Saturday, in the park... ing lot in the snow

Saturday we woke up and were bummed out, to say the least... After the sloppy conditions yesterday morning, we awoke to see a good 50cms or so on the roof across from us.. and it was still falling!!!

We had a light breakfast, and used the rest of the money on our breakfast cards to buy gifts/souvenirs. We then went back upstairs to finish packing. I had to pack me and Dean's snow stuff in a vacuum bag (only way it fits) so we were without our heavy duty weather gear...

When we had finished, we took it all downstairs, as the manager had offered to take us up to the bus station (which we were thankful for).. He put our stuff in his Spacia/Townace, and we hopped in.... This guy should have had a WRX or and LanEvo, because he was a freakin rally driver. Weaving in around skiers crossing the road, buses, and other cars, we got to the bus stop in record time... We were talking with some of the other people that had stayed at our hotel and they said that he drove like that all the time..

We were standing out in the cold waiting for the bus to take us back to Nagano station (where we catch the bullet train to/from) for about 20mins. Only problem was, that the snow was still falling, and the temp was -9*c.. and occasional blasts of wind. Me and Dean were freezing, as we only had jeans, sneakers, and jackets on. The bus finally came and we made our slow decent from the beloved ski area..

After last Sunday's debacle with getting tickets for the Shinkansen, we decided to just take it easy and not rush to catch a train. Fortunately we didn't have to. I lined up and got the (correct) tickets and we went through the gate. There was a train leaving for Tokyo in about 15 mins, so we had enough time to get down the correct platform, and find a seat..

As this trip was mostly down hill, it felt like the train went a lot faster. It was still going to be an hour and a bit, so after looking out the window, getting some food and water, I fell asleep for about 1/2hr. Then a screaming child woke me up... Doesn't matter what country you in, Kids cry/scream in the same language... annoying...

We made it to Tokyo station, then came out on the correct side of the station. We were looking for our hotel so we decided to ask a bus zone attendant (they have attendants to wave the buses in and out as well as organise things.. He told us that we needed to get on a subway line for 2 stops. I already knew this, but as we were short on money, we didn't think this was an option. We then asked a policeman who sent us to the correct exit then we started walking. We had to go under the road as crossing the 4 or 5 lanes between us and the otherside would have been crazy hard with luggage. In the underpass there was a mall!! Shoe shops, clothing shops, food, coffee, books, all lining this mall.. and it seemed to go for ages. We eventually headed above ground and found that we had been walking for nearly 2 blocks under the road! Talk about a rabbit warren..

When we came up on the street, we looked a map on the walkway (I knew which direction to head, but not the specifics). This told us where our hotel was and we made quick work of finding it.

After checking in and dumping our stuff in our rooms, setting up the lappy, and generally getting some order of things, we decided that we needed to get some money from the nearest 7-11, then get some food... (mum and dean hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now about 4pm) We walked down the street and around the corner, got some cash out and started walking back (via a different route - exploring new places is half the fun). We found some nice smelling restaurants, with a Spanish restaurant, a curry place, and numerous soba/noodle bowl shops. We decided to go to the restaurant at our hotel (well not really in our hotel, sort of attached to it). Next came another challenge... the menu was predominately in Kanji. For those of you that don't know, Japan uses three writing systems: Hiragana - which is used for japanese words, katakana which is used for foreign words (borrowed english words for example) and Kanji - which they've adapted/simplified from chinese. I can read hiragana and katakana fine, but I only know about 120 of the 1900+ kanji used in Japan. So we had to point and ask...

We ended up getting a plate each of these chicken skewer things (one was crispy skin, another was fillet, which another one being guess which part of the chicken this is.. i think liver.... or giblet). Mum got some umeshu (plum wine) which she likes..

After that we headed up the road to Lawson Station... this is another convenience store chain. Over here, convenience stores are... convenient, with there usually being one or two within a blocks radius. I grabbed this little pot of ice cream for 167Y... it was brownie fudge... so delicious...

We ended up back in our rooms, watching crazy japanese TV before falling asleep around 8pmish.... Then I got a call at about 9.15 from a japanese brother we know, organising to meet us today (tomorrow then). Fell back asleep, before waking up early.