11-13 February - Sapporo Snow Festival
It was a bit of a crazy mission to get flights (I still dont understand a lot about how booking travel works here) but managed to make it up to the Sapporo Snow Festival with Mindy (from San Francisco now living in Kishiwada, Osaka) and meet a bunch of other JETs up there too. It was a pretty packed weekend leaving here at 4pm on Friday night and arriving back at 2pm on Sunday afternoon. With our two nights there we managed to go to an all you can eat genghis khan (lamb BBQ) dinner and drinks at the Kirin Beer Hall and celebrate Eve's birthday at karaoke on Friday night and all you can eat crab on Saturday night. Inbetween we enjoyed some other local specialties and chowed down on corn, yakimo and raamen!
In between all the delicious food we saw the Ice Sculptures in Susukino, Snow Scultpures in Odori Park and the Shiroi Koibito Factory and Park and enjoyed the city of Sapporo for a weekend
19-20 February - Kyoto, Okayama and Strawberry Picking
A conference in Shiga Prefecture on Friday afternoon was the perfect invitation to make the most of the rest of the weekend away from home. Booked into a youth hostel in Kyoto with my supervisor and her husband drove up to meet us after work (they have become like a big sister and brother to me) and spent Saturday morning exploring Ginkakuji, had lunch in Nishiki Market, walked around Fushimi-Inari-taisha and were lucky enough to catch the Kyoto Station Stair Climbing Challenge too.
Missioned out to Okayama to meet a few of the other Osaka-fu JETs and support Donald and Carl who were taking part in the (nearly) Naked Man Festival where the men wear fundoshi (loincloth) and fight at Saidaiji Temple to get some blessed sticks (there is also a monetary prize). Enjoyed keeping warm while trying to keep an eye on what was going on with the festival through the zoom lens of my camera and managed to capture Donald in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJnhkQ6XR1g at 25seconds (although I can't see him...) We regrouped after the festival and spent the night at Big Echo Karaoke boarding the first train home (6am) and getting back to Osaka at 9am-ish.
Went straight off the train to Harvest Hill, where we had a work event based around strawberry picking (thank god it wasnt anything any more strenuous) and had a great time and then crashed out that afternoon.
26 Feb - 1 March - Stuart, Skiing and Snow Monkeys in Nagano
Taking the night bus from Osaka on Friday night after work on the 25th I arrived in the wee hours of the next day and had a day to wait for Stuart to arrive. It took him two flights, a bus ride and a taxi but he finally got to Nozawa Onsen at 2:30am on Sunday morning and it was great to see him for the first time in four months. We had a minshuku booked for 3 nights that included traditional Japanese breakfast and dinner, and the deal we had included ski hire, lift passes, lunch coupons and a night bus home so we set about making the most of our next three days in Nagano.
I had tried going up the slopes myself on Saturday but Hikage was a little bit steep for me seeing as it was only my second time on skis, so heading up with Stuart on Sunday was much better. I spent most of my time on Uenotaira but also went down Paradise and the 5km forest path after lunch which was challenging but pretty. Wound up the day with a dip in the most famous onsen in the village - Oyu.
Monday it was raining in the village so took us a bit to get up and going, took the Nagasaka gondola today and it was snowing once we got up there so kind of surreal being all bundled up (very happy Stuart bought over goggles for me) and skiing down when the slopes were pretty quiet (partly because of the weather and partly because it was a Monday) the weather cleared in the late afternoon. That night we ate lots of oyaki (I particularly liked the less traditional apple and cinnamon ones), tried out another onsen and the foot bath (way too hot for my liking) and picked up a few souviners and some shinshuu apples to take home
We made the most of Tuesday before boarding the night bus. Stuart really wanted to see the snow monkeys that swim in onsen that I had visited in January and its a bit of a mission by public transport in winter so we booked a day tour with a local guy (from Slovakia married to a Japanese lady) and got to cover Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, Obuse town (known for chestnuts and Hokusai), Shinshuu Soba for lunch, Snow Monkeys and even got to dress up in kimono in Shibu-Onsen. It was a great day but tiring, which definitely helped us sleep on the night bus home
I had tried going up the slopes myself on Saturday but Hikage was a little bit steep for me seeing as it was only my second time on skis, so heading up with Stuart on Sunday was much better. I spent most of my time on Uenotaira but also went down Paradise and the 5km forest path after lunch which was challenging but pretty. Wound up the day with a dip in the most famous onsen in the village - Oyu.
Monday it was raining in the village so took us a bit to get up and going, took the Nagasaka gondola today and it was snowing once we got up there so kind of surreal being all bundled up (very happy Stuart bought over goggles for me) and skiing down when the slopes were pretty quiet (partly because of the weather and partly because it was a Monday) the weather cleared in the late afternoon. That night we ate lots of oyaki (I particularly liked the less traditional apple and cinnamon ones), tried out another onsen and the foot bath (way too hot for my liking) and picked up a few souviners and some shinshuu apples to take home
We made the most of Tuesday before boarding the night bus. Stuart really wanted to see the snow monkeys that swim in onsen that I had visited in January and its a bit of a mission by public transport in winter so we booked a day tour with a local guy (from Slovakia married to a Japanese lady) and got to cover Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, Obuse town (known for chestnuts and Hokusai), Shinshuu Soba for lunch, Snow Monkeys and even got to dress up in kimono in Shibu-Onsen. It was a great day but tiring, which definitely helped us sleep on the night bus home
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