Nagano

We caught a local train

plastered with pictures of this Anime train conductor

Including this chibi one

To the temple about 30 minutes from the station

the original site of the temple before it was burned down several times by the house fires of the nearby homes, so it was moved a couple of hundred meters away.  

A side temple

Inside a temple

so many side temples

The main temple

The incense lion dog

Massive gate leading to the temples

Afterwards we went to a nearby park

It was supposed to have a bunch of large dinosaur models

There was a free zoo at one end of the park

They had some monkeys

The flamingos are a weird flex for a snow covered zoo

These penguins wandered clumisly around the edge of their pool

until one accidentally fell in, which triggered the rest to dive in and they spent 10 minutes swimming around.

Some midget deer

A golden pheasant

A type of falcon

An angry goose

Back in the park, we spot some Snowberries. 

Now if I can just find some purple mountain flower. 

Not a dinosaur model

Also not a dinosaur

A view of the town from up a hill

The back alleys of an evening

you see a maze of twisty passages all alike

an impressive collection of sake barrels taped to the side of this restaurant

I took Emma to a shooting bar

The bar part

The shooting part

I chose a variant Beretta 92F based on a video game.
Emma chose a chrome Desert Eagle

For someone that was reluctant to go, she is disturbingly excited now

This drum fed full auto shotgun cost about $15 to fire a full load of pellets.
Another customer fired this, it looked like a lot of fun.

After some more drinks Emma switched to an M870 pump action shotgun, and I fired the FN P90.

I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass...
...and I'm all out of bubblegum

It's worth noting that without a car, Nagano is a very boring place to visit.

Everything worth seeing or doing is nowhere near  train station, and the above is everything that was done in a place that we stayed 3 nights all up (we went to Yudanaka Onsen between nights 2 and 3, so there was a bit more travelling disrupting those 3 days than if they'd been in a contiguous block, but still).