Nozawa Onsen
Ut och fara igen! Den här gången styr vi kosan mot Nagano-distriktet, där vinter-OS gick någon gång i slutet på 1900-talet.
Nozawa Onsen är en liten snöig by full med små träbyggnader som innehåller Onsens med jättevarmt vatten.
Okaa-san var visst där för skidåkningens skull, men hon verkade mest fara kring bland molnen...
Och Otoo-san (numera känd som Halsduk-man) hade svårt att hänga med min kompis Diana i backarna.
Till sist kom han dock ifatt och förbi henne, heja pappsen!
Här är hela gänget samlat för lunch, ja förutom mig då, jag hade barnvakt på hotellet.
På kvällen fick jag i alla fall vara med när vi skulle på middag.
Fast allra bäst är förstås vällingen innan läggdags. Men ibland verkar inte Otoo-san ta det på så stort allvar, skärpning!
Just want to wish you a...
...Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Onsen!
In Japan the bathing culture is really well developed. To visit an onsen is considered to be an important activity for body and soul. Luckily we have a little onsen of our own in the apartment, and I am allowed to take a bath almost every evening.
It is important to brush oneself thoroughly in order to be very clean before entering the onsen.
I really like to play with the water from the shower.
The face should have its fair share, blub blub...
Finally I am clean and may enter the hot water. Otoo-san and Okaa-san do not allow me to have so much water in the onsen. I do not know why, they are so silly sometimes. Anyhow, let's tumble around!
I am the world champion on making splashes!
The water-polo season is over for this year, but it is time to start practicing for the try-outs for next season. You can tell that I have a very good hand-ball grip, don't I? It is good to have some options in case that my sumo-wrestling career would go badly (but why would it...?).
After the bath, having my nighties on, it is nice to sit and relax outside of the onsen. But what about the "välling", where is it?
Ah, great! Thank you and good night, sayonara!
It is important to brush oneself thoroughly in order to be very clean before entering the onsen.
I really like to play with the water from the shower.
The face should have its fair share, blub blub...
Finally I am clean and may enter the hot water. Otoo-san and Okaa-san do not allow me to have so much water in the onsen. I do not know why, they are so silly sometimes. Anyhow, let's tumble around!
I am the world champion on making splashes!
The water-polo season is over for this year, but it is time to start practicing for the try-outs for next season. You can tell that I have a very good hand-ball grip, don't I? It is good to have some options in case that my sumo-wrestling career would go badly (but why would it...?).
After the bath, having my nighties on, it is nice to sit and relax outside of the onsen. But what about the "välling", where is it?
Ah, great! Thank you and good night, sayonara!
Konichiwa gozaimasu!
I am now installed in Japan together with otoo-san and okaa-san. We have internet to the apartment, I have received a bed of my own, okaa-san has figured out how to make delicious rice with the rice-cooker, and otoo-san has started to disappear the whole days for work.
Otoo-san doesn't work very far from home, it is crawling distance if you know how to crawl (which I still do not quite know how to do...), it is about 100 meters from our nice apartment. His working place is called RIKEN, but I say LIKEN because I have difficulties with the pronounciation of the first letter. But so do the japanese, so in the end it works out quite well. What otoo-san does at work I have no idea about, maybe he will show me some day.
I have now my own bed. We went for a loong long trip with several trains in order to get to IKEA, where there was a suitable bed for me. On the train there were several happy men and women who flirted with me. "Kawaii!" they told me. I have figured out that it means "pretty", what else could they possibly have to tell me?
IKEA is in a place called Funabashi, it is on the opposite side of Tokyo from where I live. IKEA was full of things with swedish names. But the place was full of japanese customers, and they probably have no idea why it may be fun with a pillow called "Gosa" or a kitchen table called "Jokkmokk". Not that they seem to worry, they kept shopping as if IKEA would be the only furniture store in eastern Asia.
