1200 megawatts of energy. You can see the size of one of the rotors above. Below is a schematic showing the power station situated between two dams and deep inside the mountain. We drove nearly a kilometer through a tunnel to get there. The water passes fom the upper reservoir through the power station, turning the giant rotors, and exits into the reservoir below. During the night, the unspent energy is then used to pump the water back to the upper reservoir, ready for another day's work. Created during the Tokugawa reign,there were 5 major roads from Edo (now Tokyo), the capital, to Kyoto, home of the Emperor. Soldiers were stationed in posts along these routes because no one was allowed to travel without official permission from the Shogun. One of the interior roads was the Nakasan-do, which circled northwest from Tokyo and then down through the mountains to Kyoto. Here is a replica of one of the way stations, and below is an actual section of the road. As you can see, it would not be an easy one to traverse with a heavy load.
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