TR: Shiga Kogen 14-23 Feb

[Sciclone 2]

Hi all,

 

I've been MIA since I got back. It's already been 2.5 months! Anyway, I thought I'd put my thoughts down for you all. Similar to last year we were heading back to Shiga Kogen with myself, brother (Dean), mother (Mum), sister (Whitney) and a friend (Conrad) who we talked into coming. We were staying at a different place, the Hotel Mount Shiga in Ichinose, and our friend had never been to the snow, so we were going to teach him.

 

Sunday Feb 14th

 

After a few hours rest (we didn't get to be til after 12am), my mother and I started early, walking around Jimbocho (we were staying at the Sakura) before going to Don Quixote in Ueno. Time started slipping away from us, so we had to get back to the hotel and check out, as well as wake the others up.

 

We got the subway back one stop from Jimbocho to Otemachi, the closest station to Tokyo Central. We had already booked out shinkansen tickets, so it was just a matter of hauling around 100kg of luggage the 1500m or so through the subterranean maze to the ticket office, where they would stamp our JR Passbooks.

 

This was Conrad's first time on a bullet train, and he was surprised to see all the vending machines (first time out of Australia), as well as the bento box sellers on the tracks. we fueled up for a bit of breakfast, as it was only a 10am train. We had forewarned him that there would be a lady on the train selling stuff, but he didn't seem to grasp the awesomeness of being able to have a beer at 10 in the morning on a train going 200km/h. Still it was pretty nice to see snow further down the mountains, and coming into Ueda station, there was light snow hitting the front of the train. Actually there was a lot more snow everywhere, as last year we hadn't really seen any snow until we virtually half way up to Sun Valley. This time, even Nagano station had snow outside, but we had a couple of minutes to get the bus, so we made sure to take a toilet break, as last year Dean had to suffer the consequences of Beer and water floating in his bladder on a 70min bus ride with no stops.

 

It was nice to Yudanaka covered in snow. We remembered some of the shopping centres like Apple City on the route so we could tell Conrad about upcoming photo ops. This was going to be one well documented trip, as both Conrad and Dean had their DSLR's and video cameras, Dean, Me and Whitney having point and shoots, and mum and Conrad using their phones when a quick snap was needed.

 

We arrived in Ichinose about 1pm, and because none of us had eaten properly we were all starving. After a quick walk down to the hotel to leave our bags there (we couldn't check in til 3pm) we headed to Hotel Khuls for some pizza and Conrad's first Melon soda. I thought I was used to the eccentricities of Japanese pizza after having corn on it in Furano, but these we something else again. My pizza was a mixture of potato and bacon, while everyone else seemed to favour the crab, salami and miscellaneous other items that made for an interesting pizza.

 

By this time we could now check in, so a short walk back to our hotel had us checking in. One of the managers called himself "Gandhi/Ganji", and he was the one that spoke the most amount of english albeit, not very much. Up on the elevator, we chucked our stuff in our rooms, then we set up our brand new boards and bindings. I could wait to give my new Burton Custom ICS with Cartel EST bindings a run, and we wanted to give Conrad a couple of quick(?!) turns for the afternoon to give him a taste. We suited up and headed over to the Ichinose Family Ski Area, and purchased our Super 10 tickets. While 40000Y may seem steep for some, I recently did a comparison for my uncle, and a 5 day lift pass for Mt Bulla in Victoria costs AU$470....

 

We didn't strap up until we got off the lift then the fun started. We started off down the green run to the left of Ichinose, on what we dubbed "Conrad's Training Run". This is a nice green run with some good switchbacks, but it is heavily frequented by ski schoolers during the week. This was Sunday afternoon thought so a lot of weekenders had left already and we had the place nearly to ourselves. Conrad does a bit of bodybuilding, but we had learnt earlier after he went to the physio that he doesn't have much core strength. His is all upper body, which is kind of useless for a sport that demands a lot of balance. It was ok, because both Dean and I were going to take it slow and teach him, but now we realised why starting sucks... Going slower means you fall down more. I fell down more coming down that first run than I had in the whole time the year before.

