Day 4 - Nozawaonsen Festival Day!

Day 4 @ Nozawaonsen

I woke up to what I thought were gun shots but they were really fireworks in preparation for a little festival that the village was going to have. Annie and Thomas-the Belgian couple left early in the morning and it was sad to see them go. We worked today cleaning out the ski rental place because the staff that will be working here during the season will all be staying on the upper floor of the rental shop so we were fixing up their rooms. We found some interesting things left behind by whoever had been living there but I’ll spare you guys the details. We took a break from lunch and I decided to work a few extra hours in the afternoon just finishing up what we had been working on during the morning. This work away is a bit different where we work 4-5 hours a day and then any extra hours we work we get paid for them. It’s actually a really nice deal since a lot of the stores in town only take cash and I wasn’t expecting to have to use all my cash and now I’m running low… So if I want to eat then I have to work some extra hours. They’re paying about $9/hr for any extra work we do so I’m thinking that if I can, I’m going to try and work a bunch of extra hours this week to pay for my train ticket back to Tokyo. I’m flying out of Tokyo Haneda Airport rather than Narita so I have to take a monorail from Hamamatsu which will cost me a bit more to get to. Anyways, after I put in my extra hours I changed really quickly into my running gear and headed out the door. I’ve been wanting to run for days now and I’ve been making excuses not to and I didn’t want to change my mind. The minute I stepped outside I felt so good. I ran down to town and made a left onto the main road that takes you to the neighboring town of Nagano. I ran and felt so free. The mountains in the distance, all the small houses and farmland… It’s just all so peaceful. There was a big kaki tree (persimmon) that I saw on my run and I wanted to pick one so badly but I was afraid someone would see me so I didn’t.

I ended up running about 3.5 miles and the end of that was all uphill. It killed me. The hills here are so ridiculously steep.

I got back, changed and went straight to the onsen for a bath. There were only two older ladies in the onsen so I decided to be brave and shave my legs. SO AWKWARD. I just tried to mind my own business but I felt like they were just staring at me the whole time. Whatever. The water was unbearably hot but It was nice to relax after a good run.

When I got back to the lodge Anaïs and I walked down to the fruit and veggie shop to buy some things for dinner. We passed by the little festival which was comprised of like 3 food stalls and a tent. It was super cute that all the villagers were having a good time outside together for this festival. I found out that it’s held for the god Ebisu for business and prosperity. We went to go visit our friend at the veggie shop who always tries to talk to us in Japanese even though we’ve told him a hundred times that we don’t understand him. Nonetheless, he’s hilarious and he conversed with us about where we were from, what my ethnicity was, why Anaïs’s eyes were so blue and things of that nature until we were done shopping. At one point Anaïs and I were talking and he came over to us and was cutting an Asian pear. He took one piece gave it to Anaïs and then gave me a piece. I was holding a basket in my other hand and he cut another piece and put it straight in my mouth. I was so taken aback I started cracking up. He was talking in Japanese and laughing the whole time and Anaïs and I just looked at each other and couldn’t stop laughing. When he was ringing up our veggies he gave us these purple slips of paper and started trying to tell us what it was for which was even more hilarious. We just weren’t getting it. He kept on saying something about a tv and moving his hand around in a circle. I finally realized that he was giving us tickets for some kind of raffle so we headed over there to figure out what it was all about. In the tent there were packs of beer, vats of cooking oil and all kinds of little goodies. Anaïs and I both handed over our tickets for a chance to win this TV. (I actually just wanted to win the beer). We both pulled out blank tickets from the raffle bin so we got to choose consolation prizes. We both got packs of chocolate covered biscuits and that might have been the second best part of my day. We walked home as champions with our chocolate and vegetables.

I made a tofu and egg scramble for dinner with all kinds of vegetables and had some chocolate as an appetizer. When we finally sat down to eat there was an explosion nearby and color lit the sky. I shut off the lights in the kitchen and we enjoyed a 30 minute show of fireworks in small town Japan. It was such a beautiful day and I can’t get enough of this place.

Much love,

Cas

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