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Similar to the Hakuba-Rentals thread, am considering renting a cabin/room for a month or 2 this winter at Niseko. Anybody been there/done that and have any advice or links, before I hit the search engines??

 

thanks,

-montoya

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Come on, people. Cough a few extra yen and live the good life...try the Prince Higashiyama for the full 5-star experience complete with the outdoor onsen. And to keep the ski/board enthusiasts well pampered, they have an icredibly spacious ski/board-locker room with a gondola terminal right outside the door.

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 Quote:
Originally posted by jared:
says the man with much more money than time.
And no J-gal to spend it with/on! (Both the time and the money) " title="" src="graemlins/cry.gif" />

BTW, jared, I'm putting together a Christmas trip to Kiroro and one thing the group (mainly 2nd-3rd time skiers) insisted on is that I arrange for an Eigo speaking instructor. I remember you saying you were a qualified coach. Interested? You can charge them the standard rates...(this is for a group of about 15 over a period of about a week.
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 Quote:
Originally posted by Markie:
try the Prince Higashiyama for the full 5-star experience complete with the outdoor onsen. And to keep the ski/board enthusiasts well pampered, they have an icredibly spacious ski/board-locker room with a gondola terminal right outside the door.
That if I remember correctly stops running at 4pm. Which is why we had to pay for a damn shuttle back to Hirafu.
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Yeah, that's the one, chizuman, and that's why you should stay there and not have to take a shuttle back to Hirafu. Of course, if you're with me, you might get a freebie, like our previous stay in Arai.

Another suggestion is to start working on an Instructor's qualification, cos if things work out, jared is gonna get an even better package than you at Arai, he's gonna get paid to go with me to Kiroro.

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I'm taking my cue from db...Snowboarders don't need instructors!

But seriously, I think there is much much greater demand for ski instructors than snowboard instructors simply because the type of people who prefer to ski are more likely to want instructors than those who want to snowboard. Kinda of like the guitar and piano thing.

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> simply because the type of people who prefer to ski are more likely to want instructors than those who want to snowboard. Kinda of like the guitar and piano thing.

 

Heheheh, you said it Markie. Wait, is he allowed to say that? We're all the same right?

Same same only different, heheheh. Kinda like kuso and miso ... I won't say which is which though, heheheh.

 

lol.gif

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I was gonna say - I tend to agree with you about instructing skiing versus snowboarding...but I think it varies as well. There are a lot of people that ski or just want to try out snwboarding, but would never consider trying it without a lesson first. Therefore you get a lot of never-evers when you are instructing. Skiers will take a lesson - practice on their own - and then take another lesson down the road to move to the next level where snowboarders tend to just wing it once they get the feel for it (or give up if they don't).

 

But snowboarding lends itself to being taught more than skiing right at first. You can pretty much have fun skiing your first day and start to get the hang of it. But then the progression is a slow, relatively flat learning curve. Snowboarding is really hard right off the bat and most people don't have too much fun their first day. Yet as soon as you get it your 2nd or 3rd (or 4th or 5th) day you take off and it just starts to click.

 

Barok is a good instructor. He should consider getting certified. I saw him spend a couple hours with these two never-ever girls with the utmost patience while zwelgen and I went and carved up the best lines of my life on the best powder day of my life. Yet barok was off teaching these girls how to do a falling leaf with the utmost patience. Amazing! I hate taking never-evers, especially on days like that. I am just like "Good luck! Stay in this area and I'll cruise through here every couple hours to check on you. zoooooom!" I also saw him spend pretty much a whole day trying to teach a girl that didn't appear to really want to learn (or at least she didn't want to get up after she had fallen down). By the end of the day he had her turning all right. This took up most of the great park day at Yanaba (our maiden voyage). For barok to turn down a great park day at a new place is like a teenage Japanese girl turning down a new ketai. What a good friend.

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Hey enders--my gal and I got stuck at Higashiyama one snowy night when that damn gondola stopped and left us in the lurch.

 

We went inside the hotel and had a nice dinner and a few beers.

 

Then, we walked it back to our little lodge at Annupuri. It's actually not that bad if you know where to go, along the base of the runs then down a snowy road. We stopped to make out in a snowy glade and the moon came out and cast into relief the powder-puff trees and fat falling flakes.

 

I consider myself lucky not to have paid the 6000 or so some taxi guy quoted us on the phone for that short run.

 

I doubt you can walk back to Hirafu as easily, but maybe one of the Niseko heads can school us on that.

 

Markie, I've stayed at the Higashiyama Prince a couple of times with 2 different girlfriends. It's not cheap but it's damn convenient and definitely the way to go if you want to be alone with your gal.

 

For the single and those who prefer good times to big bills, the Hirafu Chalet is the place to be. Now that I am married, the only time I'd go back to a posh resort hotel for a ski vacation is with my wife and/or very young kids. Then you can multiply the big bill by 3 or 4, so this is only going to happen when I am good and rich.

 

It's just my personal preference, but at all other times, you'll find me in a pathetic, sad, beer-and-aching-muscles charade pretending to be 19 again at great places like the Hirafu Chalet. Even if I couldn't get into a room there, I'd go hang out with them for the apres-ski chats and good vibe. I recall that even when I was 12 years old, that was my image of what snow vacations are all about.

 

In the future, when I am a millionaire, I'll still prefer go to places like that.

 

Wait! I AM a millionaire, if you count millions of Yen... \:D

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Talk about expensive, I started my skiing experience at Club Med, Sahoro. After that, everything else is cheap. Having done the Inn at Arai, the Prince Higashiyama in Niseko and Rusutsu, the next on my 5-star hit list is the Piano Hotel at Kiroro this Christmas. Further down the line, I would like to try out the Alpha Resort in Tomamu and one of the Prince Hotels at Furano. Then I'll have the difficult decision of which one I should revisit first. I had such a great time at each resort I am so looking forward to going back to each of them, apart from Sahoro.

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Hey, Fattwins, are you interested in coaching a bunch of HK people in Kiroro this Christmas? I've actually promised the job to Jared & co (2 instructors) but if the numbers of my group get beyond 20 we may need an extra hand for safety and more importantly...good fun.

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