We went to bed last night with the promise of more snow overnight . We sure managed to get that. In fact when we went down to breakfast it was still snowing. It didn't stop all day. Sadly the snow was accompanied by a blistering gale of a breeze that made the skiing conditions less than ideal. That wasn't about to stop us though. Thomas and I headed out and braved the black run opposite where we are staying but by the time that we'd managed to navigate our way down through the drifts of snow we decided that there had to be a better run, but the next one that we tried sent us head on into the wind and as Thomas said, its not quite right when you have to skate-ski down the run.
We headed back to collect the late-starters, picking up Caroline Michael and Emily and headed over to where we thought there might be a bit more shelter. Apparently we picked wrong as Emily pointed out when she was being blown across the slope when she was just trying to stand there. Thomas' goggles had iced up and we headed for the nearest shelter for a bit of relief. At least there was some truly stunning scenery along the way.
That gave us time to further explore the wonders of Japanese vending machines and introduced us to the randomiser button! Not quite sure what you want to drink? Just hit the one with the question mark and get a random selection from the machine. I think the kids were disappointed when all that was spat out was a coke and a grape Fanta.
We did eventually find a sheltered spot to ski, though it was a lot more work for us than it had been on the previous days. Of course that didn't stop Michael from zipping past us like we were standing still. Young bones, better skills and a whole lot less fear must be a nice thing to have while whipping down the mountain!
We did at least have a bit of fun when watching Michael and Thomas venture down through some deep powder, especially when Michael decided to completely lose it! It was a treat to watch, that's for sure.
With conditions challenging we spent a bit more time indoors and this gave the kids a chance to indulge in sampling some almost random candy. So far, they've been well guided by the pictures and the bins haven't been lined by their contents.
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Slipperquette
Its taken me a few days to get used to it, but I think I've managed to adapt to the etiquette around the slippers. There's no wearing of shoes beyond entry to the room and once you're in the hotel, everyone pretty much gets around in the truly fashionable green slippers.
About the only place that you don't wear them is into the toilet, because there you get to wear the even more fashionable blue slippers, appropriately labelled, toilet.
I'm sure that I've breached etiquette more than once, getting around without any shoes on or even just my socks. I may have even wandered out into the snow briefly with the green slippers on. I've only managed to deduce that it can't really be a hygiene thing, because they all get randomly changed around the place and everyone sticks their bare feet in them anyway. I know that I'm missing something but the amount of english spoken by the staff here is limited, so I haven't really bothered to get that deep into understanding why.
I put it down to being part of the culture and have just tried to adapt.
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Tomorrow will see us say farewell to Shiga Kogen, the Shiga Aspen Hotel and the skiing as we head into civilisation in Kyoto. We were contemplating going to see the snow monkeys but with conditions forecast to be excellent tomorrow morning we may be skiing to the last possible minute!
With our departure, we'll be saying goodbye to the Carpenters, who have been played every day at breakfast time and the yodelling that gets played every night at dinner time. I might have to consider sending them some modern music. The closest that we've had to it was on the ski lift to day when Caroline, sitting with Michael, Thomas and I started asking us if we could hear the music as she hadn't noticed it on any of the previous rides. They were setting up for racing nearby and I thought perhaps it had something to do with that. Apparently it sounded a bit like Taylor Swift. We strained our ears and listened harder and as we neared the end of the ride, Caroline came to the realisation that it was coming from inside her jacket. Taylor had somehow started playing on her phone. It was rather amusing.
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