Day 162 in Japan - Goodbye Tokyo/Edo, Hello Hakuba/Nagano

On the 2nd of Jan, it was the day for us to head to the mountains in preparation for skiing. But the bus didn't leave until 3:30, giving us a half day spare to enjoy the last of our time in Tokyo. We debated going to the imperial palace for the once-a-year opening of the inner grounds and public appearance of the emperor, but the thought of the massive crowds put us off. So instead we visited the Tokyo-Edo museum near Asakusa. We dropped our bags at Shinjuku station, had Dotour for breakfast (third day in a row for the boys), and then caught the subway again.

The museum was a lovely way to spend a few hours. I learned a lot about life in the city of Edo,  from the ruling of the city by the fubako to the censorship and prostitution, shipping routes and the introduction of printed newspapers. There were tons of awesome little models to illustrate snapshots of life in Edo, and lots of fun hands-on displays. Jodie and Fiona and I apparently took a lot longer to took around than the boys, so we cut the tour of the most recent parts (immediately pre and post war) and headed back to catch our bus. 

The bus trip itself was around 5 hours, and we got some really spectacular views of a snow-covered Fuji about an hour or so into the trip. Nothing really eventful happened, particularly after it was dark outside. As we got closer to Hakuba, we started to see bits, then lots, then huge mounds of snow alongside the road. We had a quick snowball fight while waiting for the taxi when we got off the bus, and got into the hostel about 8:30. The guy behind the counter, Dave, is from Cairns, and very nicely let us sort out all of our ski gear tonight so that we could get going nice and early tomorrow. By the time we were done, it was past 10, and we were starving. We walked just around the corner on the slippery ice to the closest izakaya and got some food and beers before heading to bed, absolutely buggered, about 12.

A sign in a bus stop toilet. So THAT'S what I've been doing wrong.

Food Highlight of the Day: Apple and chilli flavoured Kit Kats. Not both together - There were apple flavored kit Kats and chilli flavored kit Kats. Apple was decent but not great.  The chilli ones just used chilli flavored dark chocolate for the outsides, which was ok but nit really delicious.