I took no pictures during my day trip to Nagano. There were two reasons for this, a primary and a secondary.
The secondary reason is that I did not see anything that absolutely cried out to be remembered with a picture. There were a few interesting visuals, but nothing so memorable that it would override my primary reason, which was this:
In the Zenkoji temple at the west end of town lies what is believed to be the first image of Buddha to arrive in Japan. It was brought to Japan in 604 A.D., and has never been publically displayed. In fact, for the last thousand years or so it has never been displayed at *all*. The last person to actually see the statue was a monk in the 1700s, and he only unwrapped it on a direct command from the Emperor, so as to put down rumors that it was missing. I believe that Buddha would approve heartily of this situation. He was never big on veneration. A place where you are reminded of his teachings but don't get bogged down in idol worship seems ideal.
The wrapped statue is said to be kept inside of an Ark on the left hand side of the Zenkoji temple main altar. The reason I went to Nagano was to not see it.
As we approached Nagano on the Shinkansen, it was no where in sight. All the way up the main street to the temple: no sign of the thing. In the prayer hall of the temple we couldn't even quite figure out where the main altar was. I must admit I felt a bit uncertain when we found the main altar and my mother suggested that we approach it, but even that turned out well: if there is an Ark on the left side, I sure couldn't spot it.
The only thing that kept the trip from being a perfect success was all of the *other* statues of Buddha around. I suspect that the existence of the hidden statue has sparked all of the local sculptor's imaginations for hundreds of years -- you can't walk ten feet without tripping over yet another Buddha.
Oh well, it was definitely worth the trip. And how often can I say that when I never found the thing I was looking for?