On the way to the Snow Festival

 Inside the station, there was a large mural. For some reason, I never went over to check on the artist's name.

 The view out the station windows was particularly nice as the sun was just setting behind the hills.

 Yesterday I showed you the front side of the station. These pictures show the area around the back side.

 As you can see, there is little commerce and less industry.

 The hills come right down to the edge of the town. There are mountains behind the hills. I do not know if it is the clouds or if the hills are in the way, but in any case I could not see them.

 The train was late because of the snow, exactly 19 minutes late. Even when the trains are late, they keep to the adjusted schedule and the station announces the revised times. The man standing in the aisle is Chris, one of the regular faculty at the university. The people who are sitting are students. Everyone was going to the Snow Festival. The students are beginning to go stir crazy because of all the snow. It is very difficult to go outside, plus next week is mid-term exam week, so the students are stressed because of that.

 We got off the train and on of the first things we saw was this tent and the candles in little snow caves. The tent had Japanese sake, rice wine, and tonjiru, pork based soup. It was free but if you wanted you could give a donation. We decided not to stop, but instead to move on to the actual Festival site which was about a 10 minute walk away.

The business area that we had to walk  through was a typical small town commercial zone. The stores were all connected and there was a covered sidewalk.