A New Day Has Begun

We had camped over at the Green House lodge at Nasu and had slept after the zero hour. It was around 7 in the morning when a cold draft and some commotion woke me up from my sleep. The new year for us started when the water supply in our lodge stopped. Everybody was talking about this. Overnight, the water in the pipes froze. Well this being Japan, things got fixed very quickly.


We all started the day discussing everything under the sun, including technology and politics. Then we made our next trek. The trek to the living room in the cottage which was in arctic condition. It was one of those kerosene heaters. We kept it on all night and the kerosene ran out. So we had to pump some kerosene in. Quite a messy affair but worth the effort. Warm air in a cold room. Now we had all brushed our teeth and were ready to have our breakfast. Rather, we had to make breakfast. We had some bagels and some of us had eggs. The living room was in quite a mess and we had to clean up. Adding confusion to chaos were kids playing and crying, the power going off because of too much power usage. But we managed to finish our morning chores and clean up the place. A step outside our cottage and we saw winter wonderland. Deep woods covered in snow as far as the eye could see. We loaded our luggage into the bus and left the cottage. The beer case was still missing and still a topic of (heated) discussion.


Our next stop was a Swiss Farmhouse. Of course, it was not Swiss and it was definitely not a farmhouse. It was one of those (unnecessary) parks made in Japan when their economy was doing well. The kids of course took to it immediately and were taking a ride on big mechanical dog. I must mention that this "ride" on the dog cost Yen 200 which consisted of the dog walking and turning for about 10 steps.

The next was a bumper car track which was a big hit among all of us. Many of us took multiple rounds in it. My niece, Aadya, was crying and screaming when my brother tried to take her in these cars. 3 rounds later she was screaming for more. Reminded me of that famous line from Top Gun - "..What we really need is the need for speed".

After that the group split into 3 groups. One group - bachelors who I assume split to compensate for the beer fiasco. Another group - families with children who took a ride on a toy train and were never to be seen again (till we returned to the bus). The remaining 5 of us - Karthik, Ramesh, Savitha, Lekshmi and me went to a playground nearby and had some fun going across a "rope way" (see pic). After that we headed to a stable where we saw some real fine horses, dogs, cattle and rabbits. I suppose they included these animals to qualify as a farmhouse. Then after some shopping, we were herded back into the bus. I guess being "herded back" was appropriate since we were in a "Farmhouse".

Next stop - Momijidani Suspended Bridge. It was a foot over bridge that leads to only a small park on the other end of what looked like a lake. This park could very well been reached by taking a road across the lake and takes only a little more time. And yes. They actually charged money to cross the bridge. Yen 400 I think. Sigh! But we did take some photos and have some snow fights. This was because we had nothing else to do in this place. Some of us made little wood carvings as memorobilia. Yes. The place was "truly" memorable.

Our next destination - Home. It was a 3 hour journey back home and we had a late lunch (or early dinner) while we headed home. Girish, Shridhar and myself volunteered to serve the food. That is when I realized that juggling with 1 hand is easier than serving food in a moving bus. But the food was really good (even if it was cold) thanks to the effort of all people in preparing the food. Many of them had not even slept all night because they were busy cooking all night. Now that food was served and eaten, the bus fell into silence. Most of us fell into a nice slumber. And as our destination reached - we all said good bye and wished each other well.

A day and a trip was over. And a new year had begun.
As for the missing beer case - it was found lying peacefully in Sridhar's apartment.