 

We had started teaching Conrad the usual beginners tricks, like falling leaf, and braking techniques, but for a guy thats pretty top heavy, he was not the most agile student. He had the advantage though of having 2 people with him the whole time, whereas me and Dean had learnt in a group lesson with about 20 other people and 1 hungover instructor. It took us nearly an hour to get down the bottom, which was not good because it caused the muscles to ache worse than shredding it. We got the final chair of the day up for another crack, and although this on was quicker, it still took a painfully long time, including one colossal stack by me. Dean was waiting at the side of the run when I came past with a snow ball. Problem was, I had to turn to throw it (I'm right handed and he was on the left side), so the movement in the hips caused me to stack big, including a full flip over. I landed so hard on my back that I winded myself and it felt like I had broken a rib. I don't know what breaking a rib feels like, but I couldn't breathe properly for about a minute afterwards. Fortunately, I had just winded myself (it would suck to break something on the first afternoon of a 10 day trip), but it taught me not to be a silly boy..

 

We were making our way down, when we heard snowmobiles. The mountain patrol told us that the mountain was now closed. Dean and I wouldn't have a problem getting down the bottom in a hurry, but Conrad was still very slow and not able to carry any speed, so we sent him on the back of the patrol's snowmobile. Conrad is an avid biker, so being on the back of a 1300cc snowmobile was a good way for him to finish his first afternoon.

 

We headed back to the hotel, but we were hanging out to go get some Tandoori from Kamoshka, the Nepalese Curry house in the Japan Shiga Hotel. We ate very well, and after a quick trip back via the Yamazaki conbini for some dessert, we were back out our rooms having a bit of beer and pudding. As Dean and I had the biggest room, most nights people piled in and we watch TV. We were tired though, after having been on the go since early, and still recovering from the plane trip the day before, so it was lights out by 9.30.

 

Monday 15th

 

When we had booked the hotel we ordered breakfast every morning. Previously we have stayed at the Sunroute Ichinose, the New Furano Hotel, and the Station Resort in Jindabyne, so we were used to getting a buffet breakfast. This wasn't to be the way at the Hotel Mt Shiga. It was a mostly japanese breakfast, with miso soup, rice, some cold salad, fish and toast on the table. It was... different. I don't eat cooked fish usually (it makes me sick), so I gave my fish to my sister but fueled up on rice and stuff. There's nothing I like more than fueling up on bacon and eggs when I'm going snowboarding all day, but rice seemed to hit the spot.

 

We had to get moving though, as Conrad would be late for his own funeral. We got on the slopes about 9.30am, and it was back to Conrad's training run for some more training. About 2cm of snow had fallen overnight, so a bit of fresh layer helped.. He started off wobbly, but was slowly getting better. We spent quite a while doing this run a couple of times, with a break for vending machines before heading across to Takamagahara for some pizza. The pizza at Fiore in the Takamagahara Hotel is wood-fired and they do a good pepperoni.

 

After carb-loading, it was up the lift at Takamagahara to do one of my favourite runs down the back to the Higashidateyama gondola. I think we may have been a bit premature in coming here though, as we had to stop every 2m for Conrad, who was still struggling to get turns.

 

Afterwards, we headed up the Gondola, only to notice the settings on Conrad's bindings. He had them at +30F and -15R (must have slipped), so he was majorly ducked. After adjusting them to a more reasonable +12 and -6, we went down the back to Ichinose again. Conrad was still getting his confidence, but after getting used the new settings, he was able to go from heel to toe sides much easier. Also, keeping him on something he knew the layout of was probably a better idea. What we were doing (as sitting around waiting gets boring) was one of us would stay with him, while the other did a flying run down then met up again on the slope. This worked better, as stopping and falling down was getting hard on the knees. By the end of his first full day, he was down to about 20mins on the training run, compared to the hour of the previous afternoon. We got final chair again, before heading back to the hotel.

 

After a quick onsen (I wore my bathers, a faux pas I know, but I'm not cool with nuding it up in public...) we headed down towards the Sports Bar at Chalet Shiga. Unfortunately, we had arrived in the middle of the winter olympics, so everywhere was showing it. It meant that we missed out on a lot of good/inane japanese tv. But some pasta and beer later, it was back to the hotel to blog/sort photos.

[muikabochi 208]

Wow that was a good long read!

 

Get some photos uploaded as well if you can, Sciclone!

[blu 3]

speedos (aka: budgie smugglers) in the onsen - just hold the small onsen towel strategically.

[Sciclone 2]

That's only the first day and a bit... I'll continue (actually the blog version for my friends was much longer)

 

Tuesday 16th

After a half cooked omelette (as well as the usual rice, nozawan pickles, miso soup etc) we tried to get out for an early start. Conrad felt like taking it easy, so he would meet us up later on. Dean and I did the trainer to warm up, then headed for the red run that splits off from Tengu course. We took that easy, and headed for the lift again. Just after we had got on, we noticed Conrad heading for the vending machines, so after doing a flying run, we took Conrad for a warm up run on Conrad's trainer. He was looking better than the previous day, so we took him around the back to Terakoya, an area me and Dean hadn't gotten around to last year.

