The journey home begins...

24th February, 2010

Today we were up early as our bus departure time got changed last night and they were going to pick us up at 8:30am instead of us catching the bus at 10am...no idea why this happened. So we rushed around getting ready for the bus and when the smaller bus dropped us off at the Bus Terminal we had to wait for the bigger bus to turn up which was about 9:10am.

Some of the sights from the bus trip to Tokyo

How would you cope at these views out your window every day?

   

Golf Driving Ranges pop up anywhere and everywhere

Wasabi KitKat anyone??

Chilli Kit Kat's anyone??

On the front it says Human EXpress....I hesitate to think what they do with this van..










     
             


The water Canons and Video Camera inside Narita Airport Terminal

 

Our flight on the Departure board QF22



Our plane ready to take us home from Sydney...its has been a long travel day and a half for us but we are glad to be home!

Thanks for reading and following our adventures and stay tuned for updates over the next little while as I get time and memories come back to us...

Denise & Tom

Hot, Hot, Hot

23rd February, 2010

Today was warm about 6deg and wasn't much good for skiing so we sorted things out for our return tomorow and packed our bags to make sure we weren't overweight for the plane...throwing out rubbish we had accumulated over the past 3 weeks so we didn't have to bring it all home.

Breakfast was another gourmet creation by Seiko - Yutaka's Wife

Here are the Hot Springs or Onsen that we had private use of whilst we have been here

As we hadn't used all our lift passes we gave them to Yutaka to use and he kindly gave us a bottle of Sake, Sake Set and goft boxed chocholate cakes as a thank you gift.

Dinner was at another Pension - Side Hill Bar & Dining, Western Style meals nothing picture worthy...

After a quick walk around the shops for last minute souvieners and then home to bed!

Noodle Class and Japanese Calligraphy

22nd February, 2010

This morning I went to Soba Noodle and Japanese Calligraphy Classes at Shouya Maruhachi which was a 160yr old house near Iwatake.  Tom went snowboarding.

Recipe for Soba Noodles

200g Buckwheat Flour

50g Plain Flour

125ml Warm Water

Extra Buckwheat flour for dusting board

* Combine Flours in bowl and mix well together

* Add 2/3 of the water and bring the mixture together

* Then add the other 1/3 and finish mixing the dough together

* Knead for about 5 mins until it is all combined and very smooth to touch

* Sprinkle flour onto bench and form dough into a ball and then roll dough out into a square and about 2mm thick

* Sprinkle flour on half of the dough then gently fold in half

* Repeat as above

* Cut noodles with a very sharp knife about 2mm thick and place in a tray ready for cooking

* Cook noodles until tender

* Serve as desired, traditionally served cold with a dipping sauce

Dipping sauce

Soy sauce
Sake
Sugar
Fish Sauce

* Combine all the above using a splash of each

After eating all the noodles any left over sauce can be made into a soup by adding hot water!!

Ok..now for the pics of me doing all this...I was having trouble cutting the noodles as the blade was flat on one side and I was trying to use the curved side and the Soba Master saw this and got me a Left Handed knife...it was a so much easier then!

After the noodles were cooked we sat down and "learnt" how to eat them, which is by picking them up with chopsticks and dipping them in the sauce the slurping them up in one go.

Once we had eaten our noodles it was time to learn how to do Japanese Calligraphy...

This is before the mess began!

These are my efforts...I was happy with

                                                                                         them :)

We got to bring some of these home and I will possibly frame the better ones when I get home.

It was a great morning and had a lot of fun learning new skills.

Yutaka picked me up and dropped me back at the lodge and as my shoulder was going into spasm all the time I booked in for a massage at "Fun Fun" at 3pm. The massage was painful but I knew the next day I would feel so much better.

I met Tom after he had been out snowboarding all day and we caught the bus home and had a nap.

Tonight we went out for dinner at "Shinshu Dining"...the food was nice but the menu wasn't very extensive so we picked a few things to share. The place was full and busy and a little chaotic, and as with all restauarants in Japan they allow smoking and they just light up whenever they feel like it and don't bother about the person next to them so this spoilt the night a little so we didn't hang around long after we had finished.