After a busy January, we finally got out to do some skiing on February 11. This time, it was to Karuizawa for a day on the slopes of the small but charming Prince Hotel ski area, only five miles from the active volcano, Mt. Asama.



Sara stayed at home with Jii-chan all day, and Tomomi and I took turns skiing. She skied, while I watched Noah, and then we switched. Anri had a two hour lesson and later on, I took her up the chairlift to do some real runs with me. I basically held my poles horizontally in front of me, with Anri between my legs and holding the poles. Then I snowplowed all ... the ... way ... down ... the ... mountain. My legs hurt after doing that a few times! But Anri had a blast!

The lift tickets were given to us by a Christian pastor we know in the Karuizawa area. I had always thought this ski area was too small to be worth the lift ticket price. Having now been there, it reminded me of Ski Sundown in Connecticut, where I skied as a child. It was a surprisingly charming place with good snow conditions and better lodge food than I had ever tried. We'll go there again.

Early in the day, I went up the lift and snapped this photo (below) on the way down. It is of the view of Mt. Asama, an active volcano only five miles away from the ski area. This volcano erupted just a week prior to our visit. The cloud at the top is poisonous gas emitted by the volcano. Hiking to the top is against the law for obvious reasons. In the photo, you can also see the shinkansen station, between the ski slope and the volcano.



More photos coming soon!