The Same Umbrella: Minakami New Years

With help from an Airbnb cabin rental and an awesome group of friends, we headed to the mountains and celebrated New Years with snow and good company. Minakami is a ski town in the Gunma prefecture of Japan, approximately 3-4 driving hours from where we live. The city houses approximately 20,000 residents and boasts a large "gaijin" or foreigner population, as evidenced by our cabin's neighboring "Schmidt Haus". The area is known for beautiful scenery, ski slopes and onsens (hot springs), all of which were enjoyed by our group.

After getting settled on Thursday morning, we headed to a local resort with a sledding area for kids. Jennifer was reluctant to take JohnPaul on the sled having been fairly out of control on her test run, but fortunately Ally (a resident East Coast-er) kindly mentioned that she could control the speed by digging her heals in the snow. They don't teach that in Southern California :-). Anyway, snug in the Ergo and at a reasonable pace, JohnPaul was introduced to sledding. Baby Jack stayed snuggled in his car seat and after a face plant in the parking lot, little Julia grew to enjoy the snow as well. Overall, fun was had by all and it was a memorable inaugural day in mountain territory.

Haha, now here's a family photo to be remembered!

JohnPaul, meet snow.

Having a central area where the kids could play was perfect!

John, Karen, Ally and Alex hit the snowboard and ski slopes on Friday while Jerry and Jennifer watched the kiddos. Snow was falling when we all woke up in the morning, and Jennifer loved the peaceful cabin atmosphere with big windows framing the winter landscape outside.

Look at the snow, JohnPaul!

One of John's versions of paradise :-).

Hitting the slopes!

Sweet baby Jack needed some fireside snuggles :-).

Julia was pretty fond of JohnPaul :-)!

Before driving home on Saturday, we took turns visiting the adults only Tanigawa Onsen. Compared to previous onsen dips at hotels, this felt like the true Japanese onsen experience. Outdoors overlooking a river and surrounded by snow laden trees, this was the real deal. Surprisingly, scurrying barefoot from pool to pool in the freezing temperature was more bearable than expected, especially since we were only sporting towels. Most onsens are segregated by gender and completely nude, so we were relieved that towels were mandated so that mixed genders could enjoy the experience together. That being said, we could have gone for more diligent towel usage by some of the other visitors. Elaboration would definitely fall into the TMI category. Yikes.