Alastair and Simon headed back up the slopes for their final day, we headed back to bed when they headed off! A nice lie-in (the heated floor underneath was a real treat) and read, then we did a repack of our bags, putting all the super-warm and ski gear separately, as we will try to send it back to New Zealand to save us having to carry it about.
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| Our little apartment's kitchen and dining room |
Into town for a coffee, where we stumbled into Alastair and Simon, who'd stopped for an early break as conditions were not good. They headed back up, we had a ramen lunch, then enjoyed a wander about Niseko Hirafu. It's a funny little town. Very much a ski resort with a strange mix of buildings. Some were really very smart and modern, with architect's touches, others were awful. On the whole though the buildings were pretty nice.
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| Bar Gyu |
Bits and pieces for dinner once the boys returned, then we all went to a whiskey and cocktail bar - Bar Gyu, which was distinguished by the entry being through a fridge door. I tried a tasting set of 3 sakes, the others had a cocktail each. I'm not that fussed about sake, it's a little too sweet for my tastes, but it was fun noting the differences between the ones I tried.
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| Sake tasting set |
I find the Japanese graphics overwhelming. There seems to be a horror of white space, as every surface of packaging and shop windows is covered with information. It's normally in a huge range of fonts and sizes, in multiple colours, and often with little cartoon illustrations. The Japanese mind must have been trained from birth to filter out what is necessary, but all of us have found the vast amount of information is more than we can readily assimilate. The kanji characters of course don't help us!
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| Noodle packet lid |