Saturday night dinner at Hotel Sporea in Yuzawa, Niigata

From last month I started to organize a ski trip to Yuzawa, Niigata prefecture. We ended up with 27 people coming on the bus with us up north. What a festive event it turned out to be!

This was us after having enjoyed a wonderful viking-style (buffet) dinner at the hotel. Usually buffets are not known for high-quality food, however, I'd have to say this hotel's food exceeded everyone's expectations. They served fresh scallops cooked rare, sashimi, sushi, 3 kind of gelato, fruits, squares of cake, shrimp fry, and more. Very impressive. The ski tour group was kind enough to reserve a special banquet room for our group...we ate from 7pm and chatted until they kicked us out at 9pm. People were very reluctant to leave - that's a good sign, for sure.

After dinner the little girls Sara (wearing light blue) and Mai (pink shirt) seemed bored so we started to do the "how far can you contort your body game" "can you do tongue tricks?" pilates, palm reading, and more. They were very amused by it all, even the adults became interested in getting their palm read. Nobutaka laughed when I read his palm - I saw a weak spot in his lifeline so I told him to "eat more natto." He thought that by reading his hand, I could tell he suffered from natto deficiency. ;)

The clothes I am wearing is Japanese yukata. It is a comfy cotton robe much like a kimono. I just finished bathing in the hot spring before going to dinner so I was still wearing it. I was told that I was a dead woman...because I had tied it up w/the wrong flap over the other. Symbolically speaking they only put the right flap over the left when someone has passed away. Though my friend, who is Japanese, also made the same mistake...so I felt a little bit better about the latest gaffe.