Birthday Weekend!

Stephen "the storyteller" here, and it is story time. My birthday weekend was one to remember. I will try not to go into too much detail while telling you the full story.
Friday after I got off work Jill and I got our bags together for a weekend in mountains. We dragged our gear to the train station, rode two trains, and about two hours later we were in the mountains West of Tokyo at our hotel. Friday night we had the entire hotel to our selves. The onsen in the hotel and our little room with beds on the floor that you had to make yourself, were SO relaxing. The next morning we headed up to Okutone, a very small ski resort 5 minutes from our hotel. In the morning it was raining on the mountains! Jill and I got soaking wet within 10 minutes and decided to take a break by the giant heater in the lodge. We liked the heater so much we took a nap in front of it later that day. When we woke up the sun was out and the mountains were beautiful. Overall it was a great day on the mountain playing in the snow and looking at amazing views of the surrounding area. That night we got dinner at the only place within walking distance of our hotel, The Canyons, a hostel-esque, expat bar, "adventure lodge". The place had the standard bar at one end with your standard Saturday night bar band setting up way too close to where everyone was sitting. Just outside the bar there was a mechanical bull and a mini half-pipe. Classy... right? The place was filled with older couples from England and Australia who all had kids running around the place like a pack of monkeys while their parents drank and had sophisticated conversation about "knobs", at least I think that is what I overheard. Jill and I ordered our food and drank a Guinness that had been "ultra sound" treated to make it taste like it came fresh from the brewery. Dont ask me...the guy put it on a machine and pushed a button. Slowly we drank and waited, and waited, and waited. An hour later Jill's boiled noodles with a tea spoon of sauce came out. It was a little disapointing. Then another 40 minutes later my hamburger finally came. By this point the band had started playing and we were ready to run back to our cozy little room. I am pretty sure the only reason that anyone ever ordered any food from the place is because it is literally the only option unless you have a car. My mat on the floor felt so good that night.
The next day Jill and I decided to check out a nearby Onsen that looked amazing from the flier at the hotel. The place did not disappoint. It was incredible! When we first got there it was a little confusing. I handed the lady at the door some money, she gave us a couple of towels and said a lot in Japanese, none of which we understood. After that we wandered around this maze of Japanese antiques until we came to a changing room. Jill and I went into the boys and girls rooms hoping we were in the right place and were both told otherwise by naked people. Pete, the only other American guy at the place, told me I was at the male only pool. Jill was told the same thing, except female only, by Junko. We redressed, wandered through some more elaborate Japanese antique mazes, passed a few bears (you heard me right), and then came to four large, AMAZING, outside pools. Large snow flakes were falling from the clouds, the pools were steaming with hot water next to a river, and everything around them had a traditional Japanese look to it. We got to the pool and Jill put on her full body towel, like all the other women, and I put on, well, tried to put on my hand towel like all the other men. There was no chance of covering everything so I went for the most important part. At first it was a little weird being the only naked American guy in the pool, but the water was so warm and the snow was so beautiful that I forgot about everything and relaxed. The rest of the time was a mixture of laughter at naked men snowball fighting and little Japanese boys jumping around like monkeys, and Jill and I ignoring everything around us and relaxing. We ended our onsen experience with some lunch with our new friends, Pete and Junko. We talked about Japan and what we were doing here. I found out that Pete is from Denver and went to Cherry Creek High School, small world. On the bus ride back to the hotel we saw a large snow monkey running down the street. He was probably playing in the warm water coming up from the street sprinklers. After that it was back to Yokohama and the end to a very good weekend!
Stephen