 

This turned out to be a pretty nice area, with a wide green area covered with a nice bit of fresh powder for Conrad to practice carrying speed on as well as flicking from toe to heel and back again. We took the right side and headed around the back to Higashi-dateyama. Conrad was doing a lot better than the previous attempt. I think having both of us telling him to get up and moving helped, as stopping after falling over saps energy. Through some of the flattish sections where it crosses over with the olympic course, it was important that Conrad keep his speed, which he did, although he was still a bit slower than me and Dean.

 

We headed up the gondola and back down to Ichinose, and as it was getting on to 12.30, we were starting to get hungry. We decided to head to the curry place, and get the buffet. After 2 lots of curry and monster naan and salad, we were full so we waited a couple of minutes before heading out again.

 

We smashed a few more runs out on the green with Conrad getting it down to a respectable 7mins or so, with me and Dean getting off the beaten track for the first time. It was fun, but a lot harder than I expected, as the thick powder and narrow trees meant you had to keep good speed and control. Conrad decided to wait at the bottom while Dean and I did a "follow my line" run. He started off the first section with some bank floats and circling around some trees, then towards the bottom I headed through the trees with Dean following me. This was the first time Dean had properly headed through the trees and was shredding it, before taking a major drop off into the run. Conrad decided to do one more run before calling it a day. Bodybuilding does nothing for stamina it seems, as even though he can press and dead lift quite a bit of weight, he can't hack long term stuff.

 

Dean and I did the red run again before catching last lift of the day. We absolutely flew down the green run, which after a day of ski schoolers was getting a little worn. That was it for the day with the groomers idling and getting ready to go.

 

We headed back to the hotel, where I rested quickly then headed for the onsen (where I was told off by an old guy for wearing shorts).

 

After only 2 days of riding, I was craving red meat, so we searched around for somewhere that had steak. We didn't find anything but came across a buffet in the town guide, so we walked over to the Hotel Ichinose to go to Victoria restaurant. The place was packed with ski schoolers (was there any escaping them?!?), so at first they weren't going to let us in, but after double checking, they allowed us in. This turned out to be a decent size thing, as there were 4 or 5 areas with different foods. I loaded up my plate with some yakitori skewers, lasagna and chips with the others doing the rounds. Mum made a wonderful discovery.. they had steak!!! There was a guy cooking up some tenderloin fresh, so an order for medium was put in and I walked away with a plate full of red meat to feed my aching muscles. We all went back for 2nds and after sampling some apple jelly and salads, we stopped in at the gift shop in the Hotel for some ice cream, beer, umeshu and other bits and pieces. Back to our room for some wierd japanese tv, but my mind had already shut down, and it wasn't long before my body followed.

 

Wednesday 17th

 

Went and saw the monkeys. Snow in the forest (wasn't any last year) and not enough clothing. Jeans, a light jacket, and ankle socks don't make for pleasant standing around in double negatives. Neither does slipping and falling on my camera. It still (sort of) works, but my pants, jacket and gloves got covered in mud, so it was a bit cool in the wind. Long day with a fair bit of walking and pizza. No snowboarding though..

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Good read Sciclone, I loved SK when went there over New Year. I was in Takamagahara, just around from Ichinose. When we had lunch at Ichinose I thought the place looked to have a little more options for beer. Thats the only bad thing about SK, no real Apres ski. Next time I'm gonna stay n Ichinose

[DumbStick 13]

Nice read that Sciclone.

 

Ichinose is the "liveliest" place. Rocking at night.

[Ross 4]

We where there same time as you Sciclone.Mighty impressed with the size of the place.My sons spent 4 of your 5 days at Yakebitaiyamas terrain park.While Lynne and I had a great time skiing all the areas.

[Sciclone 2]

Thanks peeps. I've got all the pics on my picasa account, so I'll organise them and post the link here.

 

In the meantime, I'll continue....

 

Thursday 18th

After a day of rest, we were all amped to get out on Thursday morning. We scoffed down breakfast (or the bits of it we felt like eating) and were strapping up at about 8.15am. We started off on Conrad's training run for a bit of warming up. Well, it would have been a warm up, if there wasn't eleventy billion ski-schoolers clogging up the run. They ranged in various degrees from, barely able to stand up, to criss-crossing the path and stacking. We made it down, although I think either Dean or Conrad might have caught one of them. We just wanted a bit of room, so we decided to head to Terakoya and wouldn't you know it, they seemed to be following us. We flew down the green run heading for Higashidate-yama, and there was still more of them!

