Looking at red leaves in Suwa, Nagano

Koyo is the Japanese word for red leaves and the season for red leaves is momiji, sort of like hanami is to the sakura season.

Last year, it was an absolute treat to look at red leaves in Kyoto with the kangaroo and his mum. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures because of the great Macbook crash earlier this year. What stands out in my memory are the oceans of yellow and red at the Golden Pagoda (Kinkakuji) and everywhere we went in that traditional pocket of Japan.

This autumn, I was invited along with a bunch of friends to Suwa, Nagano, a quiet town in this sprawling prefecture known for its great outdoors. It was the perfect getaway as I was actually quite bogged down by money issues and needed a dose of fun away from what seemed like a grim reality. Things are fine now and I appreciate the friends who saw me through this worrying period.

So I hopped into a rental car with a friend from Tokyo two Friday nights ago and zoomed off into the night for Suwa, Nagano, where we bunked over with a friend who lives there.

I’m not going to do my usual chronological order type of posts when it comes to holidays. It must be quite tedious to read, so let’s try topical posts instead…

The pictures I have truly don’t do justice to the magnificent fiery autumn scenery I drank in for four days. I forgot about my work, being holed up in my apartment, stressing over deadlines — nature has a way to soothe the soul, I suppose.

Brrr….I was very cold in the high altitudes of Nagano’s Venus Line, which is a gorgeous drive and I would highly recommend this route.

I’m always amazed when I see farm animals — they always look larger than life and it seems they just jumped out of a storybook. My Japanese friend handed me some grass to feed a pony and it was quite lovely.

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