Back on the road to Sapporo

After breakfast it was time to leave gorgeous Sounkyo. We'd watched a couple of the tour buses being farewelled. Half the staff at the hotel go outside and give a display of flag waving to say goodbye to the guests. All we got was a lady in a kimono bowing.
My search for the perfect coffee in a can continues. They're all so sickly sweet but at least they're hot. I still love how the vending machines dispense both hot and cold drinks.
The GPS has also been programmed with all the secret nazi bases too.

The last dinner in Sounkyo

Back to the fisherman's hut for dinner again. We walked passed the group buffet where the tour groups were being treated to a drumming display. Meh, we had another sumptuous feast.
We got to grind our own wasabi paste again. This time it was white wasabi. There is nothing quite like fresh wasabi. Forget that stuff in a tube we get in Oz. We've since found out that most of the wasabi in a tube is made from ordinary horse radish, food colouring and flavouring. Apparently some wasabi is being grown in Tasmania now and each root goes for between $7 and $15 and can be found at Harris Farm stores. You beauty. We will be checking that out when we get home.
We left a cutesy note in the visitor's book.

A spectacular walk along the gorge to see the gorge

It is billed as a spectacular gorge walk to see Sounkyo Gorge in all its glory. Unfortunately that is probably in the summertime. We couldn't get passed the visitor's centre. The path up the side of the gorge for the walk was covered in a couple of metres of snow. So much for that. We made do by checking out the spectacular frozen waterfalls - Ryu Sei No Taki and Gin Ga No Taki. We found the best place to photograph these spots too. There's usually a small stand set up in front of the said spectacular view so school groups or bus tour groups can have group photos taken. They think of everything the Japanese.
Our afternoon cut short we decided to wander around Sounkyo. Everything was closed except for the Seicomart convenience store. The Japanese convenience stores, AMPM, Seicomart, Lawson Station and even 7/11 are pretty good and reliable and one or another are just about everywhere. Plenty of booze and porn. What else do you need? We, though, bought ice cream, coffee and milk and then it was back to the hotel for iced coffee. Well we thought it was milk. It turns out that it was some sort of lemon flavoured milk concoction. Only one thing to do then. We turned to the ever reliable hotel vending machines for some milk. Even though the snow was dumping down it was a relatively mild -2 degrees C today according to the snow man out the front of the hotel.

Lunch on the mountain then back down the ropeway

We heard about the eating places that have ticket vending machines but this is the first one we've been too. Upstairs at the cable car station is a restaurant. On a board next to the vending machine they have pictures of the food available and all we have to do is match up the pictures with the buttons on the machine. Easier said than done but we muddle our way through it and the machine spits out a couple of tickets which we hand to the cook. We must've have done it right because I get my hotto doggo and pancakes and Michelle gets her noodles.
After lunch it is back down the ropeway to Sounkyo.