For the next day's morning I didn't go to hot spring since I woke up too late. This is also one of common problems about going to travel right after the work days.
After check-out and putting our luggage in hotel's locker, we went to Mizuya Cafe (水屋カフェ) to have our breakfast, since we didn't book breakfast in hotel. Mizuya Cafe is affiliated by a store called Nmaya (んまや). No I don't know what Nmaya means lol.
There is not only Mizuya cafe but also there is a store full of farm produce. The interior design of the store reproduced the traditional Japanese farmhouse. On the shelf you could see the traditional straw rice bag called "tawara" (たわら), which perfectly matched people's imagination of Niigata, the land of rice.
I ordered an onsen pudding (温泉プリン) and iced tea. Michelle ordered a Yuzawa roll (湯澤るうろ) and hot tea. Japanese word for roll using here, "ruuro" (るうろ) seemed to be a less used Japanese translation of Swisss roll (Mostly it is called ロール). Probably from French "rouleau"?
Onsen pudding is called onsen pudding because it is steamed by hot spring water.
Yuzawa roll is made from Koshihikari (A famous rice cultivar in Niigata) rice flour.
No I couldn't tell the difference. All I know was having pudding as breakfast was a nice idea.
Cafe was opened from 9am, which makes it a good replacement plan for hotel's breakfast.
After having a little look in the store, we left the cafe and headed for Yuzawa Kogen Panorama Park (湯沢高原パノラマパーク).
It was about my fifth time to go there. From Pizzeria to summer bobsled, it didn't change a lot from 2005. If the park was built in Taiwan, the park must be torn down or totally renovated.
It took about 10 minutes walk from Echigo-Yuzawa station to the ropeway station of Yuzawa Kogen Panorama Park. I wasn't sure what people do when visiting Echigo-Yuzawa during non-ski season, but I almost went to Panorama Park every time I visited there.
After taking ropeway to the park, we saw a shuttle bus waiting outside the ropeway station. It was not lunch time yet so we decided to hop on the shuttle bus to the upper side of the park. At the upper side of park, we went to Summer Bobsled 706, which I had not been for 14 years.
Summer bobsled (サマーボブスレー), sometimes being called "summer toboggan", is a ride which uses cart to run down on a track. By using the lever on the middle, you can control the cart. Pulling is slow down and pushing causes speeding up. Unless you speed up at curve, otherwise it is actually difficult for accident to happen. Even the accident happens, you just fall out from the track to the grass with your cart, and it is not very hurt. (According to the experience of my brother who fell out once before)
The fare is 800 yen for one adult.
After purchasing the ticket, it started to rain. If the rain was bigger at the moment, the summer bobsled would be out of service. We were very lucky the rain doesn't get bigger.
The last time I rode summer bobsled was in Mountain Pilatus in Switzerland. This one is twice smaller than one in Pilatus but I still enjoyed it as much as when I was in elementary school. Once I thought that our grown-up life would be way different from our childhood life, but actually we have never really changed. What have changed is the outside world, so I am very grateful for the things stays the same, no matter it is me or the other things.
The goal of summer bobsleigh is near Ayamega Pond (あやめヶ池), where locates a sign of crested ibis (トキ). Though crested ibis was chosen as the prefectural bird of Niigata Prefecture, it only exists in Sado Island (佐渡島) right now.
