sKIING

Skiing was great! We went up to Gifu Prefecture, near a town called Takayama, and stayed at a hot spring called Fukuchi Onsen.
We had iffy weather on Saturday, but we got out early enough
that we had no problems. Some other people were supposed to meet up with us later, but got caught in the BLIZZARD that hit central Japan on Saturday afternoon.

Now, when I say blizzard, I'm merely repeating the terminolgy used by the local news media to describe the weather event. What happened...what caused trains to suspend service and highways to close...was simply snow. Here in Tsu, where everything ground to a halt, the accumulated snowfall was ONE CENTIMETER. Half an inch...and the world stops. In Nagoya, which is about 50 miles north, there was 11 centimeters of snow...less than 6 inches.

Huh.

Worked out great for us tho, we skiied in the snow, and relaxed in the open air bath under the still falling snow, and on Sunday, when many of the highways were still closed (!), we had fresh powder to ski on and few other skiiers to compete with. It was great.

We skiied on Monday morning too, then backed up and headed home, stopping off in Takayama to drop Dr. Ferrari and his son off at the train station and to nosh on some Hida Beef sushi (deeeeevine).

I was whupped today tho, and had an off night at judo practice (still going!). Its going to take a few days for the old body to recuperate, I think.