Sadly today was about leaving the snow. With our skiing done
and the holiday drawing toward its end, it is time to head to Tokyo. Most of
the morning was spent packing everything back into our bags and arranging for
the ski equipment to be shipped to the airport to await our final departure.
Then, with snow falling once again, we trekked to the bus-stop to make our way
back to Iiyama where we could catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo where there’s
little doubt that Michael will be seeking out every claw game in existence.
When we made it to Iiyama, Caroline went to secure seats for
us on the Shinkansen only to be informed that all the reserved seats had been
taken, which meant we’d have to try our luck in the non-reserved free for all
(along with a horde of other tourists departing the snow with their luggage).
Given the fun we’ve had squeezing all our luggage onto trains where we’ve had
reserved seating, we weren’t really looking forward to that challenge, but were
quite lucky. We managed to board the train, find spots for our reduced number
of bags and find seats within spitting distance of each other (not that we
tested that proximity measure!)
There was simply so much snow in Nozawa Onsen and as we wandered around, there was one activity
that seemed to be continuing endlessly. The clearing of snow. In all the
snow-laden places I’ve visited, Nozawa Onsen was different in one manner – the
amount of running water. One of the reasons there’s lots of public onsens is
because the village is built on or over a fault line or the like. There’s
clearly plenty of water and it is used to help manage the snow, with it being
piped or hosed out over parking lots to melt it away. Thomas tested it and it’s
not hot water, but it’s clearly above freezing.
With the volumes of snow that the place gets at times, its
clear that they also work to move the snow continuously so that it doesn’t
build up too much. In the four days were around the place over a metre of snow
fell, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from walking about town. You even see
people walking about on the roof tops moving the snow off them! No sign of any
safety equipment, because you know, what could possibly go wrong walking around
and on snow-covered roofs three storeys off the ground?
We left the snow the way we arrived in a heavily laden pack
through falling snow, though notably the one thing that changed was that Sam
was in long pants. While we were in Matsumoto he acquired a pair of tracksuit
pants, currently the only pair of casual long pants he owns (to add to the suit
he owns).
We alighted from the train in Ueno and then simply had to
navigate our way to the hotel. We could catch a number of different trains or
walk for about half an hour. The boys opted to walk while Caroline, Emily and I
opted to go by train. We took the scenic route and the boys beat us by a
comfortable margin. We only got on one train going the wrong way, mostly
because it arrived just as we got to the platform and hadn’t quite worked out
which way we were supposed to be going yet. We worked it out quickly though and
got off at the very next station. Then we went a bit out of the way while
walking from the station, but hey, we got here and that’s the main thing.
Having checked into the hotel, there were only two things on
Michael’s mind. Food and claw machines, so we headed for Akihabara. We avoided the first lunch option (at 3:30pm mind you) which was looking like being
Burger King and instead found a little basement restaurant where we managed to
have a good feed. Then we hit Akihabara with all its noise and lights. Along the way i spotted a group of locals all hanging out at a local shrine, every single one of them looking at their phone. There was only one thing that could be going on. A Pokemon raid! Sam confirmed it and joined ... just for a little while.
When we hit Akihabara, we spent
a while trawling through Yodabashi Camera and then the Sega entertainment store
where there was three floors of claw machines. Three floors.
Commence the spending of money. Michael flirted with a
couple of machines and Emily took me on a tour pointing out all the anime characters
that she knew. We agreed that if we were to play a machine that there was one
figure that we’d go for. We didn’t drop any money though. We toured the rest of
the place. Then Emily asked me for a hundred Yen. Even though she knew it was
impossible to win the game with one shot, she had a go. Then I decided to have
a go as well.
One of the surprising things about the place was that when
you were seen to have spent some money and were stuck, the attendants would
either give you a clue about what you should be doing or even re-position it so
that its moved from a position that’s unlikely to proceed. I don’t think I can
claim claw master status anymore because though I did indeed extract the toy
from the machine, I had help three times! And I certainly spent more than it
was worth to do so. Call me sucker.
When we managed to extract everyone from that shop we went,
you guessed it, into another one. This time I resisted all temptation, but
Caroline and Michael found a machine set to ‘easy mode’. They both one a plush Pokemon toy on their second attempts. By that time though it was definitely
time for some dinner so we began the wonderful game of find somewhere to eat in
Tokyo.
We found a couple of likely looking spots where they
couldn’t fit us in and so kept going. We passed one place where the guy out the front touting tried hard to
lure us in. We were reluctant, but he claimed they had an English menu and
given it was yakitori, we decided to give it a go. We were ushered upstairs and
squished into a corner and Caroline took on the role of food orderer.
There were a couple of items that we didn't order from the menu.
It started coming out and was suitably delicious. Two
Japanese businessmen were sitting at the table adjacent to us and had a
ridiculously large plate of fries delivered. We’d missed those on the menu and
decided that we needed to add them to our order. We tried to discuss with them
whether they had ordered more than one serve given the size of the plate and
were told it was three. Based on that and the fact that we’d already ordered a
heap of food, we ordered two for our table.
When they arrived, they appeared as big as the supposedly
three serves. We chowed down happily. We’d just managed to get through them all
when the second serve arrived. We nearly died. But we still ate them all. It would have been rude not to.
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