Japan Tour

What do you do when the weather is bad and you have already booked your holiday.

You go anyway and enjoy the adventure.

The Venus Line is one of Japan's best driving roads. It still was but you can't get the most enjoyment from it in these conditions.

As the fog rolled in.... the speed came down.

And stopped. This is one of the best view spots in Japan. (get the idea)

Changable... Not really... one cloud after the other.

On the way down the 66 tight corner road. this was the view at corner 33. I was stopped from my pace of 20kph with hazzards flashing. Visibility was 20m at best.

As I got below the cloud line into some parts. the sight returned. But only briefly.

Was enough to enjoy some light.

At the bottom it was "just" raining. mostly intermittent making me wish for the RX8 indicator swap for adjustable intermittent wipers.

But eventually I made it to the first destination. Matsumoto Castle.

Awesome stuff inside too. Samurai suits and old firearms. Tough guys.

Then the afternoon was a slow drive to Hakuba. Home of the Nagano winter olympics.

I stayed in the old village. nice place. If yu'r a skiier would be a great destination in winter.

I saw a guy jump this in training. Awesome. must hurt though if you fail... without snow.

After that I headed to the next destination but the way there was awesome. I know know where some video game inspiration came from. "Deep forest..." GT4 anyone.

Yeah baby!

Dig the scenery. From all directions. this is Alpine Japan.

Parked up at the entrance to Kurobe Dam.

Take the electric bus through here for 15 minutes.... T U N N E L

To this!!!! Awesome!!!

Then another Cable car and a Ropeway later to this.... YODEL-E-I-OOOO! Stayed here for a while and took 500 odd pics.

Return journey took some nice images.

I could drive this road 100000 times.

As an afterthought, I looked on the map and went to check out was a mystery location. Kamikochi....

The place is way up in the mountains and actually inaccessible by your own car. So I just went for a drive. Next time I'll make proper tour. but there were about 50 tunnels on the way (not joking!!)

In between scenes like this.

In and among Dams and bridges.

So I'll finish with this amazing image after a day of recovery.

Russ.