i spent the last 3 weeks of my stay in japan traveling around and saying goodbye to my favorite people and places. this is the third part of a too-many-parted series describing my goodbye adventures in japan (heres part one and part two).

__nagano (長野)__
due to some heavy snow storms passing through northern honshu (本州), some of the trains were forced to stop running. luckily, we were able to ride a bus through the worst of it instead. the bus driver must have been half suicidal, half the-luckiest-driver-on-earth, and half driving-on-ice pro because he barreled down narrow icy roads with little-to-no visibility and snow walls packed taller than the bus and got us safely to a working train station in the same time it would have taken the snowed-in train to do it.

a small snowy town in between nagano (長野) and niigata (新潟)

outside our lodge in hakuba, nagano (長野の白馬)

we stayed in a ski lodge in hakuba, nagano (長野の白馬) that was only a block from the lift. if we wanted to, we could actually board down the mountain and stop directly in front of the lodge. it snowed the entire time we were up there, which made visibility pretty atrocious at times, but made the fresh snow a freaking delight to board. i seriously cant wait to do it again next year!

on one of the massive lifts in hakuba, nagano (長野の白馬)

just two guys who are having a good time, having a good time. hakuba, nagano (長野の白馬)

after snowboarding we headed into matsumoto (松本) for the day. there we got to see matsumoto-jo (松本城), which is my second favorite castle in japan (himeji-jo (姫路城) is still the best).

matsumoto castle (松本城)

nagano (長野)

__osaka (大阪)__
we arrived in osaka (大阪) at night. and with the kind of city osaka is, the night time is the best time to be there. my friend and i quickly dropped off our stuff in a cheap hotel and headed directly to a highly recommended blow fish restaurant. blow fish, or fugu (河豚), is poisonous and even deadly if prepared wrong, so it was important to us to go to a reputable place. we both chose slightly expensive set courses consisting of 10 different ways to consume tiger blow fish including: sashimi, sushi, nabe, tempura, sake, and more. the meal was interesting, delicious, and judging by the fact we didnt die from it, well worth it!

tiger blow fish (トラ河豚) dinner set, osaka (大阪)

after dinner we met up with a really good friend from new england who currently lives in japan and wanted to have one last hurrah with me in osaka before i left. the rest of the weekend is a bit hazy, but i do remember there was waaaay too much drinking involved. the nights were awesome, but the mornings were tough for all of us. we eventually lost track of how many takoyaki (たこ焼き), or octopus balls, we ate that weekend. there was a castle (osaka-jo) in there somewhere. at one point we ended up at a spanish bar after they closed for the night and sat down with the owners and spoke japanese, spansih and english to them while they continuously and graciously filled our wine and sangria cups. my buddy ended up wearing a michael jackson hat somehow and moonwalked across the bar for everyone to see. ahhhh, osaka is always good times.

osaka castle (大阪城)

dressing up and playing the part, osaka castle (大阪城)