The decision to visit Minamiuonuma Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) was rather hasty. Hubby found out about it in a “Yokoso Japan!” booklet he picked up at a guesthouse in Asakusa and voiced out his desire to visit it. He had been talking about wanting to visit Sapporo Yuki Matsuri but we both knew that was quite out of our league since traveling to and staying in Sapporo could gravely burn our pocket. He persuaded me to try asking Kak Eda in Urasa to see if we could get to stay one night at her place over the weekend. It was a long weekend after all since the following Monday was a public holiday. Kak Eda used to teach in my former college, although not quite exactly my own lecturer since she taught Accounting and I was a Law student. But we have been keeping tab on each other since she discovered my blog (and I became her blog reader too), and was kind enough to visit our house when she stayed in Tokyo (while her husband was undergoing an internship in Roppongi) last summer. Since it was already late, I just sent her a c-mail.
She called back on Friday afternoon, as I was on the bus, going for my 30-weeks maternity check-up. She said okay - that her family had no travelling plan over the weekend, no plan of receiving other guests and it wouldn’t be a bother at all to have us at their place. I asked her if she knew any single Malay male around who wouldn’t mind offering a place to stay for another Malay guy (Kamarol) who was also interested in going, but she said unfortunately, the only single Malay guy in IUJ is staying in the dormitory and no outside guests are allowed to spend a night there. I then asked her for more favour – to provide the telephone numbers of hotels in Urasa so that I could pass it over to Kamarol. We already tried searching for it in the Internet – but to not much success. Kamarol said he wouldn’t mind paying a little bit for accommodation since it would be his last chance of visiting a Yuki Matsuri before graduating in March and return to Malaysia.
He changed his mind though – which left me and hubby (plus Huzaifah) on our own. Saturday morning saw us walking to Asakusa eki at around 7.30 a.m, so that we could catch the 8.39 Urban Takasaki Line train at Ueno. The train was packed – probably due to the long weekend, as we saw lots of school kids and teenagers bringing camping equipments with them. We decided to take the normal train rather than the shinkansen because the ticket was cheaper by half, although more-than-twice lengthy in term of time. (1 ½ hour by shinkansen, which cost about 8,000 yen, 4 hours by normal train with 3 transfers and cost a little less than 4,000 yen). We had to time our departure carefully to lessen the waiting period (during transfers) and to ensure we boarded the rapid instead of local trains wherever possible.
The sights as we travelled outside Tokyo were rather marvellous – blue skies, clear streams and rivers flowing so peacefully, majestic mountains, wide open space with large houses and playgrounds…
Reached Urasa eki around 1.00 p.m. and met Abang Bad, Kak Eda’s hubby for the first time. Had lunch at Kak Eda’s place - she prepared pulut with ikan masin (yummy) and fried chicken, while I brought some left-over nasi Pakistan & ayam masak merah from the previous day. Rested and prayed before we left for Muikamachi, where the Yuki Matsuri was held.
Not much snow this year – so even before we entered the Yuki Matsuri area, Kak Eda could tell that it wouldn’t be as grand as it was last year, when they had a majestic ice sculpture of a castle with a grand made-from-ice stage. There were a lot more ice sculptures in various forms, lighted up with candles, that could be seen along the main road last year too. But then, since there’s no snow in Tokyo so far – and there might be no snow at all this year in Tokyo – hubby and I tried to make the best of what we could.
Along with Kak Eda’s kids, hubby and Huzaifah tried ice sliding as soon as we entered the Yuki Matsuri area. Huzaifah was not wearing waterproof pants nor waterproof boots (luckily I managed to borrow one pair that suited me nicely, a peninggalan by a former Malaysian who used to stay in Urasa before Kak Eda) – yet he insisted on walking in the snow although I would rather had him in his baby car. Nevertheless I was glad to note that he really enjoyed the snow. While snow is nothing new to me – I was pretty jakun to enter a kamakura (igloo) for the first time ever. The kamakuras were not as white as they were last year, and a few were actually melting as we entered them – but still, it was kind of cool to experience entering one.
There were many stalls offering free sake, amazake (sweet sake) and what nots for visitors to enjoy in the kamakura. We were approached a few times by ojiisan from different stalls, inviting us to try the sake – but I told them that we could not drink sake. “Sore wa zannen deshita ne” (A pity, isn’t it), one of the ojiisan exclaimed as he finally realized that we were not going to accept his insistent offer, but I smiled anyway and moved along. I guess we got that remark pretty often – most Japanese could not imagine life without alcohol and thus find it very difficult to comprehend Muslims who abstain from drinking.
Met some Indonesians at the stall area, not far from the main stage. Chit chatted a bit, took some group photos and then explored the stalls. Typical matsuri stalls – where they sold all kind of food from yaki soba (mee goreng), yaki zakana (ikan bakar), kare-raisu (nasi kari?) to potato fries, crepes and waffles. Then there were also some stalls selling souvenirs and some ‘kedai tikam’. Yes, this is a nation filled with people who really enjoy gambling – from having temporary ‘kedai tikam’ for young kids at matsuri to having pachinko parlors and lottery booths everywhere.
