skidaisuki
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Posts posted by skidaisuki
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Itoigawa? Can't say that Naoetsu impressed me very much...
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Mr Wiggles, any idea of the stops that there'll between Nagano and Kanazawa? I can see a basic route map on JR East's website, but it only shows Joetsu and Kanazawa after Nagano.
It looks like the route goes north and east from Nagano right round the eastern side North Alps and nowhere near Hakuba or anywhere we'd actually like to go in winter. That's a pity, but then spoiling the Hakuba Valley with a shinkansen line would probably be worse...
What makes me laugh is the fact that Kanazawa's shinkansen station was built and completed more than 10 years ago - only about 15 years before the facility can actually be used. How Japanese.
SdS
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I agree with the advice about the new Skyliner, but personally I wouldn't stay in Ueno - it's a dump, full of fag butts, tramps and "pink" business establishments.
Much better to stay virtually anywhere else in Tokyo, I'd say...
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This is a really relevant question. Niseko is the kind of place where there is so much side country powder that unless you are skiing K2 Pontoons, you often find yourself wanting bigger skis underfoot.
I can't add much to this thread, but I would say that it is better as a capable skier to have to deal with fatter skis when on piste than be short of area when you really want to float through the deeper stuff. Go large.
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Ezorisu,
No complaints about the weather here at all. We followed Thursday's advice and went to Hanamaru at Stellar Place last night. Waited one hour, as warned, but was well worth it - great variety, good quality, big portion sushi and a remarkably small bill at the end of it, as we were stuffed.
Went to Okurayama Jump Stadium this morning and Moerenuma Koen after that. Great weather and good views.
We've been sitting under shade in Odori Koen having a couple of beers in the beer gardens this afternoon and will be at Sapporo Beer-En having tabehodai jingis-khan tonight.
I love Sapporo - whatever the season! What a great place this truly is.
Thanks to all of your suggestions, which have been spot on.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like the weather won't be that great this weekend, but it'll still be great to get out of Tokyo.
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I want to buy a pair of K2 Coombacks with touring bindings. But the long-awaited road bike may be my first priority.
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PS Jynxx - I don't like the sound of "big open steep bowels" .... ;-)
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Thanks everyone. I'm sure we'll have a wander around Susukino, like we did last time, but probably avoid the "snacks" with the wife around!
Thursday - Hanamaru sounds like a good idea, I'll persuading her to go there rather than the uni nabe place she found...
Cheers
SdS
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Not really general snow talk, I know, but this is where everyone hangs out, so...hopefully my SJ friends will forgive me.
Me and the wife are having Friday and Saturday night staying in Sapporo, a 3-day escape from Tokyo's brain-melting, soul-destroying version of Summer.
On Saturday night we are going to the Sapporo Brewery Ghengis Khan place (have been there once before, so we know what to expect) but we need a good rec for a restaurant in either Susukino or Sapporo Station area for Friday night. I was thinking a good izakaya or somewhere with drinkable wine.
Any recs from residents, or others with experience? I have done a web search but I suspect some local knowledge might be very valuable in this case.
Cheers
SdS
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I did Niseko from Tokyo twice this Jan-Feb, I suppose I'll be lucky to do it more than once this coming season, but I'm thinking of doing a whole week there. Previously we were leaving Tokyo early-mid week, but I think there's no point. Will spend some extra cash and go up there from a weekend to a weekend.
Also, gotta get to Zao this season - any recs for the best place to stay when I do that. The best way to make myself go is to book something early with friends who are as keen as I am...
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Minty,
You asked what the long distance train routes are like in Japan - I assume you mean non-shinkansen routes? It really depends, but when you come from a country like the UK where train services are massively "variable" depending on the operator, in Japan JR do a pretty good job more or less everywhere to run trains regularly, on time without weather disruption. Check the very convenient hyperdia site for updated schedules and route guidance:
I assume you are buying JR rail passes before you leave NZ?
Based on the distances between the places that you plan to go, there'd be no advantage to flying over such short stretches.
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Mentally, next season has already started for me. I'm in training...
Of course, officially it is when the resorts start to kick off in late November, but I won't let that spoil my daydreaming about deep powder between the trees.
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Unless you have to, I wouldn't bother staying the night at Nagano - you might as well go straight on to Nozawa, which is a nicer place to stay and means you can get first lifts in the morning.
I wouldn't bother with Nagoya either - it has nothing special to offer the passing visitor and you'll have done the mega-city thing in Osaka.
I wouldn't try to do too much, but Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto-Nara are a sensible focus. If you have a rail pass you could do a day trip to Hiroshima by shinkansen. I really like the food, location and atmosphere of Hiroshima and would re-instate it in your schedule if I was you. I remember going there the first time in the 1990s and reaching the conclusion that the city probably wouldn't look any different today whether it had been bombed or not.
I particularly remember how generous people are there. I was on my own there once and got talking to these salarymen at an okonomiyaki restaurant near the station. We ended up eating and drinking together for hours and then without saying anything they just paid my bill for me.
