Skiing after the 6th of May

[tsondaboy 0]

Do you still go up in Yuzawa in the summer too Stunts?

[thursday 1]

well have a few beers outside then.

[Stuntcok 0]

I sometimes go to Yuzawa. I would go more often if they ran some MTB stuff. I once went just to eat at Pittore

[tsondaboy 0]

I remember you saying that about Pittore, you guys are crazy.

[muikabochi 208]

Nice pizza if you like them wafer thin, nice surroundings but way too expensive (for around here) and not the best pizza in Minamiuonuma....

[Stuntcok 0]

Too expensive for around there yet it is the hardest place to get a seat in the area, at least from my experience. Sounds like they have their target and their pricing pretty well matched to me. It isn't really the pizza that is good but the other plates.

 

I find it harder to beleive that an area that, at its peak, once boasted over 10m tourists in a year has such limited offerings of upscale establishments for lodging or dining. In fact, it is perhaps the grandest tale of mismanagement in the history of city planning and resort management that a resort town that is 77mins away from Asia's largest financial center by bullet train can be so run down and cheap. If you put Yuzawa's mountains and snow 77mins from New York or London the property would cost more than Vail's. I had a friend go to Yuzawa from HK for CNY and was amazed that there was no where to spend his money. He went to Whistler the following year and came back in broke but smiling.

[muikabochi 208]

I agree with most of all that.

 

On the subject of Pittore - I have been there probably about 8 times.

7 of those times was walk in to table.

5 of those times it wasn't busy at all

3 of those times there was no-one in there other than us.

 

It does of course get busy on holidays and the like but it is way far from being 'difficult to get a seat' in at any other time.

 

If people like you are prepared to for example come from Tokyo to eat there, then they will charge that won't they?

[Stuntcok 0]

Exactly. I am only ever there on weekends and holidays but then again so is every other holiday maker and that is when it is the most packed of restraunts in the area. If Niigata wants weekly traffic it needs more things like Pittore to allow the type of traveler that goes on weeklong ski holidays to spend their money. They also need the local Tokyo yuppie to go there and spend more on weekends, not just on skiing. It may be the only place in Japan you can't buy Louis Vuiton handbags yet the Tokyo ski traveller (I would guess) a richer than average demographic. The problem with Yuzawa is there is more to tear down than to build if you want the kind of ambience that goes with a upscale resort.