Not Happy Appi

"The bold yellow facade is symbolic of the impressive APPI Resort"

Actually we were happy.  How can you not be.  Mountains of snow and crab legs, and people smiling at you all day and calling your kids cute.  "Yes, yes, they're very cute....how about you take them for lunch and try to stop them rolling around under the table on the floor in a dirty pond of soup from their noodle bowls lady?  Oh, and that will be 100 yen for that photo you just took".   Japan, Australia, The Caribbean - where ever..... Kids. Are. Annoying.  Cute?  Yeah sure, why not?? But annoying??? Always and without fail.

"APPI Grand is created by one designer's wish and dream"

We had decided to enrol them into ski school seeing as we dropped a bundle on their equipment in Tokyo.  Those little ingrates were going to get out on that mountain and they were going to enjoy it dam it.  Ski you little bastards, SKI.  If I had to push them down the slopes with their own mini ski pole I was prepared to do it.  However, we paid a pack of sullen ski school teachers to do the job for us.  We decided to pay a third of the price and sneak them into the Japanese group lessons.  It didn't go down well.  Firstly, they didn't buy our assertions that they were 4 year olds (the tantrums and the crying for Mama pretty much gave the jig up here), and secondly they didn't speak a word of Japanese, so convincing the teachers that their Japanese was pretty good proved to be a bit tricky.  Well, maybe they could manage a "Konichiwa",  but how far does a comprehension of only "hello" get you when you are trying to avoid a couple of foreign infants hurtling out of control down a mountain with no idea how to stop.

"The instructor kindly teaches you in the small group lesson. After that, enjoy your fantastic riding on slope".

Yep, not popular.  It was like Pancake from Thailand all over again.  Only this time, it was a terrifying man called Manuba.  There are many cute Japanese people.  Manuba was not one of them.  He had the military attitude going on.  And it was scary.  Manuba was the kind of Japanese prick who starved our boys in the POW camps in WWII.  In fact, I am going one step further and suggest that Manuba's Daddy starved my Grandad.  I could hardly look him in the eye once I discovered this heartless connection between us.  What a bastard.  Like father like son is all I can say.  We actually had to bribe the girls with playing those stupid candy machine games to get them back every afternoon.  They weren't big on Manuba either (probably because I'd carefully explained to them about his father's inherent brutality").

Repeat after me "We love every minute of skiing"

The sad thing is, that once this would have been so cutting edge

What else did we get up to there, in our weird, dated resort??? Hmmmm - we visited a Korean BBQ restaurant.  Again, perhaps not a wise move.  Taking 3 year olds to eat in a restaurant with an open fire in the middle of your table is a bold strategy.  They wanted to be in charge of the tongs too, which was also a slight disadvantage to their safety.  God dam, that meat is good though.  But god dam it it can make you feel sick when you wake up in the middle of the night after the extremely fatty cuts have been swimming around with two giant beers for a couple of hours. Euuuughhhh.  I feel sick just recalling how sick I felt.  Breakfast was an interesting array.  Your usual Japanese items that I just can't find appealing - pickles, fish, sweet egg, potatoes stewed with pork and cabbage.  Oh and how about this one - deep fried ham?  It's like they were trying to design the most unhealthy food they could think of.  I ordered a latte.  It cost extra.  It was also the colour of dirt, and the most bitter thing I have ever had.  I still drank a third of it.  I was awake for 2 days.  Other interesting choices were brown rice bread and collagen bread.  Both looked and tasted exactly the same, and exactly like white bread rolls.

Good shit.  Good, good shit.

Collagen is a popular item for consumption here.  Apparently turtle is full of the shit, and thus is a popular choice for the ladies.  It was on the dinner menu of the Japanese restaurant we tried one night.  So was "raw horse" and our personal favourite, number 53. "Assorted Slimy Foods".  Yummy.  Why not say it how it is.  Obviously "slime" in Japanese doesn't have the same connotation it does in English. Other things up for snack were piles of crab legs, and a curry buffet where there were 8 different curries on offer - with names like "English Curry"  "Mild Curry for Children" "Curry of Southern Europe" "Javanese Curry".  Every single one of them tasted exactly the same.  I mean exactly.  Teamed with this dazzling array of Curries of The World was a fridge full of ice cream or as it was signed "GERATO".  Apparently these "gerato" were "certified by the  Italian gerato association of  Japan".  Go to a lot of trouble why don't you.....However, you may want to kick things things off with the correct spelling of the word "gelato" for a feasible starting point. I'm not sure what the blue flavour was, but it wasn't good.  Nothing blue is really.  I preferred "green tea gerato".  In fact I'm always into the green tea favoured bullshit as soon as I get to Japan.  I particularly like the green tea frappuccinos from Starfucks, oh, and the Haagen Dazs green tea ice-cream cups.

The only photo of the globes I could find

But our stay in Appi was a brief one.  Although I love to hang shit on it, let's face it, it was brilliant.  The snow was supreme and the beer chilled.  The rooms were comfy, despite their retro tragicness (Japan must SO be waiting for 80s furniture and building styles to once again have their moment - when that happens they are IN!).  You should have seen the globes in the Korean BBQ restaurant.  As soon as we entered I remarked to Chalk's "Obviously ambient lighting isn't a priority for them".  The room was lit up like a hospital toilet.  All he could say to me was "How would they find a replacement globe?".  I lost it in hysterics.  Each globe in each hideous light was a curved and swirly bright fluorescent tube about 3 metres long.  It wouldn't be easy that's for sure.  They must curse the architects name every time one of those suckers blows.

Waiting waiting......

But. we were off to our next destination - beloved Tazawako - pretty much our all time favourite resort in Japan.  Small, authentically Japanese and constantly buried in mounds of fresh snow.  But first let me mention our unfortunate train situation that we experienced when getting here.  We were cutting it fine, there was no doubt.  We arrived at the train station by bus, with 5 minutes to spare.  Chalks bought our tickets.  The train left at 4.24pm.  The time on the clock said 4.24pm.  We sprinted for it (AGAIN).  The station masters directed us to track 14 - we bolted up the escalator, the door were closing, Chalks jumped on, the platform attendant was blowing a whistle, the train was ringing it's bell, I came running, passed the girls to Chalks, passed my bags to Chalks, squeezed through the open doors, and away we went!!  Ha HA! Said we, chuckling about our superior skills in train boarding capabilities.  This feeling of smugness evaporated when we showed the tea lady our tickets.  We were on the wrong bloody train.  And it was an express going in totally the wrong direction.  We were rooted.  We stood outside the toilets with all our stuff and the kids rolling around on the ground crying for 40 minutes (travelling at 200kmph), until it made it's first stop.  Then we got off, only to find that we missed the train back to the station we had just come from by 1 minute, and had an hour to wait at a tiny station for the next one.  Freezing cold, limited food.  At least we found the heated waiting room.  Scared everyone else out though - just the way I like it.  Finally it was back to the original station, and another 40 minute wait before we could eventually board the correct train.  We were 3 hours late.  But, of course we made it in the end, and here we are.....at last.  Tazawako in Akita prefecture.  Staying in another classically authentic Japanese countryside hotel.  We are all sleeping on the floor of our tatami mat room.  It absolutely reeks of sulphur from the onsen (hot spring) inside the hotel.  It is jammed full of the over 80 crowd having  a hot springs holiday.  Nobody speaks even one word of English.  Basically, it is absolutely perfect!!

Valli got taught the classic Japanese camera pose by the girls in the background