Plus and Minus

Minus 5. It was Minus 5 degrees when I cycled to school this morning.

But that pales in comparison with last last weekend. Risa came up from Kyoto to stay, to sample the delights of Yamagata, jewel of the north, home to the famous 樹氷('Jyuhyou' or 'Snow Monsters') and rack of expectations. I like to think it stands up well beside Risa'a home-town.

樹氷 form when droplets or clouds or some such moisture cuts across from the Japan Sea and collect on a particular type of pine tree and freeze and grow in clumps and strange directions, resembling monsters. The important bit is, they're unique to Yamagata. Except, they're not, I heard a day or so ago they have them somewhere in Germany too.

樹氷 we wanted, so 樹氷 we went in search of. Along with a semi-permanent bank of icy thick cloud, the 樹氷 like to call the top of Mount Zao home. On skis, coming down from there is like a trip into nothingness. Everything is blank, white, numbing.

We walked down in trainers, hoping to catch the lift down Paradise slope to a hotel at the bottom in which my mate Shinsuke is working. 'No, no, hahaha, nono, no!', or words to that effect was the lift operator's reply when we asked him if we could ride the lift down as planned. So we walked down Paradise slope too, until it got too steep to walk and we ran down, as best you can in deep snow with trainers on and deep snow lodged in your trainers. So perhaps that was the silliest descent I've yet done on Zao. But then, there's a whole season ahead of us to beat that.

Risa and I had a lot of fun, mostly away from the snow from there on out. thanks for another top weekend Risa!