Yuzawa Station - an interesting place

After we had finished skiing/boarding we had a couple of hours to kill at the station. Luckily Yuzawa station is a great little hub of activity.

The main part of the station has a great selection of souvenir stands from food to locally made goods, something for everyone. But the best part is right at the back and could easily be dismissed as just another shop.

It is a shop but you HAVE to go in, all around the store are samples to try, Ebi-kun trying to decide where to start with the pickles - you know what he is like, this is taste-testing heaven for him!

Then we found a corner that was all soy sauce, now I am far from a soy sauce connoisseur, all much of a muchness to me but Ebi-kun went and samples all 15 types, he recommends the ume infused soy sauce!

There is also a sake sampling area, you pay ¥500 and then get to sample the different types, we lost Daddy for a while so I suspect that's where he disappeared to, these statues just outside the sake section crack me up... I'm not sure it's a great sales tactic!

I

 thought these fish were real to begin with but on closer inspection they were just decoration, they were over the fermented god-only-knows-what section

And yes, of course Ebi-kun tried several of these too, it was no wonder he didn't eat all his bento on the train home!

Once you have filled your boots with samples, head even further back and you will find an interesting little shop, about 1/4 of it is taken up with this massive display of Japanese style ornaments which turns round, it is quite a display and there is a great assortment of ornaments displayed

This is the bottom, which if memory serves me right, gets changed with the seasons. Next to the shop is a little cafe and through that there is the sake onsen. The lads went to the onsen, I got myself a nice coffee and grabbed a comfy chair and my book. I'm not a big fan of public baths.

If you find yourself transferring at Yuzawa station, try and work it so you have a bit of time to look around the station, it is one of the more interesting ones!

New Year Skiing and Snowboarding

A few years ago we started a new tradition of going to the mountains for new years. We weren't able to book the hotel for New Years Eve so we headed up New Years day. Got the train to the slopes and went straight out on the snow.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the best weather. It reminded me a lot of skiing in Avimore, Scotland - nearly zero visibility in places! At least it didn't have the Scottish ice patches.

Hubby was a bit nervous at first since our last trip to the mountains ended up with him in cast, breaking his arm! But there is nothing like getting back on the horse as they say - most people thought I was insane going skiing again after my accident ( broke my tib and fib, was in cast for 6 months or more and on crutches for a year, fun times! They also had to re-break my leg and gave me no kind of pain killer when they did it, so I suppose technically I have broken my leg twice...)

Anyway, at least it wasn't too busy at Yuzawa Nakazato which is where we were for day one and day 3. I have given up trying to video Ebi-kun on the slopes, he goes to fast and I can't safely ski after him, keep up and film at the same time, I think we need to invest in a Go-Pro camera!

Day 2 the weather forecast for Nakazato wasn't good so we thought we would try out a different place. Nakazato is a family resort so there are fewer idiots on the slopes, you just have to keep an eye out for pint-sized maniacs.

I don't remember the name of the other place but it was young, hip, snowboarder dude, heaven. I don't have anything against snowboarders - since I live with two of them but... some of them as right fricken idiots and shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised.

And what is with sitting in the middle of the bloody slope? Like I said, idiots!

Totally different feel to the place, much busier, much faster paced and much 'cooler' than Nakazato. Maybe I would have different views if I were 20 years younger and hadn't had a bad accident under my belt!

This place did have a practice area for rails and jumps etc. The boys had a go, tried a few times and decided it was way to painful, so we hit the slopes again. I did struggle this day with the old break giving me gyp, I think because I was worrying about being hit, I was manifesting the pain. It was suddenly OK again the next day.

All in all it was a fun few days. The last day I have no photos, it was heavy snow and we were soaked by lunchtime. We needed to catch the train by 4pm so we all had to get completely changed before we could do so, normally we just travel back in our snow gear!

Already looking forward to the next trip...

Of Temples and Sake

The day after our Forest Adventure, we did a bit of sight seeing. The owner of the guest house recommended visiting Seifukuji Temple, Kaizando to see the carved ceilings. I must admit I wasn't expecting much, as my mom says, once you have seen one temple, you have seen them all.

But have you?

The carvings are amazing and extremely high quality, Uncho Ishikawa is known as the  Michael Angelo of Japan. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, which seems so antiquated these days as long as a flash is not used, no damage will come of the paintwork. So here are some photos around the place...

Outside the temple gates there is a place to purify yourself, or at least wash your hands.... I loved this dragon!

These carvings have been weathered by time but you can see how much detail goes into it.

There was a small garden in the grounds and tucked in the back I spied a small staircase, so we went for a nosey, at the top was a fertility shrine, is there anywhere else in the world where you go for a walk in the woods and end up looking at a decorated giant penis?

The temple is now protected under another building structure, from the outside it looks a lot bigger than it actually is.

After the temple we headed off to a sake brewery (my husband is a big lover of sake!) and Niigata is famous for it's rice, the fresh water from the mountains and just the right soil apparently make for perfect rice growing. Of course, sake is distilled from rice and so the sake in the area is famous too!

The place is called Uonuma No Sato and it is a collection of buildings, there are a couple of shops and cafes. The staff canteen is the lovely looking building as you drive up to the complex and you can eat in there. A good hearty meal with as much miso soup and rice as you like for ¥1000.

To do a tour it's best to book ahead, we didn't and couldn't be bothered to wait around for 2 hours to join the next one. Many of the buildings there are stunning, including this kitchen that is used for demo's and lessons...

There is also a shop in the sake distillery that is kept cool using snow from the winter, it was pretty chilly in there!

It was an interesting couple of hours but we didn't get to do any of the tour stuff so I'm not sure how good that was. DH was happy to leave with some sake that is only available from that neck of the woods, so all is well in the world.

Tree Top Adventure in Niigata

This has taken me a while to get up because I wanted to post the video too, I had put it together on my laptop which then decided it didn't want to play nice - gah!

Anyway... we had a three day holiday a couple of weekends back and decided to go and try out the Forest Adventure place. This is actually at the ski resort Yuzawa Nakazato that we usually go to in the winter.

Part of it is the adventure Forest and over on the other side, a golf course.

When you arrive they give you a briefing about the equipment and then you go to a small area to try out everything before you go up to the real trees as it were. I'm not sure why but the boys made me go first!

This was OK until we got to the bit where we did the Tarzan swing, up until that point I was in control of my body and could stop if my back was hurting (it still wasn't 100% after throwing it out) so I decided the Tarzan swing was pushing it and I didn't want to end up in further pain, so I had to back track on that bit!

There are several courses, getting higher and more difficult each time. It wasn't until we had finished that DH admitted how scared he was! Heights don't bother me particularly and I did lots of climbing as a teen so the equipment was kind of second nature.

Ebi-kun did really well, he isn't a fan of heights but he just go on with it. Each course ended with a zip line, each one getting longer, it was lots of fun.

Watch the video for the full effect, I don't have a go-pro, just an iphone!

If you want to go yourself, this is the place Forest Adventure - it's recommended that you make a reservation before you go and there are rules for height/age for kids, so check those out too. The train station is a few minutes from the Forest Adventure Check In but they don't run very frequently.

We stayed over at the B&B I blogged about here, the owners are lovely and speak basic English, The food is great and if you have dietary requirements just let them know beforehand. We usually spend our New years up there and go to the ski resort several times over the winter season.