Here is our first Shinkansen:
Alec took pictures of all of them - I didn't bother after the first.
Breakfast on the train:
The good thing about the really fast train is that you get there FAST!
Nagano - the Olympic city.
We dropped our stuff at our hotel, which was connected to the station and took a bus into the mountains to a ninja training school. The road actually did a full 360 corkscrew.
The first ninja school was aimed at kids. There were 6 activities that we had to pay for and very elaborate climbing structures that were just part of the admission.
The Ninja house was a series of puzzles that had to be solved to get through it. (Walls that swung or slid, stairs that pulled down or collapsed because they weren't really stairs, etc.)
Throwing stars and blow darts.
Climbing:
Even daddy got into the game.
There was one part on water that we didn't let the kids do. We saw too many others that had fallen in and we didn't have a change of clothes. (It was drizzling and the people in the gift store decided we needed umbrellas, so they gave us some that had been left behind.)
For lunch we had hot soba and tempora.
The food was delicious, but we were in a real tatami room and I can no longer kneel or sit cross legged for any length of time. They noticed my problem and brought a little stool.
In the afternoon we took a cab to another ninja place that was aimed more for adults. There was a museum with both ninja equipment and old kinds of things.
Would you believe - flip flop ice skates:
We all did the ninja house here. Alec was really good at it - he notices construction details with seams in the wrong places and has seen movies with some of the things. (Like the floor cooking box that had to slide to the side to expose the stairs).
In one room a deaf couple were panicking. They had tried all the doors and kept being dumped back into the same room. We did the maze and then Alec pushed the whole wall out of the way. The deaf people stuck to us like glue after that.
Took the bus back and checked in. Since we were cold from being in the rainy woods, we went to a public bath. The boys went in one side and the girls the other. First you soap, shampoo, and rinse well. Then you soak in various pools of different temperatures. The outside one was fun because it rained on us. We could go under an overhang or stay in the rain.
Feeling extremely clean and warm, we walked next door to a sukiyaki restaurant.
Rare roast beef to munch on while waiting for the rest to cook.
The ingredients
Cooking
You whip the egg and then dip the cooked meat in it.
Back at the hotel we were very comfortable in two rooms. Alec and Jef took the small one and the kids and I were in the large one.
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