Sunday (BEEP) Sunday. Where have all the buses gone.

Alrighty, after the break I had on Saturday to recouperate from my many pains, I was hoping Sunday would be a nice cruisy day. It instead turned into an up and down sort of day. After the requisite breakfast, of which I've been nearly only eating the toast and jam, we made our way to the Ichinose Diamond area. We were considering going to Yakebitai for a little while, then heading over to Yokoteyama, seeing as we had never been there. But as a bus was arriving shortly we decided to wait and just head straight to Yokote.

Everything was going alright, it was taking a while to get there, but otherwise things were fine, until we got off the bus. My RFID ticket for the Bus/Lifts was playing up and not registering on the machine. The bus driver was probably the first one I've ever met that didn't speak any English, and I can't speak any Japanese, so a polite lady helped out briefly to tell me my pass had expired... a 10 day pass expiring in 7 days? Hardly. Well after showing my receipt for the ticket, the driver phoned it back to base, and I was told that it didn't work, I needed to pay. So I left the bus 830yen lighter and very unhappy about the situation.

After walking up to the first lift I tried entering but once again the evil RFID chip of DOOM was out to torment me. A few attempts and the helpful man at the gate said there was something wrong, and he would replace it. Well, all I understood was "replace" and he walked off. A couple of minutes later I had another chip, and it worked fine. So 3 monstrously long lifts later we were at the top of Yokoteyama. All 2305 Metres of it. We wandered around and took photo's/video of the area, with a fantastic view on a clear day, and suddenly felt the pangs of hunger. By this time it was around 12 and the bakery at the top was sounding like the only option.

I got a Sausage/Cheese/Capsicum/Tomato/Onion pizza Loaf of some sort, Conrad the same, and Steven bought himself a garlic bread and Mega DOG! It was basically a 30cm long loaf of bread with a large sausage, tomato sauce and mustard. I didn't think he'd get through it, but his gut never ceases to amaze. With a shared bottle of Kirin Classic for good measure we were in high spirits to finally hit the slopes.

Ok, slight hitch. The only way down from the top of Yokote is by a red run, which only Skiers can use. The only other thing up there to do was a little loop run on the back of the mountain, which seemed pointless seeing as we wanted to ride down. So some more video and photo's and we caught the lift back to the top of the 2nd lift we had taken, and proceed to ride the rest of the way down. I fell over and got frustrated because I didn't really want to injure myself anymore then I already had. So after taking it easy and making it to the bottom, I suggested maybe we leave Yokote, seeing as it didn't really offer much in the way of runs, and it takes forever just to get up them. Dang slow lifts. So it was another 30 minute wait for a bus to show up.

This bus didn't head all the way back to Ichinose, or even somewhere around it, so we chose to get off at Hasuike and take the Ropeway across the large gap inbetween. It was a nice view and all, but we were kind of getting anxious just to do some riding, seeing as by now it was about 1 or 2. A quick skip up a lift, across Tanne No Mori, and down the bridge to Ichinose Diamond, to go for a ride in Yakebitai. This was becoming a good place to ride, with a few runs and fast lifts.

So after riding around for a while, and trying not to break our necks on all the hard pack ice that had been made from a Busy Weekends worth of use, we finally returned back to our hotel after all the lifts had closed down. A lazy night followed with us visiting the Victoria Restaurant again for another buffet dinner, replete with platefuls of Steak, then it was back to our room for a quick night cap and sleep.

I done busted my gut. I'm in a rut.
I got Mocha Chocolate coated Almond Nuts.
Nom.