The Campoamor's Adventure: January 2016

Happy 2016. We have been having a good 2016 thus far. School is still out (but starts again on the 12th) and we have been able to get out and about while the temps remain somewhat mild. Happy New Year everyone!

Mt Fuji at sunset from the air. These colder temps have been bringing crystal clear days allowing spectacular views!

We went to a giant park, Kodomonokuni park, that was pretty neat. Cool slides, open spaces and pony rides! They also had these awesome machines. They were like a 4-wheeler. You put a couple hundred yen in them and you take them anywhere. Pretty sweet.

Of course, had to get a ride on the ponies before we left. Each pony had a card, similar to a baseball card, and in their photo, the pony was dressed up for Christmas.

They had a bamboo forrest that we took a stroll through. E kept saying, "spooooooky..."

I went skiing over one of the long weekends. I went up to the Nagano area and we went skiing at the resort where the 1998 winter Olympics were held. The last time I had been skiing was Dec of 2006 so it has been a while.

Normally the Hakuba area gets dumped on but the snow hadn't came yet. The bottom of the mountain was closed so we had to take the gondola up to mid-mountain and ski the upper mtn.

Visibility was pretty bad most of the day while it snowed. The snow was great though. They had about 15 inches the night before so it was great snow, just hard to see where you were going.

There was a lot of people, and it was a bit cold, but the mountain was pretty big and able to absorb the masses.

A view from the Office.

For the first time ever, Shannon and I got an overnight baby sitter for the girls and we hit the town on New Years Eve. We went into Tokyo, had a nice dinner and planned on bringing in the New year at the Shibuya crossing (Tokyo's equivalent of Time Square).

Dinner at Cicada. They had yummy tapas.

We made it to Shibuya but two blocks from the area the police had blocked it all off for precautionary reasons. Booooo. We decided to just get on a train and head back home. We were on the train for at midnight and we realized why we don't stay out that late any more. It is just too tiring.

We went to cloud park one afternoon and enjoyed the mild temps.

E jumping on the cloud.

We also went to the Zoorasia that was actually really nice. Most of the zoos we have visited here in Japan have been a little sad. The cages and areas for the animals are generally pretty small. This zoo was pretty spread out which was really nice.