 

We made it to the bottom, but we did have a few bails on the way trying to avoid wiping out half of the groups. It does make you get good at weaving and holding speed in a hurry though. We decided to go to Hoppo-Bundaira and grab a beer (carbs are good, when you are burning twice as many calories as normal). We did that before heading up towards the gondola at Higashidate for another crack at the green run back to Hoppo, without the school kids (I fell over getting on the lift and caught my board, causing big black bruises!).

 

Things were going fine until Dean said he needed to shoot off and go to the loo. I would have thought he would have headed to Hoppo like we had planned, but alas, he didn't. So Conrad and I headed for Hoppo, and waited there for Dean. And waited, and waited. We waited so long, that we got hungry, so we grabbed an early lunch (surrounded by a ton of ski schoolers, were they multiplying?). We decided to head back to the gondola, and see if Dean was there, which he was. Now because he was waiting there for about an hour, he was hungry.

 

The plan was to head to Terakoya, as there was a restaurant there we hadn't tried before. After arriving to the top of the hill down from Ichinose, I needed to go to the toilet, so left Dean and Conrad at the top of the hill. I get out, and Dean is still waiting where I left him. Conrad still hadn't arrived. It wasn't like he couldn't do it by himself, he'd done it twice before. So after waiting for a bit longer, we head back up to the top of Higashi to swing down to Ichinose to see if he's gone down the training run. Nope. Where has he gone?? If he buggered off back to the hotel without telling us, it would have been a pretty poor showing. What if he injured himself?? So a lot of worrying involved.

 

After heading back to the hotel to see if he is there, Dean and I head for Khuls, as Dean is now famished. In the meantime, I saw a ski patrol carrying a sled, so I went over to the patrol area to make sure it wasn't Con. Nope. Just then the snow starts falling heavier, and the temp drops. I ask the ski patrol and they send out the whole ski patrol looking for him. Dean also goes to 3 different areas to see if he can find him. 1.5hrs later, who do I see shooting out of the training run, but Conrad... He had been out "looking for us" and practicing his skills. The prat! He had us worrying that we'd have to tell his Dad we'd lost him and he's out shredding.. All in all I lost over 3 hrs of boarding time on the best day so far..

 

I went for a couple of runs afterwards, but was knackered... I nearly fell asleep in my bowl of noodles at the Chalet Shiga.

 

Friday 19th

 

After missing out on so much the previous 2 days, I wanted to get out early, but my body didn't want to. After a slow breakfast and taking a while to get out there, we started off down the black run on Ichinose. Dean and I were fine, but Conrad wasn't confident enough, so went down on his bum.

 

We headed over the bridge and went to Yakebitai, another area we hadn't really seen last year. After spending the whole morning there, we grabbed some lunch at the Prince Hotel South Wing, before traversing to Ichinose/Terakoya/Hoppo where we stopped for a beer. Yakebitai seemed to burn our legs more so by the time we got to the back of Higashi from Terakoya, we were spent. The ski schoolers were clearing though, so we started on a decent run down. Unfortunately, the traffic from the ski schooler snow plowing the whole way down had caused some concaving in the corners and main bits of the run. We tried to avoid the carved narrow chutes, but alas, Dean caught an edge, causing him to bail big. This caused him to tear his stomach muscles. Not 2 mins later, I bailed as well doing the same thing (though not as bad).

 

If anyone has torn stomach muscles while boarding, they'd know how painful it is. I had done the same injury (although opposite side) a couple of years ago at Perisher, so I could empathise with Dean's pain. We had a prolonged beer at Hoppo before catching a lift to Nishidate-yama. We hadn't really touched this area last year either, but we were heading back to Higashi, so we crossed the bridge to Takamagahara and caught another lift up. By the end of the run, it was no good. Dean was a broken man, and I had run out of energy causing me to fall down and make mistakes. After the gondola up Dean headed for the hotel, while I stayed with Conrad for a couple more runs. It was no good though, my body had given up for the day, so slunking back to the hotel, I fell asleep before getting dinner at Kamoshka.

[Sciclone 2]

Most of the decent photos are up at Sciclone's SK Gallery 14-23rd Feb I was just using a little 10mp point and shoot, so they aren't going to be of Muika's quality...

