BalletX and Matsuhisa

The last couple of days have been quiet ones. The rainy weather has not helped. Really the only things we could do involved walking around town and shopping when the rain would occasionally let up.

Yesterday morning, Suzanne generously led us through a workout class consisting of some stretches and some pilates. It felt good to move a little like that. 

The rest of the day I just took it easy in my room. I was super tired from not sleeping well the night before so this was about all the energy I had. 

Our late lunch/early dinner was at Up The Creek, which is right next to my hotel and right off Gore creek. I had shrimp and scallops which were nicely done and delicious. The food overall was quite good although Ben's trout was not to his liking but they replaced it. We had a nice view of the creek.

For this evening, the dance performance will be Ballet X's Sunset 0639 hours. It was previously performed at Vail shortly after premiering in Philadelphia. The piece describes the story of the first mail flight between New Zealand and Hawaii and the tragic explosion that killed the crew on their return. 

We decided, given the rain, to take the bus to the theatre. I discovered that there was an express bus directly to the auditorium. It turned out to be super easy and not at all crowded. The performance was amazing! At the beginning, I wasn't sure what to make of it. The movements were sometimes quite classical and other times very modern. The company were all extraordinarily talented. As the piece progressed I came to appreciate the extremely creative use of sound (invented sounds, bird calls, recited letters as well as mechanical noises and music) to fill in where movement couldn't go. And the costumes while simple really began to help place us in the different settings of the story. By the end of the piece I was choked up near tears. The nearly full house gave an extended standing ovation.

Today was even more rain! I met Joyce and Suzanne at their hotel and played a card game called Spite and Malice. It's a fun game using two decks of cards, a little bit of strategizing and luck. About mid day, I ordered a veggie pizza from Pazzo for the group, with Ben and Joel joining us. We just needed a light meal to tide us over until dinner at Matsuhisa.

In the afternoon, the rain had let up so we strolled through the upper part of the village. I then spent a couple of hours back at the hotel before meeting the gang to walk to dinner.

We have gone to Matsuhisa every time we are in Vail. We love the food and the service. This time was no exception. Our waiter was friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. The support staff made sure we had water, fresh plates and cleared off service items almost instantaneously. We always have edamame, the black cod, a couple of sushi rolls (the seaweed is so good) and tempura veggies and the shaved ice dessert. This time we added shishito peppers, sea bass with a black bean sauce, and a miso chocolate bar dessert. I had the passion fruit Matsutini cocktail (shared with Joyce). Every single thing was out of this world. 

After dinner we went for a short walk towards the residential area and then turned around to head back.