JAPAN!!!

I think this was the entrance to a house...

This past winter break I somehow found myself 16 time zones and 6,303 miles away from the US in...Japan! It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. We went to Japan for the powder skiing, this seems to surprise people, but Japan has AMAZING skiing. More on that later. My mom and I, though, insisted on getting the full cultural experience in, so we spent a few days sightseeing and apologizing for our incompetence. Here are five highlights and a ton of pictures:



The number one, coolest thing about Japan was how universally nice everybody was. If you stopped on the sidewalk to consult a map, five locals would rush over to you and walk with you halfway to your destination while apologizing profusely for their English skills. Ten days stumbling through Japanese culture, and nobody was the slightest bit rude or standoffish. It was all bowing, sincere smiles and a plethora of please's and thank you's. At first it felt like you'd been thrown into the Amity compound. But the niceness was contagious and greatly appreciated. It was actually a big shock when we got into the San Francisco Airport and the customs officer snapped at us.

A beech tree on the ridge

The skiing, as I mentioned earlier, was amazing. Japan built five hundred ski resorts in the 50's  and then a few decades later, lost interest. Outside of the larger ski resorts that can attract enough foreign skiers, are ghost towns. Towns that used to be booming with skiers from Tokyo, are now falling apart. But the snow is great and the people even friendlier. We had some great powder and got to ski under a canopy of beech trees with bamboo leaves poking up through the snow. We even had some killer moguls.

My dad's dinner

Traditional japanese tea at a tea house

My favorite japanese foods were squid sushi, croquettes, and soba noodles. We ate some pretty interesting foods when we were there, including a smoked fish head (I was the only one who tried that) an abundance of mystery sea vegetables, and some pickled white disk with a pink swirl. There were meals when I'd look down at my plate and not be able to name a single thing in front of me, except for rice. It was always served in about fifteen small dishes, one for each type of food and prepared meticulously, so they looked more like a piece of art than a meal. The scariest part, was when the cook came out and sat there watching us enjoy the food. (We were eating with chopsticks and were disastrously butchering the process.)

My brother putting incense in an incense burner at a temple

A budda 

The Buddhist Temple

The first night, we stayed in Nagano, the town that hosted the Japan winter olympics. In Nagano there was a 500 year old buddhist temple, Zankō-ji Temple, that we got to walk around in. It was really cool to see! There was also a giant wooden gateway at the end of the street, complete with 30 foot statues on either side. This was supposed to guard the temple from unwanted visitors. Just before you went into the building there was a huge metal pot. You had to light an incense stick, throw it in the pot and then "cleanse" yourself with the smoke before entering. On the street leading up to the temple, all the trees had small strips of paper tied around its branches, we found out later that they were fortunes, and that you were supposed to take one.

Shirakawa Go Farmhouse (UNESCO site)

A sea of umbrellas crossing the bridge into Shirakawa Go

Some other pictures:

Our hotel

A Fortune Tree

A table at the coolest hotel

A hot water fountain where someone was boiling eggs

A shino shrine

A buddhist temple

A foot onsen (hot tub)

Sayõnara,

Victoria