Another interesting thing with IKEA in Funabashi is that there are plenty of pink furnitures. Otoo-san claims that this does not exist at IKEA in Sweden.
When we came home from IKEA there was a number of boxes to open and furnitures to assemble, I helped otoo-san and okaa-san as well as I could.
Hm, I wonder where this part fits...
The food here is not like at home. Glass bottles with baby food looks lite the goo that they eat in "Matrix", and it tastes in a similar way. But when okaa-san cooks for me the result is very nice, and she makes delicious rice! I like rice almost as well as I like to drink water! And then we sent 10 kilos of swedish "välling"-powder, so I am doing very well food-wise.
But in the beginning it was very difficult to accept the fact that they go to bed so early here. And the sun sets in the middle of the day! I protested wildly, there has to be a limit to the kind of outrageous things that they put me through. But after a while I realized that otoo-san and okaa-san found this to be very annoying, for some reason they wanted to adapt to the situation here. So I graciously accepted the new terms and now we all go up in the middle of the night when dawn breaks here. It works, but sometime I try to fool them back to "normal" time, hahaha.
Speaking of time, I start to feel tired so it is about time that I go to bed! But first I should scream and cry a bit so that okaa-san or otoo-san understands that I need som nice "välling" as a night-cap. Hopefully they let me eat it in front of the japanese news, I enjoy to see how the news anchors bow in front of the camera!
Sayonara!
Maia in Hirosawa
It is very nice to sleep near okaa-san, even if I have to accept japanese time.
Otoo-san doesn't work very far from home, it is crawling distance if you know how to crawl (which I still do not quite know how to do...), it is about 100 meters from our nice apartment. His working place is called RIKEN, but I say LIKEN because I have difficulties with the pronounciation of the first letter. But so do the japanese, so in the end it works out quite well. What otoo-san does at work I have no idea about, maybe he will show me some day.
I have now my own bed. We went for a loong long trip with several trains in order to get to IKEA, where there was a suitable bed for me. On the train there were several happy men and women who flirted with me. "Kawaii!" they told me. I have figured out that it means "pretty", what else could they possibly have to tell me?
IKEA is in a place called Funabashi, it is on the opposite side of Tokyo from where I live. IKEA was full of things with swedish names. But the place was full of japanese customers, and they probably have no idea why it may be fun with a pillow called "Gosa" or a kitchen table called "Jokkmokk". Not that they seem to worry, they kept shopping as if IKEA would be the only furniture store in eastern Asia.
Another interesting thing with IKEA in Funabashi is that there are plenty of pink furnitures. Otoo-san claims that this does not exist at IKEA in Sweden.
When we came home from IKEA there was a number of boxes to open and furnitures to assemble, I helped otoo-san and okaa-san as well as I could.
Hm, I wonder where this part fits...
The food here is not like at home. Glass bottles with baby food looks lite the goo that they eat in "Matrix", and it tastes in a similar way. But when okaa-san cooks for me the result is very nice, and she makes delicious rice! I like rice almost as well as I like to drink water! And then we sent 10 kilos of swedish "välling"-powder, so I am doing very well food-wise.
But in the beginning it was very difficult to accept the fact that they go to bed so early here. And the sun sets in the middle of the day! I protested wildly, there has to be a limit to the kind of outrageous things that they put me through. But after a while I realized that otoo-san and okaa-san found this to be very annoying, for some reason they wanted to adapt to the situation here. So I graciously accepted the new terms and now we all go up in the middle of the night when dawn breaks here. It works, but sometime I try to fool them back to "normal" time, hahaha.
Speaking of time, I start to feel tired so it is about time that I go to bed! But first I should scream and cry a bit so that okaa-san or otoo-san understands that I need som nice "välling" as a night-cap. Hopefully they let me eat it in front of the japanese news, I enjoy to see how the news anchors bow in front of the camera!
Sayonara!
Maia in Hirosawa
It is very nice to sleep near okaa-san, even if I have to accept japanese time.
