Japan 2019 - Day 11

We weren’t sure what we’d wake up to this morning. After the massive dump of snow the day before, the forecast said that we potentially faced the same again. Fortunately when we did wake up, it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. Given it was likely to be our last day skiing (unless we opt for a half day of skiing on the day we travel out from Nozawa Onsen).

 With the weather being as good as it was, and with better knowledge of the options to get back down the mountain I was willing to head up the gondola almost to the top. We’ve found Nozawa Onsen and odd spot for us to ski, mainly because finding a combination of runs to ski to suit the varying degrees of ability/willingness from a single lift has proven almost impossible. It meant that we decided to once again split the party after a brief flirtation with the runs near the top, with Emily and I skiing simpler stuff at the bottom of the mountain while Caroline and the boys skied all over the place. One of Caroline’s favourite runs basically involved skiing all the way from near the top to the very bottom of the mountain. True leg-testers given the distance involved.

We met up again late in the day and took the gondola back up and skied that run on our way out. It was hard to call it a day given that we have no idea if or when we’ll ski again, but the boys had to return their hire equipment and there really wasn’t anything all that desirable to ski from the lifts just up from our lodge. So call it a day we did.

We sorted out the ski gear and decided on somewhere to have dinner and walked into the village. Unfortunately when we arrived at the restaurant, we ran into a not uncommon problem. It was full and there were six of us. The place only had space for a bout 25 people, so we moved on and started to play one of my favourite ever games. Find somewhere to eat in Japan.

It’s a challenging game because of aligning the combination of a restaurant with space and more importantly, a menu that all six family members are willing to eat from can be a difficult task. Between some people wanting authentic Japanese (especially after pizza the night before) while others are happy to opt for French fries or rice, there’s no guarantees that we’ll satisfy peoples wants and desires.

So after wandering around the village for a good 45 minutes, surveying and rejecting menus or confirming a lack of space within those that looked promising, we ended up back where we’d started. Fortunately the people that had been occupying it when we first went to eat there had moved on and we were able to get seats. Fortified with dinner, spirits were revived and crepes for dessert helped.

On the way back we discussed the fact that we hadn’t yet been to any of the public onsens for which Nozawa Onsen is known. As our hotel had a small private onsen, we’d bathed there rather than leave the hotel to walk about in the cold and return again. We decided that we couldn’t leave without doing so though, so Caroline, Emily, Thomas and I set out to experience the public onsen.

We parted at the door, the girls going left while Thomas and I went right. Unlike the private onsens we’d used, there was only a single open area with storage spaces along the outer wall and the onsen in the middle, a small wall that you could see over dividing the two. In the private onsens, there are shower heads where you wash with hot water before getting into the pool. In this onsen there were only taps. I turned one on and waited for the water to get hot. It didn’t. The thought of pouring cold water over myself before getting into what we’d been warned was very hot (44C+) wasn’t appealing. Thomas was of course no wiser than I was. We were saved from that fate when a Japanese gentleman came in, stripped off, sat beside the onsen and scooped the water out over himself with a small tub. With that revelation, we joined in, finding out that the water was in fact bloody hot. When I thought I was going to be able to stand it, I set the tub aside and slipped into the onsen itself. And good lord was it freaking hot! I found that if I sat very very still I could stand it, but that if I moved even just a fraction, disturbing the water seemed to expose me to the heat anew. I lasted about five minutes before clambering from the water and towelling off.

I waited outside for Thomas and Caroline and Emily emerged shortly before he did, also remarking on how hot the water was. When Thomas joined us and we talked about how hot it was to sit in the water, the girls didn’t believe it. Apparently they’d found it so hot that beyond dipping feet in that hadn’t managed to get in the water! They told us that a heavily pregnant woman and small girl had managed to do so in front of them and had found that just a little humiliating that they hadn’t managed to handle the heat.

Michael’s Dumpling count: 105