Return to Yuzawa, Part 4: Octopus Waggle

~By now, you've probably heard: Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter of TV fame, died after being stung through the heart by a stingray while underwater in Australia. To be honest, I always figured he'd be eaten or worse sooner or later; at the time of his death, he was filming for a nature documentary called Ocean's Deadliest. Still, his shows always made me laugh ("Crickey!"), and I'll miss seeing his crazy nature shows.

Moving along, here's the rest of my second trip to Yuzawa. After eating lunch near the waterfall, I took a ride up the Yuzawa ropeway, a large (100+ capacity) cable car:

^ The ropeway and cable car docked on the ground side. The ground ropeway station actually has a hot spring (onsen) built into it! I imagine it's great to soak your feet in hot water after a long day of skiing on the slopes at the top.

^ On the hillside beneath the ropeway are these large snow-barriers, which help prevent avalanches during Yuzawa's snowy winters. Although it's difficult to see in this picture, there were a couple of workers cutting branches and clearing debris on the hill (I circled them in red; you can click on the picture for a larger view).

^ The view of the mountains from the top was spectacular. Above is the ski area that was covered in snow the last time I was here.

^ The formerly-frozen ground had been carefully sculpted into a series of gardens, including this collection of flowers grown in rows with zen-like precision. Here are some closeups of flowers atop the mountain:

^ The part I like best about this flower is where the petals meet the center and there's a slight "bleeding" of color, creating a reddish ring around the middle.

^ The bees were very fond of this one. I managed to snap off a picture in one of the bug-free moments.

Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to explore the mountain area, as the final descent of the ropeway for the day was scheduled soon. At the ground ropeway station, I passed some time in the gift shop:

^ I've noticed a major difference between Japanese gift shops and there American counterparts: Japanese shops have much more food! Instead of buying keychains or other tchotchkies, most Japanese on vacation purchase local food (which is what these boxes contain) and bring it back to share with their coworkers and family.

A bizarre side-effect of this custom is the existence of shops in train stations that sell "local" foods from other towns. The idea behind this is that you can buy regional food from a distant place to show that you were on a vacation there, even if you were not. From what I'm told, businessmen sometimes use this tactic when visiting their mistresses, to "prove" to their wives that, yes dear, I really was negotiating a contract in Osaka. I swear! I imagine most women are wise to this tactic.

So what exactly, you might ask, constitutes local/specialty food? Here's a striking example:

^ Mmm, mmm, good! Octopus (or is it squid? I can't tell) in the gift shop freezer. I assume you eat it. Or perhaps it's only frozen and not really dead, and you can thaw it out and put it in an aquarium to be your beloved household pet. Just don't let small children stray nearby lest they be eaten by the ravenous cephalopod! For scale, it's about eight inches long.

That's about it for Yuzawa, although I do hope to visit once or twice more before the snow arrives. Here's some Japanglish I found at a convenience store (a 7-11, to be exact) near the train station:

^ Japanese convenience stores and bookstores are crammed with rack after rack of strange magazines. Here are two interesting examples: on the left, we have an auto parts magazine called "Goo Parts" (I wonder if the parts liquefy after a few uses?). On the right is a golf magazine called "Golf Waggle", which, strangely enough, is actually the name of a golfing technique. However, I don't think most Americans, even hard-core golfers, would be able to take a magazine with the name "Golf Waggle" very seriously.

~Oyasumi!