Fall Foliage Hunting(Momojigari) at Aterra-keikoku

This autumn’s weather is perfect here.  One of our colleagues saw pretty pictures in FB about a place called Aterra-Keikoku (Aterra valley) in Nagano prefecture and thus we decided to visit it during our day off.  We also invited a guest who stayed 16 nights in J hopper Takayama to go together.  I was told that the journey takes 2.5 hours and due to the pretty autumn colors on the way, the time passed quickly.  We first went to a temple near to the entrance where the god of the nature lives.  We began by appreciating the god of nature there and started to walk along the valley.  The valley aims to remains as natural as it is and no phone signals could be received for all the trails along the way.  The air and river are extremely fresh and clean.  The changing color of the autumn leaves are amazing, we could not stop shouting out kerei (beautiful) along the hiking trails.  The red, yellow, green and blue colour mix together with the sound of the river and smell of the grass look like a lively-4D painting in front of us.  The water there is called `beauty water` which we can drink and bring home.  I drink some and brought 2 bottles home to make nice tea.  I love its purity and naturalness while I could not find it in my home country.  Do not forget to drink the beauty water if you visit there!