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Passing through Miyanoshita

Ok, apparently in my last entry I lied. Next stop was Miyanoshita, not Gora. But since this was where our ryokan was, and since we weren't actually supposed to check in yet, we passed Miaynoshita on by and headed to the next big stop, Gora. So, hey, I didn't really lie. Nyah.

Gora was the last station on this particular line. From here there was another line, called a cable car in japanese for reasons that I won't go into since I don't know said reasons, that was basically a train leading up into the mountains pulled along the line by a big ol' metal cord. But we decided to save that event for later.

Off we headed to the Gyoza Center where we enjoyed gyoza. Pausing only long enough for a brief fight, next we headed to the Open Air Museum, essentially a giant lawn with sculptures strewn here... and there... and, well, everywhere. They're everywhere! was something we found ourselves remarking with surprising frequency.

During all this the weather was taking a turn for the worse, from nice 'n sunny, we passed through mildly cloudy 'n depressing, on our way to fiercely windy 'n bone-chilling. Luckily, due to a check-in time of 8 pm that I supposedly gave the OK for, we were still carrying around all of our luggage on our backs and it was a simple matter to put on a fifth or sixth layer of clothing.

A portion of the Open Air Museum had been renovated, with a number of statues being removed (perhaps this explains the statue graveyard found in the picture section?) and a foot onsen being installed. Foot onsens are pure genius, but there's something just a little weird sitting with your feet in near boiling water while the rest of you shivers.

A big hit at the time for us was the foreigner-who-spoke-really-good-Japanese-and-wanted-everyone-to-know-by-talking-to-every-random-Japanese-person-who-sat-next-to-him. Also amusing was the boy who might've been his son, but we weren't quite sure since he never seemed to worried when he ran off, but he was definitely using to hit on chicks.

After the Open Air Museum, we headed back to Gora Station, ascended the mountain by way of the "cable car" and wandered around for about 10 minutes at Souzan. This was where we could catch a "ropeway" -- which was a lot closer to what you'd think of if someone mentioned cable car in English -- further up the mountain and to the still volcanic region called Owakudani. It was, however, getting late, and soon the "ropeway" was going to be closing, so off we set back to Miyanoshita, where we found our charming little ryokan and the best Italian restaurant I'd ever eaten at waiting for us.

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