Crate & Barrel, Japan Division: February 2010

Happiness in Hakuba, Hiver '10

Monday, February 22, 2010

For my fourth post of the evening, I'll quickly recap my trip to Hakuba last weekend. Hakuba is the most famous of the Nagano area's ski resorts. Nagano is, of course, the site of the '98 Winter Olympics. I joined up with a group of JETs coming from another prefecture and took the 3.5 hour train journey up into the mountains on a four day weekend (one national holiday and one day of paid leave).

The only really remarkable thing about the train ride besides the scenery was that once I transferred to the smaller local trains that wound up into the hills, there were all kinds of people taking pictures of the train. At ever stop there were 6 or 7 people with professional-grade cameras. There were people on the train taking pictures of the inside. There were a couple people out in the blowing snow on rocky ridges where they could catch a picture of the train as it passed by between stops. It was an oldish train, but I was pretty baffled by the attention.

This was the only picture of the picture-takers that sort of came out, but trust me, there were dozens.

We stayed at two places really close to the base of the Hakuba Goryu resort. The two places part was because of a weird miscommunication/price-gouging thing that was shockingly Western of the hostel staff. Probably too much contact with gaijin.

This was my first time skiing or snowboarding outside of Colorado, and the snow was overall really good, although the slope was a bit smaller than I'm used to. The most impressive thing was that the trees were mostly deciduous instead of pine, and they were all frozen over to create pristine forests of crystal shards to snowboard through. Not bad.

Sculpting a popular cartoon character/karaoke mascot by one of the lifts.

Above the clouds.

There was even night skiing on the main slope above a bell that was freely rung whenever children or foreigners got the urge.

Just like any resort town, Goryu has a culture all its own. Part of that was the most amazing shuttle bus ever, complete with disco ball and Coronas in the windshield.

Aside from the expense of the train travel, it was significantly cheaper than what I'm accustomed to in the States, with lift tickets only $50 and rentals as low as $10 a day. Something being cheaper here is a rare occurrence.

For those who care, this is what the lift tickets are. You give them a 1000 yen deposit and then you carry this chip with you through the lines, where the scanners are automated. I was disappointed that I couldn't have it implanted in my skin, though.

I also had the experience of watching the Vancouver opening ceremonies from the place where they hosted the winter Games 12 years ago.

Bonus: great sticker on the bottom of a kitschy dog sculpture doorstop we found.

Kenrokuen Winter Light-Up

A couple of weeks ago there were a series of nighttime "light-ups" at Kenrokuen. I went to the last one of these and it was gorgeous. Not too much more to say than that....

It might be a little difficult to see in this picture, but there was a piano/flute duet playing in a small pavilion on the lake.

This isn't quite what this looked like in person, my camera did some funky things trying to adjust to the light, but it came out looking pretty cool. (Actually I'm lying, this was taken from the surface of Pandora.)

The Krackling Excitement of Karuta

Karuta is a card game all Japanese children play, and at one of my schools they had a full period devoted to it one afternoon.

Karuta is played with two decks of identical cards. They have writing on them that corresponds to a short poem from ancient Japan printed on a set of leader cards. The language is actually an antiquated form, similar to Old English or Shakespeare. My teachers said they couldn't even understand the full meaning of a lot of the poems.

My kids played with about 100 cards, but there are many variations of the game, and different sets of cards, often by region. Four people use one set of two decks, two on either side of the cards spread out face-up. The leader, in this case one of the teachers, reads the beginning of the poem. The kids search for the paired card and try to grab it before their opponent does. Repeat x 100.

All of the students were really focused and into the game, and it was neat to watch. I got to read out two of the cards in my halting hiragana pronunciation, as well.

The correct way to recite these poems and most traditional verse or formal dialogue is in a tuneless singsong voice. I've heard this before here, and it reminds me very much of the cadence of the call to prayer I heard in Marrakech. Not all the teachers did it the traditional way, but some got really into it.

Also, some bonus snow pictures of the main street outside my apartment.

Hot Firemen in Their Underwear

I'm really just trying to increase my female readership.

The title isn't a misnomer, though, aside from perhaps the "hot" part. Twice a year volunteer firemen from the Kanazawa area gather in front of the castle to perform acrobatics on ladders and then run under fire hoses in freezing January weather.

I got there a little late because of the weather, and so I didn't get very many good shots of the acrobatics, but it was pretty impressive. I don't think they have any professional training, and they perch up there precariously holding different poses.