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Tubby,
I was actually thinking of De La Soul:
Great tune, great samples
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The best way to get through the Japanese summer is to set some targets:
- visit beer garden(s)
- go to Sapporo summer festival
- try to invent reasons to go abroad
- go to Jimbocho and ogle new BC skis and road bikes
- watch fireworks
- plan family visit to Japan in October
- eat good food
- going to the gym (yes, this is listed in order of priority...)
SdS
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Jennifer, oh Jenny
(as I remember the song went)
Welcome. I never write anything contoversial, except when people start boasting about wearing i-pods while boarding / skiing - which is DAFT.
The new season's less than half a year away. You are spending summer in the right place - i.e. not Tokyo.
SdS
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If triathlon meant riding 3 different varieties of bike (road bike, mountain bike and "mama-chari") I might even try it. The swimming and running (I mean knee destruction) phases are what put me off.
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You're probably right in your identification of it - but it's also quite likely some politician got bribed a few years back and managed to get the goverment to pay hundreds of millions of yen to local construction firms to built some meaningless lump of concrete in the middle of pristine mountain countryside just for the hell of it...
...that's an explanation of Japan's rural economy for anyone not familiar with the situation!
What country could've spent more on tunneling than Japan? Still, when I go through the tunnel to Echigo Yuzawa on the shinkansen, I guess I'm grateful for it.
SdS
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I can't wait for it, as usual. My plans are to do an avalanche course (probably in Hakuba) and try some properly guided easy backcountry skiing.
As for specific places, I have been talking about going to Zao for several years now, but still haven't been. That's high on the list.
SdS
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Living in Tokyo, I find most things at ski towns cheaper than in the city.
Part of the reason for this is because most restaurants also cater for local customers and in the country the salaries and cost of living are lower.
Food at restaurants in the resorts is usually a bit more expensive for what you get, but while I've been disappointed in some places I've never felt ripped off - except perhaps at one hotel at Shiga Kogen where the breakfast was a joke. It consisted of some pickles, a plum, a small, flaky dried-up bit of salmon and some seaweed to wrap my rice in. Most hotels are a lot better than that, though.
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The UK Met Office deserves credit - I think it's pretty accurate over the timescale that most people need real-world weather forecasts, i.e. the immediate day ahead and up to 3-5 days ahead. That's all that matters.
You have to be deluded to think that a medium-term forecast for specific weather conditions in a specific place in Britain, with all its changeable Atlantic weather and micro-climates, is likely to be right as a result of more than chance, based on seasonal averages.
And the fact that they are prepared to admit and acknowledge their limitations is actually quite admirable, in my view. A lot of other countries' met offices wouldn't be allowed do confess to such shortcomings, however deluded they might be in their confidence to predict accurately. Imagine the North Korean weather forecasters - they probably get sent to the gulag if they get it wrong, then the state media re-writes the forecast to make it "correct" in retrospect. Plus the despotic "Dear Leader" with the stupid hair gets the credit for sunny days, presumably.
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I'm more interested in what Hakuba will be like next weekend. Any thoughts from the local chart watchers?
Thanks in advance,
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"butchers hook", rhymes with "look" - just in case readers weren't born within the sound of Bow bells...
Anyway, 2pints,mate, I second that Otaru recommendation, and can add it has its own microbrewery - origanally named 'Otaru Beer' - as well as a working harbour, lots of sea food and a historic "brick warehouse" district, which is something that Japanese get very excited about, especially if those brick warehouses contain restaurants or shops selling lots of omiyage (souvenirs).
Of other cities I've been to in Hokkaido, the only other one I can mention is Asahikawa, but my experience was super brief. Still, a place with Daisetsuzan mountains on the skyline, Furano an hour away and which is the coldest city of the coldest prefecture in Japan, snowbound from November to April, has obviously got a few things going for it.
SdS
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Well, I love skiing and snow so much, I was glad to be at Ishiuchi on Saturday despite not getting that many turns in. It was wild and memorable and fortunately I have the time and money to ski a few more days this season. Sitting on exposed lifts reminds you you're alive, you've got to admit...
For most of us, there's a trade off between living in the smoke and in the country. One day, that custom built lodge with party-size rotenburo on the balcony will be MINE. Possibly too late to enjoy it though!
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The 10/11 Japan winter snow prediction thread. Hurray!
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
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Before we even think about snowfall volumes, sweating in central Tokyo I'm wondering about when this heatwave's going to crack. Can't wait for some cooler air to come through.
Suppose we'll get the mother of all thunderstorms at the end of this. That's something which we haven't really seen this year. No thunderstorms, no typhoons coming anywhere close by, really quiet to be honest. Just so incredibly hot.
My hope is for a decent early start to the season, even if the heavy falls don't come until January, it'd be good to be skiing top to bottom at Hakuba before going to the UK for Christmas.
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