 

I'll continue with Saturday, Sunday and Monday when I get home from work.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Great report Sciclone and tons of pics

[SKI 15]

Great report Sciclone, perhaps a little lacking in detail

 

Good pics too.

 

Reminds me of winter again.

[Sciclone 2]

Continuing on...

 

Saturday 20th

 

After injuring ourselves on Friday, we were very slow getting up/out on Saturday. Conrad, Dean and I needed to get some money out, so it was off to the post office at Hasuike for some dosh. It took nearly an hour to get there and back, despite it only being 5km. The bus driver was fairly slow though. I was still in quite a bit of pain from my stomach muscles, and still hadn't decided whether I wanted to go out yet, but after an early lunch at Rocky's Cafe at the Hotel Ichinose, Conrad wanted to head out with his 1D. Perhaps I should have taken the day off like Dean, but I'd payed for 10 days snowboarding, I was going to do my best to make the most of it... so we suited up and headed towards the terrain park, which we hadn't been able to get to the day before, due to a stuffed lift.

 

I would like to say that I was awesome at park on my first time, but the truth is I sucked... I was nursing an injury I didn't want to hurt more, so I chickened out of all but one jump, and even then, I didn't really jump, more just did a 360 spin on the funbox..

 

We decided to leave the park and headed back towards Ichinose so we could do my favourite Terakoya-Higashidate run. It was going pretty well until we hit the part where Dean and I had fallen down the day before. There was no schoolers today, but the concave remained, and it wasn't long before I caught another edge, injuring my stomach again. After losing a bit of energy, I was getting pretty sore and tired, so I suggested we head up the Gondola and head back towards the hotel. We were coming down the red run at Ichinose before we headed towards "Family St" where the Ichinose, Khuls, Japan Shiga and Ichinoseso hotels are. But as we were going, I came off a lump the wrong way and bailed.. That was it, I was out for the day. We trudged back to the hotel where I had a bath-bombed bath to help soak my muscles, and a small cup of noodles night.

 

Sunday 21st

Dean was back on deck after resting the day before, so we suited up after some breakfast and headed out. It was a perfect bluebird day, so we decided to hop on a bus and head up to Yokote, which we hadn't seen nor touched last year. It took us nearly an hour to get up there, and at the end, Dean's RFID chip decided to go on the fritz. This meant he had to pay for his trip (the bus company is seperate from the lift company, so if the chip doesn't work, they don't get paid), but we went up towards the lifts. Dean's chip decided to go on the fritz at the lift gate this time, so the liftie went and exchanged it for another one. After that it was smooth sailing.

 

We were glad we had decided to go up today, because at 2309m on a clear blue day, it was perfect for photo oppurtunities. It was now getting on towards 11.30. Damn we had missed a couple hours boarding already! We were hungry though so we went to the bakery that sits atop Yokote. Dean and Conrad ordered pizzas but I ordered a jumbo dog, thinking it was just a long hotdog... Boy was I wrong. It was a vienna loaf with a slot in it, where a big sausage and onion and bacon where housed... I'm sure a midget could have ate for a week on it, but I finished it.

 

We looked around and took some more pictures, but Yokote is Ski-Only (Why wont they change this???) so we had to board the lift to get back down from the top section. It was kind of scary when you left the lift building because the ground just drops away, and you realise the angle you are on.

 

After a board down from the mid-section and a wait for the bus, we hopped off in Hasuike. It was either we wait for another bus or go take the Ropeway and snowboard back across, so guess which one we chose? No contest, and with such good visibility, it was a good oppurtunity for Dean to get some videos and SLR photos. We ended up at Nishidate-yama, so we traversed from there to Takamagahara-Ichinose F-Ichinose D then on up to Yakebitai.

 

We had a couple of good runs, but after spending so much time getting to and from Yokote, it was getting late with a few lifts shutting down. The pistes weren't in the best shape either, as Yakebitai gets all the morning sun, and with 2 days worth of weekend skiers on, it was getting a little crusty in parts. Not that you couldn't find powder at the sides of the runs, but it was a little slippery in parts. By the time we got back to Ichinose, it was getting on to 5pm. We were all wrecked.

 

We decided to have dinner at Victoria restaurant (at Hotel Ichinose) again, and my body was glad I did. It wanted protein and lots of it, so steak it was. I don't remember much after that as my body shut down and I crashed out on the bed.

[ILoveZao 8]

That took me a long time to read (my reading is slow!)

But thank you.

And interesting photos as well.

[Sciclone 2]

Last day...

