Shiobara Onsen

We are just back in Tokyo after an evening away at Shiobara onsen, not too far from where we used to live in Shimogo.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the New Shiobara Hotel. The large number of onsen / baths was a real plus point and it was especially pleasurable to sit in the outside bath whilst the snow slowly fell around me. I also took the chance to open the pores by suffering the sauna for 30 minutes.

Holidaying in Japan seems to be a real lottery. Sometimes you end up really disappointed despite paying a high price whilst at other times you find a real gem for a quite reasonable amount of money. I would really recommend the New Shiobara Hotel, as despite the age of the hotel, money had obviously been spent to keep it in tip top shape. The highlight was certainly the large number of different onsen to bathe in.

It was also fun to walk around in the heavy snow and have a snowball fight with Clara. Work starts again tomorrow but the happy memories of the weekend will help we get through. I now need to book my holidays for February and March - once these are organised, I can look ahead to some more fun.

Japanese Railway Museum

We all went to the Railway Museum yesterday (Sunday) for a small excursion. Clara seemed to enjoy the experience the most and was all over the trains and inside the carriages. I also found the trains enjoyable but was also perhaps hoping for some prototypes of the latest Shinkansen (bullet train) technology - perhaps these exhibits will appear in a few more years.

It was still quite a thrill to see some of the early Shinkansen trains and sobering to realise that Britain is now well behind in terms of train technology and infrastructure. Embarrassing to see that Britain now appears to be far behind even the early Shinkansen developments.

The next excursion will be to Nasu Shiobara onsen next weekend for a stay at what looks like quite a nice hotel. The usual highlight will be soaking in the onsen - I am hoping it will be boiling hot.

Today (Monday) is a national holiday in Japan, so a long weekend before the work year starting properly tomorrow. I have holidays that I need to take before the end of March so I think I will take a week off in February and another week off in March - not long to wait for some more R&R.

A Brief History.....

Happy 2011

Wishing all the readers a happy 2011! I ventured out to my local bar (Elwood's Bar - owner's blog here) last night in order to prolong the New Year celebrations and also to watch the live Premiership football. Unfortunately, the football wasn't being shown but I still managed to have a good time talking to the other customers.

The only mistake of the evening was accepting an invitation to join a game of Jan-Ken-Pon - essentially a game of rock-paper-scissors. The stakes were high as the loser had to drink (and pay for) a glass of 75% alcohol / 151% proof rum. Out of the 12 customers in the bar, I ended up losing the game and was faced with a very nasty shot of rum. In those situations, there is no point in hanging about so I despatched the noxious fluid in one swift gulp. Not nice! A fun start to 2011 - lets hope it is a good year for all.