The last day or so..

The last day or so had a fair amount of diversity, I just want to share a few photos and tidbits. The first is the latest on the edge of my roof yesterday morning:


Then I took myself skiing, first of which was to take the subway to the southern end of the line, at which point I took this photo of an ad on the car. It made me think of Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation" -- this is an ad for Suntory beer, rather than Suntory whiskey:

Then I took the 102 bus to the end of the line, I didn't get any photos out the window, but views included 1) a giant quarry, 2) a giant, golden, reclining Buddha [the size of a building], 3) the outdoor sculpture, art park, and 4) the cemetery on the hill that has scale replicas of Easter island heads, a whole line of them; Stonehenge; and a giant Buddha head.


I got off at Takino ski area, mostly families doing low-relief downhill skiing and sledding:


I had an adventure renting cross-country equipment [mostly lost in translation; and/but especially they wanted a cell phone number...], then I headed out, thinking I might try skiing 16 km [10 miles]:




It was a relatively warm day, hovering around freezing, started sunny, but clouded over, the light was rather flat. The course started quite hilly, so I wasn't sure I was going to make 16 km, but around 5 km, it became gentler for longer distances.






I caught the 102 bus back to the subway, and the subway line back to my neighborhood, it was pretty straightforward. I bought a card worth 5000 yen to use multiple times on subways and buses. Tanioka taught me how, now I'm pretty independent, except that... well, I found there is a fair trade store in my neighborhood, and I wanted to find out if the coffee they sold was dark roast. I had a dictionary, but we never managed to figure it out, I bought some anyway. They had quite a few things like the Ten Thousand Villages Store in Seattle, where I volunteer:


Also on my way to and from the subway is the big store, where I do most of my shopping and where I picked up a few kitchen items. Already the day before I had purchased some Suntory whiskey, of which, after a bath and some supper, I had a glass. I went to bed early so I could get up and watch the Packers beat the Bears. I don't have any pictures of that, except in my head.

After I paid my rent, I came in to the office, and the rest of the day has been pretty regular. Except in this case, regular does not include snow.