This day starts with me standing like a bollard in an airport corridor, en-baggaged tourists seething past vying for poll position at customs. Rubber gloved fingers of muffled masked people prod my phone helpfully for the online clearance form that I know I should have screen saved (like Di told me too) but didn’t.
We got through that shit show eventually and monorailed, trained, bused and shinkanzenned to Nozawa in record time arriving shortly after noon.
This was just as well as the screaming 18 month old next to us on JL36 had taken the edge off our humour. A shinkanzen bento box, cheese snacks and vino smoothed things over.
As I rest my butt down on the soft, heated toilet seat in Tokyo central and close with a warm and gentle, cleansing squirt I feel welcomed back to this wonderful country …and my ceoliac butt sighs in relief.
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Nozawa is wet, misty and raining but beautiful nonetheless. Steaming spring water rushing down the many gutters and falls.
Lodgings, lift tickets, skis and poles all sorted and after a cider and an afternoon snooze we meet a nice couple over a tepanyaki dinner.in Nozawa. Two bottles of wine draws out some of the somewhat less delightful qualities of our aussie friends and we give thanks for the end of our fixed sitting.
Snow is coming!
