Snow Japan (雪日本) Pictures - 03.16.08
Posted by: jason

I finally got around to putting some pictures up in my gallery. It's been a week since I got home, but I've been a little jet-lagged. I even annotated most of them.

http://www.jasonlowry.com/gallery/Snow_Japan_08

PS - if you can't read something in the title, don't worry too much about it. I've been calling this trip Snow Japan, which in Japanese is 雪日本. If you don't have Asian fonts installed then it probably doesn't show up.

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Day 9: Tokyo to SLC - 03.09.08
Posted by: jason

This morning we went down to Ginza to walk around a little bit. It's a very high-end shopping district. I've been to Tokyo several times but never been to Ginza before. Japanese people make it sound like the streets are paved in gold. I think that Erin would have liked it more than we did, but it was interesting.

After that we had to pack up and head to the airport. Not too much to report on the way home. My flight was changed to spend a couple of extra time in Seattle.

When you fly back it's like the day that never ends. We fly out at 4:00 pm and arrived at SLC at 4:00 pm. I slept off and on, but am again facing the jetlag.

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Day 8: Tokyo - 03.08.08
Posted by: jason

We hooked up with Korey again in the morning. We went to Kappabashi, which is a place that sells a lot of stuff for restaurants. It doesn't sound glamorous, but it's actually quite interesting. Erin and I went before and it was interesting enough to go back. Korey had never been there and also found it interesting. I picked Erin and Open/Closed sign, but in Japanese it actually says "Currently Working" or "Established Day Off" - I thought that it was funny.

After that we went to the Japanese Mos Burger for lunch then went walked over to Ueno to pick up some cash then went to the Ueno park. It's just a really cool part of town - like New Yorks central park. We stopped into the Tokyo National museum. Korey left us to take his kids to see a new Doraemon movie. I also picked Kate up a Doraemon t-shirt. We walked through Ameyoko, which is a huge shopping district across from the park. After that we stopped back at the Sensoji temple so that Blake could finish some shopping.

At night we headed over to Roppongi Hills to go to a Kaiten Sushi that was excellent. Roppongi Hills is a huge multi-use complex with living, offices, restaurants, and shopping. After that we went to a bar so Blake could have a couple of drinks.

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Day 7: Nozawa and Tokyo - 03.07.08
Posted by: jason

The riding at Nosawa was awesome again. They had another 3-4" in the morning. Unbelievably it wasn't tracked out much at all. It wasn't busy either. For most of the day I felt like we were the only ones riding off-piste at all. By the afternoon, the clouds finally rolled in and we couldn't see, but by that time we were ready to go. We headed bake to the onsen for a final soak before heading down to Tokyo.

We met up with my friend korey at night and went to dinner at all you can eat shabu-shabu; please believe that I can eat a lot after a day of snow boarding. They kicked us our at 11:00.

The place was in Shinjuku which is just such a cool part if town. The station is the busiest in the world.

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Day 6: Nosawa Onsen - 03.06.08
Posted by: jason

Today was it! Nosawa got 15" of snow overnight. It really put the icing on the cake to have a big snow day while we were here. Niseko had awesome terrain, and we were able to hike and find powder, but it was warmer and not quite as good as today. Nosawa was just phenominally fun. The powder was awsome and the terrain was really cool. The snow with the people and the town and the place that we're staying just made it a really cool day. We finished it off with another great meal and a trip to the onsen.

Tomorrow we ride here one more day and then head to Tokyo in the afternoon.

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