Golf74

Agreed. Looking forward to my trip to Myoko

No resort reviews or photos for me. (Which I will rectify this year!)

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A mate of mine was doing the Nozawa reports back in 07/08. He gave me the honour of doing 4 or 5 while I was there. We worked in random words to change them up a bit. CAVOK was my favourite - Ceiling and Visibility OK

Awesome news!! Very pleased it's a positive outcome. When reading the article that schneebored posted i thought it was going to say: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.’s top Japan executive was found alive and conscious after spending the night in AN EMERGENCY TELEPHONE BOX in Niigata prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, a police official said.

The russians think it'll be a cold winter. The coldest one for 1,000 years in fact! http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html

When I was deciding on my Nozawa accommodation this year I was put off by one place that had use of the village run hot springs as part of their package deals. What a load of crap. They're free and for everyone! Honesty when advertising is appreciated.

SJ, Any chance the links to the Nozawa Webcams could be fixed? Something seems to have gone awry in the last couple of weeks.

The building design is based on the original mcd's which is a bit different to what you normally see. Two big arches form part of the building. There were a few photos and info etc about how mcd's started. I thought it was interesting.

I highly recommend the Mcdonalds in Iiyama. The supermarket was also impressive.

Just to ease your mind, at Nozawa there is a giant measuring pole pretty close to the top of the Nagasaka gondola. It's roped off so you can't get near it. They take their Yamabiko (top of mountain) measurement there which is a little strange as it isn't really on Yamabiko. It probably turns out that they are under reporting the snow depth as I'm sure their would be more further up the mountain.

I'm picking Wales to win it again. (sorry xxx)

Slumdog millionaire was pretty good. I couldn't figure out it if it was a bollywood film or just a western film about indians. There was a musical number with the whole cast dancing as the credits rolled though. Burn after reading. Really good Coen brothers movie. Highly recommended.

Nozawa has been fairly average from mid mountain down for the last week. We had a good fall of snow to village level on thursday night and into friday but apart from that its been snowboarding up top and wakeboarding at the bottom.

Awesome shots there. Not surprised that you love Zao!

I am only in town 1st - 14th. But a mate of mine Andy (Abe on SJ) is there for the entire season. He knows another couple of kiwis up there too. There are a couple of japanese family run lodges like Masazo and Bun bun that I think are a bit cheaper than lodge Nagano. I could be incorrect on that though. Andy is the guy to talk to about the lodges. I stayed at Masazo last year and the family who run it are awesome. Super friendly people. They invited me to eat with them most nights. Watch out though because the father can drink like a fish and he expects you to keep up.

When I visited a mate (Abe on SJ) who was a JET down in Shikoku he made me do blind taste testing in one of his classes and Natto was one of the foods. I almost puked. It was beyond awful. The kids laughed their arses off at me but I got them back when they had to try Marmite. Everyone hated it apart from the fat kid in the class who thought marmite was great and ate everyone elses.

You most likely will love Nozawa. Heaps of terrain for 1.5 days. 2 hours on the shinkansen to Nagano and then 1 hour on a local train to Togari/Nozawa Onsen station. The town is pretty nice too. As with alot of places the snow isn't great at the moment but hopefully it'll be back to normal by Feb. If you are there in the first half of feb let us know. Come out and have a beer with some fellow kiwis.

Skiing in NZ, snowboard in Japan.

Nozawa. Must have liked it because I keep going back.

Yeah a few of the lifts don't connect well at all. I'm planning on stealing a bulldozer at some point and fixing that up for them though. Free of charge.

We are starting to hear a few stories like Petes over here in NZ too. Not good at all! As for me, I'm heading to Nozawa 1st - 15th of Feb. It'll be good to get away from this hot NZ summer!

JJ, With 50cm it won't be very good. You go to Japan for the pow, not a stale 50cm on trail. I have been looking at 2 sea level pressure/precipitation models. One goes out 7 days and the other 2 weeks. The 2 week model has the siberian high establishing itself over mongolia on the 22nd. Pressures increasing in Mongolia from 1010mb to 1044mb. This will send a solid northwest flow down to Japan for the 23rd and 24th. That should be the start of the east asian winter monsoon. Looks like plenty of snow for Honshu and Hokkaido. Its anyones guess how accurate that forecast is though.

I remember that Gary. The first day I ever had boarding in Japan was a sunny christmas day at Nozawa. A few days later the rain arrived but during the bus trip to Hakuba it started snowing and man did it snow!! I'm glad I made it back to Noz last year when there was 4m of snow cos the 70cm 2 years ago wasn't that impressive.

I prefered Nozawa too but the snow was drier at Shiga Kogen. It's a great dilemna to have. Which awesome resort should I go to? haha