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Japanese ski villages/towns that aren't (frankly) a bit of a mess


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A bit of a negative title perhaps but I was just reading the other hakuba/olympics thread and wondering where might not be so ugly!

 

The nicest place I have experienced I think was Nozawa.

 

Any other "nice ski villages" out there that might be called pretty?

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It's not a negative title

Japanese towns are ugly. That's the truth.

 

Arai looked like it was built with some planning involved. The base area is much like a western resort.

 

Nozawa is a beautiful little village but I don't think there was any planning. That is just by chance that it looks good.

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Other than Nozawa, that's about it. Arai is nice and modern but it doesn't feel particularly Japanese. Most other places are indeed a mess unfortunately.

 

The snow is often forgiving though (ie. covers up a lot of mess). In summer they look much worse when all the shells of abandoned cars etc suddenly appear.

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zao is a pretty place. it is nestled up in the mountain with several old ryokan and onsen throughout the village. the concrete, although present, is kept to a minimum.

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but arai isnt a town its hotel the town is way down the road.

 

I like nozawa but the restaurants i used to like all closed down. ans there are too many o miyage shops and too many dead ends without signage. I still have trouble finding parking areas at times.

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Nozawa gets my vote as well. I haven't seen anything else like it in Japan.

 

Echigo Yuzawa is butt ugly but still not a bad little place. I think I'd prefer it over most of the hotel/resort complexes, except of course Arai with its spa facilities, which puts it in a different league altogether.

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I like Zao too, a bit like Nozawa in some ways.

Having said that, neither can of course compete with picture postcard places in Europe and the like.

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It would of course be really good if they were prettier, but I can't say I'm that bothered. What needs to be sorted better is access between resorts and things like that.

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The least ugly Japanese snow town I went to was Aomori. It seemed a nice place. Nozawa also.

 

Japan has the ugliest towns and cities I have ever seen, no question, they are horrible. Although some of the industrial and poor farming towns of far north Italy are pretty bad as well, almost reminded me of Japan.

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Spud is right, it's the whole country, not just the ski towns.

 

Aside from being a virtually-unplanned mishmash, many ski towns are quite run down. I think this is because they're having financial difficulties which are just getting worse as energy costs soar. Nozawa has the same problems, in spite of being a nice onsen town that gets people like my mother-in-law going all year round.

 

Its not much of a ski field, but Karuizawa isn't a mess. It has lots of cafes, restaurants, and shops if that's your thing, half a dozen golf courses, a good range of accom, and one of those outlet malls. It sees most of its visitors in summer, but it must be quite nice in winter too.

 

As for resort complex resorts I've been to, I prefer Kiroro to Arai.

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Places like Arai shouldn't really count as they are the resort not the town. Kiroro too.

 

Other than that a lot of run down messes around. Of course, don't really care when I'm on the snow.

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 Quote:
Originally posted by RobotChicken:
 Quote:
which are just getting worse as energy costs soar
Have they increased enough to make that much of a big difference?
Kero has almost doubled in two years. Even a small place will use thousands of liters. Prices haven't gone up, so they must be taking a hit.
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  • 4 months later...

No shit, eh?

 

I find it kind of repulsive that a culture with such a beautiful landscape and native architecture feels the need to (badly) copy european and north american designs. why is there only ONE(?) nice Japanese-slyle resort?

 

I think that ski-culture (including apres) and a traditional japanese village (with a few small changes) would blend wonderfully.

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