ChisaChi

Yup, that's the place, thanks. My Japanese isn't very good, if I call them up do you think they'll have much English? Is this the kind of thing I should be organising now, or closer to the time of our actual trip?

Hi all, I got some really good advice here a while ago and just have a few more questions My friends and I have decided on doing a skiing day trip to Karuizawa during our Japan trip in mid Feb. In my last thread people advised that there might not be English speaking instructors and suggested I contact the resort to ask, but I can't find an email address listed on the site. I've also never organised anything like this before, so I'm not sure exactly what we need to book beforehand or how seen we need to do it. Any advice?

Excellent, thanks guys! Looks like that's where we're heading. With instructors, I know they quite likely won't have great English... but would they be sort of used to foreign tourists and teaching them still? Basically, will we get enough out of a lesson there to be able to ski safely even if we don't speak the same language as the instructor?

Okay, I've sort of worked through all the places we want to go in Japan and I think a day trip is all we have time for this time around Although if it's fantastic I'll definitely come back for a more ski-centric visit another time. So it looks like Karuizawa for this one then. Could anyone possibly recommend a place there to ski or link me to somewhere I can get some more info on prices to show the rest of my group? I can't seem to find Karuizawa on the Snow Japan site.

Wow, lots of good advice here. Although I'm getting confused with all these place names O_o So Karuizawa and Yuzawa are the ones closer to Japan that I should check out, and I should definitely look into getting an instructor so we all stay safe. They will need to speak English though, I doubt my limited Japanese will get me far. The reason I'm thinking of a day trip at the moment is that this is more of an afterthought - our plans are more focussed on exploring Tokyo and the Kansai region at this point, and I'm not sure if we can fit in more than a day in the snow or if the rest of my gr

Ah! Thanks. It's just the link on the main page then - it's set to 'yuzawa-guide' rather than 'yuzawa-naeba-guide'

Thanks everyone! I thought of Hakuba simply because it was mentioned so much, but yes, being close to Tokyo is definitely important for us since we're limited on time! If Yuzawa is closer I'll definitely check it out. Would that be the closest one to Tokyo? As we're beginners we're not necessarily looking for the most amazing ski resort, just somewhere decent to try it out Do you think we really need an instructor? I did a basics lesson the first time I went skiing (as a child) and again the second time in Melbourne - it took up quite a chunk of the day and didn't really feel worth it. I

Hi all, I'm new here I'm currently organising a trip with a few friends to Japan in February 2008, and since some of our group have never seen snow I'm thinking of putting in a day trip from Tokyo to Hakuba to go skiing. Of our group only myself has been skiing before, and even then I'm still definitely a beginner so I'd like to go somewhere that has some newbie friendly slopes as well as larger ones if we get more confident. Is Hakuba a good place for newbie skiers? Is there a particular resort that you'd recommend for people at our level? Are there any associated costs other than trans