Skiing was great. No broken bones, and I only fell down about three times. A rousing success. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that we went again two weeks later!
The place we went both times was in Gifu Prefecture, about a four hour drive from here. We stayed at a traditional Japanese inn (ryokan) which had a natural volcanic hotspring bath system, and we spent the evenings lolling about in the outside bath with beers chilling in the snow . It was really great.
We also stopped by Takayama, a famous city in Gifu. Why it is famous, I'm not so sure...it is very old and it is a must see tourist destination for the Japanese themselves. Japanese tourist destinations resemble nothing as much as an old-timey themed outdoor shopping mall...souvenir and snack shops lined both sides of the streets, and were doing landoffice business both days we were there.
Watching other people spend money gets really old really quickly tho... so we hit the sake breweries. Turns out Takayama is famous for its sake, and in the tourist mall there were several sake shops and a brewery which you could tour for free. We toured. It wasn't a big operation, the explanations were all in Japanese, and it was COLD inside...but you got a free tasting at the end of the tour, and a souvenir sake cup. I have 6 souvenir cups now, and several litres of sake. Yay.
Since we got back, we've been busy with the day to day stuff...and we're getting a new refrigerator tomorrow. A new BIG refrigerator. Too big really....at the behest of K's mother...that'll be fun!
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