w00kie’s ramblings

So I'm back from China and it wasn't as bad as my colleagues led me to believe. Of course, I stayed only 5 days there and he spent 4 months. I doubt I could've stayed sane more than 2 weeks over there.

Anyways, it was cold, filthy, totally disorganized and did I mention it was cold? See this photo of the snow from the taxi bringing me to work. I thought I was going to die 4 or 5 times during this ride...

This week, the cherry trees blossomed all over Tokyo and the Kanto plain. This weekend, and particularly tomorrow since today was rainy, everyone is preparing to put down the blue tarps under the blossoms and drink themselves stupid. However, I will be waking up at 5AM to take the plane to Changchun in Mandchuria - via Seoul - for a business trip in our Chinese plant.

This is the 2nd year in a row that I miss 花見. Last time I was freezing my ass off in Czech Republic, this year I'll be freezing in China...

Last weekend I took the Monday off and went with 3 friends to Niseko in Hokkaido for 3 days of snowboard. Departure 8am on Saturday from Tokyo - Haneda, quick flight to Sapporo - Chitose, then 2h30 of the most excruciatingly slow bus ride I've ever experience. At 2pm we were geared up and on the slopes (or more exactly just next to the official slopes, between the trees).

The one and only pro to living in Saitama is that you're closer to the mountains, specifically Kagura in 新潟県, the Japanese Alps. So we go snowboarding pretty often, a couple of friends of mine went more than 20 times this season. The conditions are pretty good, but it's nothing compared to ニセコスキー場. It can be resumed pretty simply:

Over there, there is no snow... Only powder!

We had such a blast, we didn't even touch the groomed runs, there was so much light forest areas covered with untouched powder. Moreover, the scenery is majestic: you ski down a rather small lone mountain (1308m) in the middle of a plain across of which, 10km in front of you, a huge conical volcano rises (1898m) like mount Fuji's little cousin.

I don't have any good photos on the snow because I didn't bring my camera while snowboarding, for fear of losing it like I did my sunglasses last time. I used a photo from another flickr user, double-h, so don't congratulate me on my photography skill on this one.

One of the train lines in Hiroshima is called the ASTRAM.

The name アストラム comes from あす meaning "tomorrow" and トラム which is tram in katakana. I was thinking of another theory but my girlfriend didn't find it that funny... :)

me: It's the ASS-TRAM!!! *grins stupidly*
愛子: Don't make fun of my city!

Here is my girlfriend in front of the biggest しゃもじ in the world:

If you ever go to 宮島, you'll see those wooden rice paddles everywhere. They are used to scoop the rice out of the rice cooker, at least before the wooden type was replaced by newer plastic, non-sticky ones.

Souvenir shops sell big lacquered and engraved versions as a goodluck charm since anything can be turned in a lucky charm here in Japan. I guess one of the store owner wanted to be very lucky so he made that giant one and displayed it in the street.

Still in 大聖院 temple, this gate was covered in these paper stickers. I don't exactly know what they are for, my girlfriend told me it had something to do with sumo... Anyways, it looked really neat.

Taken in 大聖院 temple in Miyajima, I have no idea what they were doing there:

I'm back home, in good old Saitama. As usual, the trip went like a breeze, I arrived 20 minutes before my flight, checked in, passed security and boarded my flight all in one stride. Not the shadow of a line anywhere, a wonder for french guy used to american and european airports. Then once I got to Haneda, I still had 2 hours of train to reach the hell-hole of Saitama where I live... まあね、しょうがない！

In the 4 days I had left, having lost 3 to the flu, here's what I managed to accomplish:

• Visited 平和公園 and the Peace museum, as seen in the attached photo of the A-bomb dome.
• Went to 宮島 and got to see all the sights. However I missed the monkeys at the top of the island since the ropeway was not open yet and the fast road by foot had been destroyed by a typhoon and they were rebuilding it.
• Checked out the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art.
• Shopping in 本通, the little Shinjuku of Hiroshima.

You might say "It ain't much!" but the purpose of the trip was to spend time with my girlfriend who moved out 2 months ago, not sight-seeing. That mission was accomplished. I'll post more photos of stuff I saw in the coming week.

In a couple of hours I'll be leaving for 広島 by plane to see my girlfriend for a week.

We're planning to go to 宮島 to see the famous torii in the sea and a little one-night trip to 九州 at an onsen. Wish me good luck meeting the parents...

So as I told you, last weekend I went to stay the night at an onsen resort and I'm having mixed feelings on this little trip.

I went to the Plaza Hotel in 鬼怒川温泉. The hotel was celebrating the 1st anniversary of its renewal, so we were hoping for something really nice. And the photos on the website were true, the hotel was totally new, the rooms looked great... well all the rooms except for 2 floors out of 12... our room being located in one of these unlucky floors...

So instead of a cool, modern, zen style room, we got the old, dusty, mom-and-pop's ryokan room. What a let-down...

Anyways, apart from that the food was excellent (as you can see in the photo below) and the private open-air onsen in little wooden houses up a trail in the mountain was beautiful.

The next day, we considered going straight back to Tokyo since it was raining so bad, but just when we arrived at the station the rain stopped miraculously. So we went to visit 日光 as planned. It was my second time but a first for Aiko and she really liked it. However we missed the last bus to the waterfall and a thick fog fell on the mountain so I still haven't seen it...