Playing With Real Snow!

One sunny day in March 2008, we decided that we should go check out how real snow looks and feels like. So we hopped on the Tanigawa train and went to GALA Yuzawa. A mere one and half an hour's ride on the Joetsu Shinkansen from Tokyo and we were there. The beauty of going to GALA Yuzawa is that the skiing experience is just a gondola ride away from the train station! How cool is that?

The fastest Joetsu shinkansen will take you there in just 77 minutes, if I'm not mistaken.

A view from the gondola we took from the train station up to the slopes.

Two snow "virgins" excited to play with real snow. WOOT!

We rented the amusement set (or something) that included a jacket, pants, gloves, boots and a sled. For Raimie, we even got him a helmet. We didn't plan to do any skiing that day, so no skiing lessons for us. Just simple fun of going sledding down the kids' slopes.

At the kids' slope

A "kuma' getting ready for hibernation. LOL

and then the little "kuma" decided to come out and play. ^^

and made a new friend.

We were there from 10.00am to 3.00pm and returned to Tokyo on the double-decker Max Tanigawa train. The poor exhausted boy; who had somehow managed to get his feet wet and cold while burrowing himself in all those snow, fell asleep almost immediately in the train. Note to self, bring extra socks if we decide to do this again in future.

Arriving our hotel two hours later, he started badgering us for the PSP game-LocoRoco that "Uncle Contamination" had let him play the day earlier. Oh no!