"I've Got Crabs"

Now that's something you never want to hear your daughter say.  Even if she is only two and actually holding a crustacean's claw, it still sounds completely wrong.  Please let it not be a glimpse into the future.....Tonight we went to a Swiss style beer hall called "Tatra Kan" - they must have missed the memo on appropriate Swiss names there, and appropriate Swiss food as well.  There was no cheese or chocolate, just  an abundance of crab.....and sushi.  That's the great thing in Japan - most "international" food  is really just Japanese food in a poorly concealed disguise - like "Italian"- seaweed topped pasta, or "French"- bean-paste crepes.  They also had trays of raw meat, that you take back to where you're seated, and fry it up on the mini gas barbecues they've got mounted in the centre of each table.  I don't know about you, but when I've made the effort to go out for dinner, I'm usually expecting that the restaurant is going to do the cooking for me.  I don't want to barbecue my own food when I'm out. Especially when the kids are starving, screaming, setting chopsticks alight and trying to grill their duplo giraffes.  Now I come to think of it, there are actually a wide variety of  "cook-your-own dinner" joints in Japan; yakiniku (barbecue your own meat), okonomiyaki ( assemble and fry your own Japanese pancakes), sukoyaki ( boil your own vegetables and meat in salted water). It's sort of like a "fuck you" from the chef.  If there is a chef, it's not like they need one...maybe they're cutting costs.  Now I come to think of it, the whole economy has been on a bit of a downslide since 1991.

For a country so obsessed with safety, I don't get the whole burn-risk self-cooking going on in a multitude of restaurants.  Getting spastic on delicious Japanese beer and fire does not mix. I know from personal (and previous) experience when I singed my hair and disfigured a tablecloth.  However, they had an all-you-can drink (nomihodai) option at tonight's restaurant, and we couldn't resist.  It's usually ridiculously cheap - $15 dollars for an hour and a half in this case.  This amount is based on the assumption that Japanese people don't usually tend to push the limits on how much they can actually get down their gullets.  They don't go in for outright public greed most of the time.  Not like us.  Most westerners feel it to be our duty to drink constantly during the whole 90 minute period, and completely fill the table with beverages 5 minutes before the time is up.  In fact, many restaurants ban groups of gaijns (foreigners) from their nomihodai promotions, or at best, you have to book in advance.  This is probably so they can water down the spirits, hire security guards, and clear the tables around the obnoxious foreign pissheads. I drank more of a Japanese style nomihodei tonight.  It's hard to get in the swing of proper intoxication when you have to control two crab-leg fighting mini-maniacs.

The new place we arrived at yesterday, Miyoko Kogen, sure is authentically Japanese.  I like that.  No gaijin scum (unlike the last place).  Yes, I do realise I too am not Japanese, I just hate my own kind alright.... Most of the snow reviewers describe this mountain as "epic" "awesome" and "outstanding".  Apparently it gets between 13 and 16 metres of snow anually.  Now, that is an absolute incredible amount of snow.  But I have one question for the epic writers.....where the fuck is it???  Unfortunately we can't just check the weather report and go where the goods are.  Ever since those two little midgets sucked all the joy out of our existence, we have to seek out the childcare rather than the pow pow.  That's what has landed us in the Hotel Winsor.  Sounds royal? Let me assure you, it's not.  Perhaps if you like fake ivy curling around every surface you might feel at home; and if you also enjoy animals, made out of what appears to be toilet brushes, adorning the bathrooms, you may feel enchanted.  I hate both. So I'm rooted.

There is also a complex set of shoe rules going on here.  You can wear shoes in the lobby, but you must take them off to go into the book corner, and in the bar.  You can wear shoes in the upstairs rooms, but not the downstairs rooms.  You are not meant to wear socks around the hotel (hello again vinyl slippers), and you have to put on some sexual croc-like numbers when you have to use the toilet. Confused?  At least you haven't ended up with 15 pairs of slippers in your room, while you haven't seen your boots for two days, and had to wear the toilet crocs out to dinner......

Is there a point to tonight's entry?  Hmmm.... don't let one of your children stick a crab leg in the other one's eye? Drink much more alcohol than you think you can at all times? When snowboarding, watch out for sharp sticks at groin level?

All I can say is....let it snow, let it snow, let it snow......