There was a slight rum and sake induced delay to the production of Day 4, so here it is. And yes, you can expect similar delays or greater now that we're in Tokyo for a couple of days with less likelihood of being back in the hotel so early.
After the perfect weather of the previous day, it dawned looking overcast and snowy again today. We made sure that we ate breakfast early so that we would be able to hit the slopes as quickly as possible, without any missions like seeking out lonely ATMs hanging over our heads.
Emily decided that she wasn’t skiing as she seems to be the most recent member of the family to have been struck down by the rolling plague that we brought with us. She didn’t seem all that sick, but it was always going to be more fun skiing without someone complaining about it all day. She thought she might ski in the afternoon, so we arranged to go back to the hotel at lunchtime to see how she was faring.
There was plenty of powder left over from the dumping of the previous days, though where it hadn’t been groomed on the runs it was mostly chopped up. That didn’t stop the exploration between runs to find some, especially at Ichinose Family which worked well for our combination – Sam made himself some small jumps, the runs weren’t too demanding on Caroline’s knees and there were plenty of ski schools all over the place for the odd game of ski school slalom.
With a few jumps and adventures between the trees, the crash stats went up a little today. Thomas decided to have a yard sale and Carolie and I both managed at times to bury ourselves in powder. Getting out is such fun. The kids don’t seem to understand how much harder it is for us to extricate ourselves from it than them. No respect for their elders I have to say.
Michael hit the slopes armed with a series of phrases aimed to impress or please the local girls in the ski school, while I went out armed with one or two to embarrass him. All that was then required was the opportunity to use them. Despite the great pleasure I would have taken in embarrassing him, I chose not to use my phrase. After all, I’m not sure how it would have been taken and no-one wants to go to jail! Michael confessed at the end of the day that he had told one girl she was cute, but that he’d done so as he’d skied off at the end of the lift so that there was no time for him to see a reaction or for her to respond in any way.
Michael’s other effort to be remembered on the slopes came from a penchant for finding groups of kids in ski lessons sitting on the mountain. He took great delight in carving a turn above them such that they’d be covered by the snow that it would throw up. By the time the could would clear he’d be well down the mountain and disappearing into the distance. There was some discussion about how often we’d have to keep changing ski runs so that he didn’t get identified and thrown off the side, but fortunately he didn’t continue for too long and we just enjoyed the skiing.
Off the slopes, Sam has continued to play his Yen game, which basically consists of checking every vending machine you find for unclaimed change. Its not exactly a salary replacing game, but hey, it keeps him happy!
We were split between two different hotel rooms for this portion of our stay. Caroline and I had a western room with beds and an added on en-suite. Well, when I say added on, it was really added in. It was a self-contained little unit that sat within the original hotel room. The bath looked just big enough that if I’d wrapped my knees back behind my ears I could have sat down in it. Fortunately the onsen provided much more space for stretching the legs. You just have to be sure to observe the onsen etiquette, or as advertised around the hotel, the onsen manners. Most of it is straight forward but the one at the bottom of the middle row took a few moments to make sense of as it seemed to be advocating something that I would have thought outside good manners.
For dinner we actually managed to find somewhere new to eat that hadn’t been open the last two nights that we’d walked past. They sold Oden and Bandit Fried Chicken. Well who couldn’t resist a bit of bandit fried chicken after two nights in a row of curry? Caroline was brave enough to try a bit of the Oden which was a bowl of either self-selected or randonly chef-selected different bits and pieces. She went for the recommended favourite – radish and something else that eludes the memory. All I can tell you is that the bandit fried chicken was a winner.
The walk home even saw us treated to a couple of light pillars. It was a cold but lovely night for the trek back to the hotel, even if my icicle collecting did embarass someone a little bit.
Tomorrow sees us head off to Tokyo for the weekend to give the ski-legs a break before we head off to Hakuba for a bit more fun in the white stuff.
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