There is no snow in Nozawa, on this December 8. Normally by now the mountain (a huge one) would be open and its two gondolas and massive covered magic carpet would be hauling up Tokyo vacationers to ride its wide, steep slopes, but today there's only a light dusting on the upper peaks. Town is quiet, and locals walk the deserted streets, interrupted only occasionally by a handful of Australians who either couldn't change their travel plans or didn't check the snow report, where they would have learned that there is no snow in Nozawa.
But that, oddly, is okay. Because like all the great ski towns, Nozawa is a town first. And it's a magical one, with steam rising through the needles of the fir trees and the grates in the streets, streams hot and cold tumbling down the hillside, and locals (and now one very pale foreigner) walking the impossibly steep streets in yukata kimonos — the all-purpose bathrobe, pajama, dinnerwear — like reluctant heroes in a Kurasawa film.
I am a guest tonight at Ryokan Sakaya, a traditional Japanese inn, and I type this from my tatami room. My body is heavy from jetlag and too much walking in Tokyo yesterday, and is further weighed down from an hour in the inn's hot springs. I have just returned to my room from a traditional dinner, which — if I am counting correctly — included 26 different dishes. I have the menu, unhelpfully in Japanese, but can recall every morsel, if not the ingredients of which it was composed. There was local trout, and mountain vegetables that taste something like collard greens, mushrooms and mushrooms and mushrooms, local beef on a porridge of 14 grains, the most delicious eggplant I have ever eaten, jellied seaweed, pickled potatoes, and dozens of other bites. And horse sashimi. (I've had horse before, but never raw.)
And the fun isn't over. In half an hour, I will meet the Managing Director of this inn for an tour of the city's bars and restaurants. His name is Akira Mori, and he is a former ski racer who trained in Breckenridge, and he is much more optimistic about my ability to rally than I am.
But I will, I know. Because that's what we do in ski towns.
But it might be easier if I weren't already in my pajamas.
UPDATE:
This evening's festivities featured sweet potato shochu, sweet sauteed grasshoppers, hot sake with a pan-fried rockfish in it, and refermented sake. Of the latter, imagine drinking an alcohol-flavored yogurt drink.
Still, beats Red Bull vodkas.
Social Links
follow us:
