February 18 - Hakuba

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The conditions look like they may be even worse today. As much as we love snowboarding, we are a bit snobby. We decide that we haven't explored Hakuba yet, so we will do a self-guided pub crawl today. We will walk everywhere, eat things, drink things and look at things.



We go to have a shower, but there is no hot water. Awesome. This place lets me down at least once a day. I guess I won't have a shower. We eat breakfast and take our time getting ready. We still make it out the door by 10am and start wandering around the town. We have grand plans for how our day will pan out, but we are okay with our plans change if we see something we like or if we get distracted.



We first stop at a coffee shop for coffee and tea. Then we continue wandering down the street and see a wooden carving studio. Anything that looks appealing, we stop and check it out. This artist is amazing!!! He must be a naturalists too. He has impeccable carvings of birds and plants. One piece of work is priced at over $2,000. Just to prove how trustworthy people are here, there is no alarm and no surveillance and no one around. We have to ring a doorbell if we need assistance.



We walk through the Happo area. We stop at a food truck and we share a beer and sit in a heated tipi. Then we pass a convenience store and stroll inside. Darren finds a 1L Asahi (Japanese beer) and we purchase that and save it for later. The can is massive! Darren really wants to find this one burger house, so we are trying to save ourselves for this meal.



It is so easy to get distracted. We walk by a number of temples and follow some foot steps up to one with massive trees! A single path leads us to this incredible temple hidden in the forest. It is warm today and things are starting to melt. It is still a bit chilly in the shade.



We find the burger joint, called unjaune. We decide that we should share, even though we are both so hungry, but we will likely be eating more very soon. We get a cheddar burger with wedges. We also try a Japanese drink called chu hi, it is a vodka based drink that comes out like draft beer. A syrup is then added - we try a few flavours and the bartender recommends trying grapple - a combination of grape and apple. We are sitting at the bar, so chat with the Aussie bartender who is travelling North America in April. He seems like an ultimate snowboarder and loves hearing different tips on places to go snowboarding.



After the burger joint, we basically hike to another area of town. We try finding a few pubs, but they are still closed even though it is apres skiing. A girl recommends that we go to The Pub. We check that out and it sucks, so we don't stay long. We continue down the road and find a community of food trucks. We didn't think we would find anything down this way, but so far, it is awesome. We get some pat (yes, pat) thai from one food truck - it isn't very good, so Darren eats most of it. I feel spoiled after travelling through Thailand and getting the real thing. The other food trucks advertise that they are Mexican and Alaskan. Many English and Spanish words are spelt wrong, but who am I to judge, I don't know any Japanese characters.



We decide to keep heading up the street to a restaurant that I want to go to. We stumble upon a pub called the Rabbit Hole and happy hour just started. We head inside and this is more my style - 300 yen ($3.50 CAN) for a healthy glass of wine. I message Adam and Ang because we are close to their hotel. They decide to join us, mean why wouldn't they... it's happy hour!!! The Rabbit Hole is an Aussie run establishment with a lot of character. In the basement is the rabbit hole - the bathroom. It feels like a hole with a gender shared rest area.



Adam and Ang decide to join us for dinner. We head over to Wagyu Kobeya to see if we can eat there or make a reso. I really want to try this restaurant because of the face of the guy in the advertisement. He is holding up a huge chunk of beef in one hand and a pint of beer in the other. We are able to get into the restaurant tonight and it's about twice as much money as we expected. Everyone is okay with it. We each get a slice of wagyu beef and when we get it, it is raw and sliced - although we can't tell that it is sliced - we joke that the chef must cut the meat with a samarui sword. We cook our beef on a grill that sits in the of the table. This is some of the best beef I have ever had - it is so tasty! Well worth the price. We are all full when we finish. I ask to meet the head chef because I want to replicate the photo of him with the beer and beef. He comes out and he is a character himself. He just loves us and shows us these cardboard t-shirts that we can hold up and we can take photos of US holding beer and beef. I must get a t-shirt of my own.



Adam and Ang head home when Darren and I stop at The Beach bar. We don't end up staying here though as it seems pretty lame and we have to wait for an expensive drink. We stop in a the Double Black bar and have a drink with the waiter - he is Welsh and the first Welsh person I have met in Japan - he says there are only 3 of them in Hakuba. We don't stay too long since it is late and we have quite the walk back to our hotel. Most people look at us funny for saying that we will walk, but it is so nice to get in the exercise. We stop at Lawson (convience store) to pick up some more yogourt for breakfast.



We get back to the hotel around 11pm and I decide to take a shower. I hear a knock on the outside door, so I peer out and it is the old man that owns the place. Great, now he just saw me naked. This really tops it.



Today was super fun even though we didn't make it to Echoland, which is high on the list. Maybe we will make it there eventually.

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