Nonetheless, I had ten days of holiday over Christmas and New Year and I knew I should do something with it. Some friends of mine very kindly took on the burden of organising a ski trip to Hakuba in Nagano Prefecture, one of the best places for snow sports in the world, which I happily agreed to join before remembering that I hate skiing and the one day I went skiing was one of the worst I've ever experienced in my life. But who doesn't love snow? I don't not love snow, that's for sure.
The trip from Nagoya to Hakuba took about three hours by coach and two by train. I haven't been on a long coach trip in years so it felt like a really exotic school trip. Exchanging notes and singing Ten Green Bottles would have felt a bit weird, so I stuck to trying to take pictures of amazing snow-capped mountains whilst moving at sixty miles per hour.
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| Which went exactly as well as you'd expect. |
The train journey went surprisingly well considering there was about two feet of snow all around the tracks. Puts in perspective the nationwide pant-shitting we go through back in the U.K. if we get enough snowfall to hide the gum on the pavements.
Outside Hakuba station we got dinner in the first establishment we saw, which was an Aussie-run bar offering snacks and proper beer (fun fact: in Japan, beer is usually served with a head of at least five centimetres, compared to the U.K. where pouring a beer with a head of that length will usually get you a well-deserved glassing). The bartender was Australian and the customers at the bar were all Australians too. When we got to the cluster of hotels by the ski slopes, most of the people we saw were Westerners. What with living in a city that has precisely nothing to offer tourists, this was all a bit weird for me. I am no longer used to hearing English all around me. My brain has entirely forgotten how to tune out background conversations which have meaning to me. Sitting next to an Anglophone family in a restaurant, I found it impossible to concentrate on my own speaking whilst simultaneously being able to hear them. I was also oddly self-conscious of the fact that they could understand my own conversation, even though I was talking about the weather and not how weird their mouths were. Something I'll definitely have to adjust to when I move back.
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| Yes, that's a selfie stick; no, we didn't buy it; yes, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to own and use. |
The chalet was cosy, inviting, and a massive relief after a taxi ride through the most terrifying roads ever. Everything was wood-paneling and blankets, and our room had a big platform you had to climb up to on a skinny little ladder to get to the extra futon; the child in me was super-excited, even as the adult in me feared breaking her legs. There was a rec room, too, with beers you could purchase on the honour system (something you can actually rely on in Japan), board games, and a wonderful chess set:
There were also Japanese-style bathing facilities where different rooms were opened to different genders depending on the day, which is excellent if you like accidentally walking in on nude men.
The next day, my friends went off to ski and I stayed back with Nick (who had injured his foot) to hang out and play in the snow like the children we are. We tried to walk down to the nearest village but found the path too long and troublesome, so stuck to making angels and throwing snowballs. Nick found a new hobby, which is to pick up a stick and hit big outcrops of snow with it so some of the snow falls down. I've never seen him in a mountainous setting before and it's quite clearly his element.
The final day of our trip was mostly spent travelling, but we stopped in Matsumoto for a few hours while we waited for our coach. Matsumoto is a laid-back little city with a very nice castle:
We took a castle tour just before sunset, which involved climbing a lot of very difficult ladders whilst wearing slippers that were too big, and looking out of tiny windows built specifically for the firing of arrows whilst pointing at people outside and talking about how easy it would be to shoot them. One of the seven floors was devoted entirely to some guy who had donated all his guns to the city. Not a guy related to the castle in any way. Just a guy. I guess if a guy with a massive gun collection wants his stuff displayed in the local castle you don't argue.
Our holiday was over, and I was due back at work the next day. We still had hours to go before we got home (even more so than expected, due to our bus driver somehow getting lost on the motorway). But there was still a little bit of time to eke out, so just outside the castle we took a few minutes to watch the moon rise. It poked out just an eensy bit behind the distant mountains, and could be seen edging visibly upwards until it hung neat, full and white in the pink-blue sky.
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