Yuzawa

For our second day in the mountainous region in Niigata prefecture, we decided to give skiing a rest as most of the slopes were now closed and we were sure we were only capable of mastering the few we had tried yesterday.  Saving ourselves a relatively substantial amount of money, we opted instead for snow-shoe walking. Waiting for the rain to clear, we explored the small town we were staying in starting with a museum where we learned how the community have learned to cope with the vast amounts of snow (3-4 metres) they are faced with every winter. Stumbling across a place that made giant onigiri (rice balls) — aptly named rice bombs — we of course took advantage and bought two to picnic on at the top of the mountain later.

Taking the cable car once more, we ascended into a dense rain cloud. Thankfully, after our lunch watching the pro-skiers flying down and the beginner snow boarders fall down the slopes, the sun came out and we went to find our next activity. To say that the snow-shoe walking wasn’t challenging would be an understatement! A kilometre at most before we were encouraged to have fun in the snow with instructors throwing snowballs at each other and laughing over-enthusiastically to encourage us. Needless to say we pretended to take lots of photos to avoid eye contact – we’ve had lots of snow in the UK this year anyway! On the other hand, it was fun to wear the traditional snow-shoes which were exactly the same as those seen in the museum earlier and the views were indisputably good.

Later, after a rotenburo (wooden tub) onsen at our hotel, the highlight of the day was undoubtedly the sake tasting back in the town. A vast array of automated dispensers awaited us! Cucumbers were available for 100 yen, as was a choice of many types of salt and some miso to cleanse the palate between drinks. At just 500 yen for five samples we perhaps went a little overboard and learned that sake is a good one for going straight to the head. Stumbling out, we headed straight for the ultimate drunken cure – ramen.