With Nara out of the way our next stop was Nozawa Onsen. This is a small mountainous town an hour outside of Nagano. Some of the Olympic events were held here but as to which ones we are not sure. The town acts as the ski basin and we had booked it in the hopes of being able to ski. With no snow and temperatures in the low 40's this turned out to be a difficult task. They are also famous for their natural onsen's that are ranked as some of the best in Japan. We tried to fake pictures of us skiing but it didn’t work out so well:
It was quite an adventure getting from Nara to Nozawa Onsen. Our path went Nara to Kyoto, Kyoto to Nagoya, Nagoya to Nagano, Nagano to Nozawa Onsen Station, and finally we had to take a 20 minute buss ride from the station to the actual town. Once we arrived we managed to find our hotel and were shown to our room. We were staying in a traditional Japanese style room. Our hostess was showing us the perks of the room and then she got to the yukata's. If you are unfimilar with the yukata it is a casual summer kimono usually made of cotton. She saw the yukata, stopped and looked at us, and then politely said she would get us larger garments. Nothing makes you feel better than when they have to specially request the larger kimono for the fat Americans.
Life in Nozawa Onsen is very laid back and slow paced. We were about to walk through the entire town in about 20 minutes. One strange thing I noticed was the large amount of liquor stores. It seemed like every 3rd or 4th shop was exclusively selling booze. I guess with nothing to do but sit in hot springs and ski that alcohol was the next logical step. When in Rome. I invented a new drink on this trip. I call it an Onsen. It consists of 2 parts melon cream soda to one part vodka. I give it a B+.
On our last night we participated in a traditional Japanese dinner. This consisted of about 10 courses and was full of things I have never eaten before. The most exotic thing on the menu was raw horse meat. Other dishes included a meso udon dish that was heated at the table by a small torch, fish, duck, a variety of pickled items, rice, miso, tempura, two mushroom dishs, and a desert custard made out of potatoes. It was an overwhelming meal but totally worth it.
Not much really happened other than us relaxing. The onsens are a pretty awesome experience. You know its legit when the water has volcanic ash floating in it. We are off to Tokyo today and will remain there for the remainder of out trip. Catch you then. In the meantime I am attempting to find this sweatshirt:
P.S. I iced Peter.
