20 May 2009

We woke-up around 9am this morning and decided as a group to go up the Echigoyuzawa Ropeway. For breakfast, we grabbed something quick at 7-11, then made the short walk to the Ropeway. It cost 1,300 yen to make the round trip. It was expensive, but there was supposedly some cool stuff at the top. The Echigoyuzawa Ropeway is additionally the largest ropeway in Japan, so that was really cool. Once at the top of the ropeway, there was a summer bobsleigh and rock garden. The summer bobsleigh cost 600 yen and was totally worth it! It was basically a metal loge track running down the hillside, and we individually rode down the track on sleds with wheels. It was so much fun, and the sleds went surprisingly fast. I almost flipped over on one of the banked turns since I was going so fast! The end of the summer bobsleigh took us directly to the rock garden. It was a very peaceful garden, and there were a lot of families and older couples enjoying the hot day. The terrain was pretty hilly, so walking around was very difficult since the air was so thin. I took my inhaler a couple times, but it didn’t really help very much.
After going down the mountain on the gondola, we went directly to the Echigoyuzawa Station. We caught the local train to Matsudai and ended up running into the other group. We didn’t have much time to mingle since we were on a strict schedule due to the limited train times. Don provided us with a map, and we made the quick 45 minute walk to see multiple art pieces located throughout the city. The most interesting building we saw was the Snow-Land Agrarian Culture Center, which was located directly next to the train tracks. We photographed that last then we waited on the platform for the train. It turns out that the trains stay on the same side of the track the entire day, so we ended up having to run down under the tracks to get to the other side before the train left. It was crazy.
We arrived in Matsudai around 5pm then we walked over to 7-11 to get some food for dinner and breakfast. Since James Turrell’s House of Light was located pretty far from the station, we took three taxis to the house. It took about 20 minutes of driving, and it cost 2,840 yen per taxi. Once at the house, a representative gave us a short orientation about the house then showed us around. Since the house is considered a piece of art, there were many rules that we had to abide by. The main feature of the house was the operable roof that opened up to the sky. There was a “Light Show” scheduled for 6:50pm and 3:15am, for sunset and sunrise. We all gathered in the main room at 6:50pm and watched the sky change color from blue to black for the hour of transition time. It was really neat, and the rest of night, we enjoyed looking at the stars through the roof.