04.12.25 Naeba
For Christmas we went to Naeba to ski.
Here is Lukas’s summary of the events: “Lukas Vinkhuyzen skied very fast. He didn’t do turns a lot. We had very lovely days in Naeba. And Lukas made a new friend named Miki. He is a grown-up. And we played snowball fights. Yesterday I got lost but my Mom found me. There was a ping pong table and I played ping pong with two grown-ups. Miki drove us to the a ski place every day.”
Now for my summary: We went with the Shinkansen early in the morning of the 23rd (it was the emperor’s birthday, a national holiday, hurray for the emperial family!) and made it to the train with a few minutes to spare (there is a taxi stop at the top of our street every other car that comes by our building is a taxi. However, that morning two already occupied taxis passed within seconds of our arrival at the street, but then nothing) . The train ride was only an hour and a half, but in a bullet train you can cover a lot of ground in a short time. It was a beautiful clear morning in Tokyo and for most of the trip, but after going through a very long tunnel we came out at the other end and in a winter wonderland where it was overcast, snowing and everything was covered in a thick layer of fresh snow. The bus that was to transport us Naeba had a covered waiting area, but the roof was useless as the wind blew the snow horizontally through the station. Pascale, Saskia and Lukas sought cover in a telephone booth. One interesting thing about the streets in this town were the little water squirters installed all over the road. The little water spouts cause the snow to melt. It does keep the streets remarkable clean, and very wet.
The bus ride to Naeba was 30 minutes and we were picked up by two young men from Lodge Oka (As I exited the bus, they stepped out of their car immediately and said “Erik-san?” I wonder how they knew…) who then drove us to the place where we rented our skiclothes and skis and then to the lodge. This chauffeuring service was surely not part of the package, but having started to treat us that way they raised expectations (certainly in the children) and Miki-san—who became Lukas’s very close friend—drove us to the skilift at the Prince Hotel every day.
The hotel manager greeted us warmly; my colleague who had made the reservation for us had warned us that they would not speak a word of English and he did not lie their English was not much better than our Japanese. We were outfitted with a pair of one-size-fits-all beige plastic slippers each and shown to our room. The room was as expected: one big tatami room completely unfurnished except for a tiny television and a little square table about 30cm high in middle of the room, the futons and duvets folded in the cupboard. Underneath the tabletop a blanket with a nice floral pattern (see below) extended to the floor. The aesthetical beauty of the blanket is quite overshadowed by the practical value of the table as it has a little electric heater which is attached to the bottom of the tabletop. So when you stick your feet under the blankets, they enter a sauna. This was particularly appreciated by the whole family as our ‘wing’ of the hotel appeared to be entirely unheated; the lobby was wonderfully warm, but as soon as you left the lobby the drop in temperature is severe. When we first walked into our room, we could clearly see our breath. There was also a little gas heater that worked fine, but after about five minutes of operation it automatically switched itself off displaying “Error 7”. Turning it off and back on reset the device successfully, but of course this does not help much at night. As the first night wore on, therefore, Lukas crawled further and further under the heated table and when he woke up only his head was still outside the blanket. The rest of us were all cold when we awoke.
The second night we arranged the futons around the heater so all could stick their feet under the table from four different sides (Pascale and Saskia shared a side).
The skiing was great, although a bit cold on both Thursday, when it was snowing and Sunday, when there was a veritable blizzard. After that first cold day Pascale took my advice to wear many layers rather too seriously and wore three pairs of pants under her ski pants. We were surprised she could move at all. Whether this was the cause or not one cannot be sure, but just on that day, she had an accident and peed in all four of her pants. We were very worried that we would never be able to dry the pants after we washed them but enough of them did for her to have still one layer to wear under her skipants.
The hotel also provided us with two meals, which were served on trays that would be out on the table when we came to the dining room at six, a time we selected mostly because we feel pretty confident about our ability to communicate ‘six o’clock’ in Japanese. The food was typically Japanese, many small dishes, several with mountain vegetables (I think), a piece of fried or baked fish and some meat dish; although everything had been cooked it was all cold. You could serve yourself rice from the rice cooker and there was miso-soup as well. That was mostly all the children ate, except that Lukas ate an entire small crab legs and all after Roberta had told him, to my utter amazement, that he would get a hundred dollars if he would eat the thing. You should have seen his face, he lit up, when he said “really?” There was no taking it back at that point, and surely the whole crab disappeared in seconds. I can only imagine the mountains of pokemon that will cover the floor of his room when she actually gives him the money.
Pascale was the most adventurous on the slopes. She went down the black diamond run with me three times. The first time (with Saskia) she fell countless times, but with much encouragement and help lifting she made it down. Much to my surprise she wanted to come down with me again the next day (Saskia opted to go down in the Gondola) and she only fell 5 times (she was keeping careful count). The last day was very cold with howling winds and heavy snow but she wanted to come with me again and—carefully turning around the snowboarders that were falling all around us—she made it down falling only once. She was deservedly proud of herself.
As Lukas reported above, he was lost on day and his mother found him. What was not reported was that it took well over an hour before he was located, that we had searched several different runs and the inside of several hotels and restaurants, that we had made a public announcement, ran up a huge cell phone bill coordinating between the four of us and that Pascale was in tears. When R found Lukas he was neither crying nor very upset, but did say that he had been looking for us and that he was “about to give up looking for us”. We did not ask what, exactly, he was going to do instead, but I expect the videogaming halls in the hotel might have been on his mind.
On Christmas day “Route B” was playing in hotel Effe, down the street from Oka Lodge. The foursome played Beatles tunes all night to a crowd of mostly highschool boys, and a few guests from our hotel. R and the girls had gone ahead after dinner, but I had stayed with Lukas who had fallen asleep at dinner and was clearly not quite well. But after he had been asleep I joined them at the café. The band members were dressed in black cowboy boots, black pants and a black turtle neck and were actually quite good, although the pronunciation of many of the words was a bit off. The audience was clearly enjoying the show and everybody was clapping and singing along. Only R and Pascale were dancing much to the astonishment of the other guests (and the embarrassment of Saskia), who kept glancing over at the sheer weirdness of it all. The band members were delighted with the dancers, however, as was the owner who was trying to encourage R and Pascale to dance on the ‘stage’ with the band. Before the last set, the owner had enough of the highschool children’s tepid behavior and removed their table and the benches from the room, forcing them to dance, which they did albeit with considerable humiliation. It turned out to be a wild Christmas party with R leading the dance and the girls dancing with a cute little Japanese girl.
While waiting in the train station on our way back to Tokyo, I was looking for a souvenir for the project room—one should always bring back a local specialty when one has travelled (I think it may be to repent for one’s absence, but I am not certain)—when I found chocolates that were advertised as a local specialty. On the box it said that the chocolates contained therein were: “Heary and thick!” Of course, I had to buy them and I tried one today with great anticipation; they were delicious: Oishii!!
When we arrived back Lukas had a bad time because he was denied access to the computer and wanted to run away and not join us for dinner. While we were at the table he was sulking on the couch. Trying to find a proper punishment for those who had been so unfair to him he said that now he would no longer support Kerry, and that he would vote for Bush instead. This was met with outrage by all the other members of the family especially his older sisters. Having thus gotten the desired reaction he was able to collect himself and come to dinner. I am happy to report that he has meanwhile come back to his previous position on Bush as well.
  
11:18:59 PM 
|
|
