Hakuba-mura, Chubu, Japan
Monday, January 9, 2017

*DYLAN*

Open the eyes this morning and it was a breath of relief to know that there were no lingering stomach cramps or other more larger scale problems following the consumption of last night's dinner. Who knows what it was, puffer fish, poison fish, sea urchin, fish gizzards, a piece of an old rubber tyre...don't know, but it was a horrible restaurant and won't be going there again thank god. The horrendous food wasn't to stop there... down to the hotel foyer for buffet breakfast and it wasn't much of an improvement. Cold yellow fluff they called eggs, some fishy looking thing I was steering clear of for obvious reasons, stale bread, white rice (because everyone loves white rice for breakfast), a poorly done miso soup and then a well put together salad. Being hungry we managed to salvage some food from the buffet, safe to say Osaka will not be remembered for its food.
The hotel room supplied each of us with a Q10 co-enzyme face mask (whatever that is) on arrival. I was sold, so decided to give it a go. Felt like a jelly fish sitting on my face but apparently it helps fight the 7 signs of ageing so here's to looking young again.

Gathered our bags and got ready for our shuttle bus in the hotel foyer that would take us to the train station for our day in transition. 3 shinkansen (bullet trains) trips as well as a bus or sub way journey and another train here and there were on the menu for the day, an exciting day for all... As the bus arrived, we were informed that it was fully booked. Lucky we had left ourselves some time to wiggle with so we actioned plan B and walked to the subway to get to our shinkansen.

Our first bullet train was the HIKARI 464 from shin-Osaka to Nagoya. Once on the shinkansen and half way through our first train journey, Blake remembered that he had left behind his chargers and cords for half his electrical equipment such as his phone. A common holiday error and it will definitely be going down in the holiday losses column. If you don't hear from him from now on it's because his phone is flat.

At our first train stop, there was enough time for a quick lunch stop. Much of the same - poorly made sandwiches were consumed.

We then caught our second bullet the Wide view-SHINANO 11 from Nagoya to Matsumoto. This was a prettier ride with more country side and some snow covered mountain tops to look at. Our tickets were in the first carriage and we had glass windows separating ourselves from the cockpit. It was cool to watch the driver go to work and also offered us some spectacular views of the surroundings. As the trip went, more and more snow was on the ground so this got us all excited, especially Louise who hasn't experienced snow. Louise's excitement soon waned and the urge for sleep was greater so some shut eye was chosen.

We arrived at the station and had a scheduled 6minute transition time from one train to the next. There was a slow driver change (something you are likely to see from the ford contingent at Bathurst) that meant we arrived late at the station and had around 4 minutes to find our next train. There was a mad dash and in the confusion, a middle aged bloke with no idea decided to cross through the bottle neck congestion heading into the escalator. This meant he clipped Maya's suitcase, tripped up and was whistled down by the referees for a gain of no yards. There was no time to see if he was ok and it was his fault for trying to cross a congested escalator line and not looking where he was going. He did get up and brush himself off, we as a group brushed it off and made a run for our train. We luckily got to our train in time and were onto the next part of the day.

Our 3rd train was on the otio line from Matsumoto to Shinano-Omachi. This was more of a suburban train but it was through some nice country up in the valley of some mountains with lots of snow around on the ground.

Quick rush once again to the next connecting train, had about 2 minutes to perform this transition. Bit of an old girl that made lots of noises and was a rough ride but got the job done.

Finally made it to our destination after our travel day of near misses. The hotel has an indoor onsen, sauna and outdoor onsen so the girls are happy. Organised ourselves for the coming days in terms of lift passes and rental. Had pizzas delivered to our door which was superb. After dinner the girls trekked to the supermarket to get snacks for the week while we watched the sumo championship on tv. Exciting viewing! When they got back we all went down to our onsen which definitely exceeded expectations. Indoor and outdoor onsens with a sauna. Male and female both separate. They were both empty. The girls relived their high school years - Ash taking in a wild grape flavoured Smirnoff and Maj and Lou sharing a water bottle full of white wine. Super classy! Once the girls made their way to the outdoor onsen we ambushed them with snowballs over the fence. The girls retaliated and the snowball fight broke out. No casualties.

Snow report: 5cm of snow with hopefully some snow tonight.