 

Monday 22nd

 

After checking the weather reports, it looked like there was going to be no snow on Tuesday, meaning we'd be heading back to Tokyo early. Because of this, we decided to make the most of it.

We headed straight up to Terakoya in the morning, and played around there. There were a few ski patrol guys out, but Dean and I still managed to have a play in the trees without getting our passes confiscated.

 

We did a couple of runs there, before heading over to the terrain park at Yakebitai via Ichinose. With not many ski schoolers venturing over that way, we had some nice bare runs to ourselves. We got to the South wing of the Prince Hotel, then caught the lift up that drops you off at the top of the terrain park. I'd like to say that I improved over my efforts on Saturday, but I hadn't. With multiple bails over the weekend on my torn stomach muscles, I chickened out of most of it. It was now getting on to 11.30, but with the prices at the Prince being quite pricey, we headed to the gift shop instead and grabbed some nibbles.

 

Afterwards, we headed back up to the top of the terrain park, with me and Dean stretching heaps before heading down... It didn't do much good, as bailing on hard-pack hurts, and with a few offs, I hurt my wrists and stomach for the eleventy billionth time. We got a gondola to the top, and headed back over to Ichinose, but it was 2.45pm before we got to Rocky's for some lunch. After a big feed of pork and rice, a beer and a cappucino, I was feeling lethargic, but after a wait while Dean went back to the hotel to grab his video camera, we headed out again. We did my favourite Ichinose-Terakoya-Higashi-Ichinose run with Dean and Conrad holding their camera's while we went down. We were had it by this stage, but as it was our last day, Dean and I headed out for one last lift (they were closing soon). We played in and out of the trees with Dean filming, but once we reached the bottom, we knew that was it.

 

It was sort of bitter-sweet. I love the snow and snowboarding, but this time I took far too many bails and wrecked my body way worse than last year. A couple of days in Tokyo would be some welcome respite.

 

We had decided the night before to have dinner in the restaurant in our hotel. Ganji had asked us where we had been eating a couple of times and we felt bad that we had been eating out nearly every night since we got here. At traditional Japanese hotels (this one is run in a similar way), you eat whatever has been prepared. We weren't sure though because the cold breakfasts we'd been having made us wary. I had asked one of the managers the night before what would been on the menu, as well as letting him know that I can't eat cooked fish, but when he said that it would be Karaage (fried chicken), Japanese-style steak (thinly cut), some veges and salad and soup, we said ok. And all for the princely sum of 1200Y (about $15). It wasn't bad actually, with the steak being nicely marbled, and all the food being quite good. It was served early though, so it allowed us time to pack and do some washing for the trip back to Tokyo.

 

 

So in conclusion, it was a great trip despite the injuries.

 

I'd recommend the Hotel Mt Shiga to someone looking for a cheap japanese style accommodation. The western rooms are warm enough that you don't need to sleep under the covers, something that's handy if you aren't used to hard mattresses. The food is more typically japanese food, with miso and rice for breakfast every morning, so if you are a buffet person, I'd give it a miss.

 

The management and staff are pretty friendly (more friendly than Sunroute), and its closer to the other restaurants. Vending machines are only found on the B1 floor and they only have an Asahi Super Dry machine. There are other beers available from the gift shop, but this is generally not open, unless you ask the staff to go in.

 

If I wanted a cheap trip, I'd stay at the Hotel Mt Shiga again.

[joshnii 2]

The one and the same?

http://www.snowjapan.com/e/hotel/viewhotel.php?hotid=271

[Sciclone 2]

Yep, that's the one.. booked through japanspecialists who the link goes through. It was the second time I used JS (first time was Sunroute), and they are very good for anybody international wanting to go over.

[RobBright 35]

Damn, you've sold me on SK, maybe staying around for xmas yet again so could possible do with a few days away.

 

Nice report - can't wait for the pics.

[muikabochi 208]

Why are you waiting, he uploaded loads here:

 

http://www.snowjapan.com/e/insider/photo_section.php?userGallery=341&userid=Sciclone

 

 

Nice report and pics Sciclone, thanks for sharing

[RobBright 35]

Because I was having dinner

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Yeah Rob, SK is quality. I was there over New Year, the snow was SWEEEEET

[RobBright 35]

we know TB, you keep saying.

[pie-eater 207]

I'm not convinced myself...

[RobBright 35]

Not enough pies?

[pie-eater 207]

No, I mean TB. I'm not convinced he likes Shiga Kogen.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

yeah actually you are right...its shit, don't go