We left the yuki matsuri area around Maghrib. Abang Bad then took us to a fashion mall nearby – with only three outlets, one of it being Birthday, a store selling kids and babies stuff. Hubby looked after Huzaifah and Kak Eda’s kids while their parents went to pray and I started a shopping spree. I mean, there were plenty of stuff on sale – for Huzaifah and his adik. Fortunately, the shop was closed at 7.00 p.m., so I managed to curb myself from excessive spending (not to mention adding a lot of weight to our luggage)
Abang Bad took us for a short tour around IUJ campus before heading back to their house. According to him, many students found that completing their course there (it’s a graduate-courses-only university) to be rather tough, so much so that currently there are no JPA scholars (read: PTD officers on study leave) studying there.
Maybe the fact that Urasa is pretty rural too contributes to the absence of JPA scholars here. But I must say that after being so used to the crowdedness of Tokyo, it was refreshing to enjoy wide open space and peace in Urasa. Kak Eda told us that most of the population in Urasa are rice growers, and rice from Niigata area (including Urasa) is well-known for its unsurpassed quality. I guess all the fresh air from the surrounding mountains must be one of the contributing factors.
We were greeted with snowfall first thing the following morning. It never fails to amaze me how serene it always seem when snow falls. It was still grey, not quite sunny, yet there’s something magical as we witnessed the earth being enveloped by whiteness. Huzaifah seemed to be in awe when he first saw snow coming from the above – nothing surprising since I was pretty much a jakun myself when I first experienced snowfall about a decade ago.
It was rather mortifying, but Huzaifah decided to leave a small ‘souvenir’ in the room where we stayed by leaking while his father was changing his diaper. Normally we change his diaper on a mat – and hubby actually was using his blanket at that time, but Huzaifah was moving around so much and then all of a sudden just started spraying… I was getting ready to pray and for a while was rather taken aback by the event as I distraughtly told Kak Eda what happened. (She actually cleaned up the stain while I prayed – and looking back, I should have done that myself, but at that time, I guess I was just not thinking straight.) Not to mention that Kak Eda’s kids have to rearrange their stuff all over again because Huzaifah kept ‘rearranging’ stuff in the room (so much so that hubby had to turn the book shelves to face the wall to disable Huzaifah from keeping ‘mengemas’)
Anyway, we finally left the house after Zohor and went to a ski/sled/snowboard area about 5-minutes drive away. While everybody else enjoyed sledding, I decided to kill the time by making a yuki daruma (snowman). Due to the not-so-fine snow and the fact that I was working on it mostly by myself, I only managed to make a small one – with help from everybody for the finishing touches – Kak Eda put her self-knitted muffler around the yuki daruma’s neck, her daughter and son looked for suitable sticks for the yuki daruma’s nose and hands, her son carved the eyes and lent his gloves and her daughter finally put the sledding board as the yuki daruma’s hat.
Hubby took some photos at the ski area while the rest of us took a breather and warmed ourselves at the rest area. Huzaifah even managed to wheedle some crisps (luckily, edible ones) from some Japanese strangers when I was not looking after he was done with coaxing some pieces from Kak Eda’s kids. So, I guess it was just the perfect time to go and do some snack shopping at a supa before leaving Urasa.
By the time we were done with snack shopping and reached Urasa eki, there was still plenty of time to kill. So we had soba together since Kak Eda’s son apparently associates a trip to the eki with having soba at a stall there. The kake soba was nice – but yes, just like Abang Bad said, chances are we wouldn’t even dream of ordering such plain noodle in Malaysia where we’re spoilt for choices.
We boarded the 4.12 p.m. train from Urasa – bidding our final goodbye to Kak Eda’s family less than 10 minutes prior to our departure time. As Huzaifah started to nap, I continued reading “Girls’ Night In” – a compilation of short stories by chick-lit writers (I know, I know – I’m feasting on chick-lits like nobody’s business. Not to mention that I have also finished reading Sophie Kinsella’s “Can You Keep a Secret?” and “The Undomestic Goddess” right after I submitted my last final paper due for Fall term). More than 4 hours later, we reached Ueno eki, where we (stopped to use the restroom and) strolled around the station area a bit before taking a train to Minamisenju. We took a taxi home – the first taxi trip for Huzaifah in Japan – because by then both hubby and I were not too keen on taking the approximately 20-minutes walk, what with the heavy backpack and the chilly night.
It was a good trip – the snow might be less than last year, the yuki matsuri a scale down too, but being at the receiving end of Kak Eda’s family’s warm hospitality more than made up for any setback, so there…
Then, we answered some questionnaires at the 
So we had a nice free lunch at Tokyo Food Theater 5 + 1 – a nice restaurant with plush chairs, soft lighting and food served in fine china. The original set menu was unsuitable for us though, so we had to request for some adjustments, which the chef had no trouble complying to. I had a Japanese Hana lunch set, comprising rice, yaki zakana, pickles, tofu and miso soup with vegetables. Hubby had an Italian lunch set made of spaghetti in tomato, shrimp and squid sauce, plus salad and bread. Huzaifah had a little bit of both plus lots of orange juice. 
