Sugadaira Ski Resort

It was a pretty cloudy day to finish the week, which was good for sunburns, but not so good for pictures. Still, as we left Kusatsu and climbed up the rest of the mountain to out first downhill, we managed a little perspective

It's views like this that make us want to cycle out here. That and screaming down a mountain after spending several hours killing yourself getting to the top. It's an incomparable feeling, really. Being pulled only by the force of gravity. No loud engine, no noise outside of the wind. All the more enjoyable because of the work you had to put into getting yourself up there in the first place. We don't even go all that fast, relatively speaking, but spending half an hour weaving back and forth across the mountain, gliding down over 1000 meters, combined with the gorgeous scenery, is quite a euphoric feeling.

But enough waxing poetic. We know what you really want. Pictures of food. Well, you'll have to wait until dinner. First we have some amusing signs to show you.

The what cafe Nikko?
And what the hell is a cheese egg?

I'd like to buy a vowel...

But not that vowel...

Don't swim, says the mother frog to her tadpoles...

Beware of bear. Not so funny

Beware of squirrel. Now THAT'S funny.
Also not what it says, but they look very similar
It actually says "Beware of Squirrel Crossing"

Our lodging for this evening was up in the Sugadaira ski resort. It a fairly vast complex of roads that extend up into the mountain above the city itself. Now, the city is at 1600m. Our inn, called Yama no Yado, which translates to Mountain Lodge, was that, all right. It was on top of the mountain, another 300m above the city.

The road to the lodge

A beautiful modern alpine lodge

A huge room for 4.

Worth the extra 300m climb. Barely, but worth it.

One downside of being on top of the mountain is, well, you're on top of a mountain. There's nothing else there. We needed to get all of our laundry done and eat something, so we trucked back down to the outskirts of the city where we had earlier passed an interesting looking place, Diamond Dust, that was conveniently across the street from a coin laundry.

Yes, they are actually advertising both a chili dog and a spam burger

A quirky little shop that's half tourist junk, half serious european cafe.

They have "foot long" hot dogs that are over two feet long, and real, honest to goodness, pub burgers.

Heaven, thy name is 1/4 pound cheeseburger

And hot chocolate! Did I mention hot chocolate!

After laundry and dinner, we trudged back up the long road to the inn and collapsed. This was the last of the really hard riding days. Tomorrow we coast into the "big" city of Nagano!