Wonderful weather today 😎 Coco and I went for a long walk in the sunshine. And though it is in the middle of the winter the plum (ume) trees are in blossom, or what is also called winter sakura.
Though I enjoyed the winter sakura Coco was oblivious to it. Much more interested in sniffing the ground, and avoiding other dogs (yes, he is still afraid of them).
I had managed to convince the other (most of them) that we should try the slopes today as well. Just before 8 am we were on the first lift up under a blue sky 😎
We were riding for 2 hours before we went back to the hotel to checkout. Then we drove towards Nagano, but stopped midway to have a final lunch together.
We had stopped here a few years earlier too. The food was still good. Buri-yaki (grilled yellow tail) with ton-jiru (kind of miso soup) and rice. They cook the food on old style stoves. Yummy!
At 1:47 pm I was on a Shinkansen back to Tokyo. The only fun thing about that was to meet Chie again.
At 7:55 am we were all waiting at the lift. We were on the second lift up and could have a wonderful ride on an untouched slope 🙂
The first 2 hours were great. Then it got a bit crowded and you had to slaloming around slow skiers and snowboarders. It was still good, but more because of the good weather. Most of the time the sun was shining on us… Except for 30 minutes or so before lunch time.
Once we had lunch all wanted to take a rest from skiing, except me. I continued skiing by myself. Exploring the area. It was great fun. Fresh air. Great weather. What more can you ask for?
Well you could ask for it tomorrow as well 😉
Friday morning and I woke up earlier than usual on a work day, which Fridays usually are. But today I had a day off 🙂 Still I had to be an early bird to catch the Shinkansen train to Nagano.
At Nagano I and Shimizu was picked up by Saito-san and the three of us was on our way to Shiga-Kogen. About an hour’s ride and we met Mash-san and Hachobori-san at the Prince Hotel West in Shiga-Kogen.
First things first… We checked in. Rented a snowboard for me. And had lunch. Then we were off enjoying the slopes on a very fine day’s afternoon.
Last day in Tokorozawa. Another beautiful day Coco and I took advantage of for a walk.
For dinner we had fried buri (fish related to tuna) and mabu-dofu (Chinese spicy meat dish). Yummy!
Coco was kind of tired after walking and having so much fun during a few days now that he slept through most of the dinner. Which is quite unusual.
We had heard on TV that some of the expressways was crowded due to everyone returning from New Year’s holidays. Some expressways had up to 30 km lines of cars moving slowly towards their destinations.
Our guess was that tomorrow would be even worse since it is that last day of the holidays. We drove back from Tokorozawa quite late, only the driver (me) was awake. Luckily almost all the cars were gone when we drove back 🙂