P ackaging was immaculate. This was just a lunchbox, before...

... and after opening.

Snow-covered fields on the way up to Nagano.

A standard conductor and train scene.

The constantly-scrolling LEDs didn't help us much.

Into the mountains.

Olympic posters in the Nagano train stations.

We soon took the next bus from Nagano to Nozawa Onsen

The M-Wave olympic arena

The Japanese 'Alps'

There was more and more snow as we drove higher

... and higher

... and higher

Scott in a yukata, a casual house-robe.

Yukata were provided by many hotels and ryokan.

Ali looked good in hers, too

The glass informed us that it was "washed up"

The amount of snow was made apparent when a person waded out onto a roof to shovel it off

A map of the town and the mountain

... and a photo of the same from the mountain

The mountains were upside down to this US skiier-- flat near the top nd precipitous near the bottom.

Snowboarders are the same everywhere.

That run over there? Intermediate.

Still squinting, still pretty. Oh, and the view.

This is looking down that intermediate run.

Many of the runs were like this-- a graded run along the ridge with trails like cliffs off the side.

It was a glorious day.

Skiing often felt like being on the nose of an airplane coming in to land.

Some of the cliffs had retaining fences, some were runs.