Japanuary 2023 - another belated trip report

[Seat0B]

Thanks for your terrific TR! Brings back great memories.
We stayed for 10 nights at Shiga Kogen Prince West Hotel in Feb this year (third time there). It was a bargain: JPY108,000pp including breakfast, 3 day Yakebitaiyama area lift pass and 6 day senior all mountain lift pass. Yes, rooms are small but gorgeous view and walking distance to Ichinose if you don’t want to wait for the shuttle bus. There is a basic lounge area in the lobby where you can chill out with your own alcohol and snacks, perfect for our group of 9.

How did you book this deal @Fifa? Direct to hotel or via booking.com or similar? We would probably stay at West on our next visit for a deal like that.

 

[Flyfrequently]

Flushed with the kind response to my belated Middle East and Central Europe TR, I've decided to have another go with a belated report of our trip to Japan from January - February 2023.

Just finished ready this TR @Seat0B - an excellent read and your commentary has had me smiling each time I read a post. Good luck with your recovery

 

[HirafuHeartAttack]

What an amazing story! I truly hope you are doing well with the treatment and will be back on snow ASAP. But it warmed my heart to see you say you had the best day of skiing despite the impending diagnosis!

I'll appreciate the powder turns in Hokkaido in Feb a little more for you if you don't make it to Japan this winter!

 

[Seat0B]

Wednesday 1 February 2023 - Shiga Kogen to Madarao

Caught the Nagaden bus to JR Nagano for ¥2,500 (about $27) out the front of the hotel at 0940 on a cold, clear blue day. Punctual to the minute. Loaded up and enjoyed the luxury of a double seat each - which did not last long as hordes of people joined the bus at each stop and before too long even the fold down seats in the aisle were pressed into service.



As usual, lots of people got off at the snow monkey park, so things were a bit less crowded after that. Arrived at JR Nagano with enough time to buy some ekiben for our lunch, and also scored a couple of hot apple oyaki, a local speciality that is a steamed bun filled with delicious cinnamon apple filling. The we caught the next bus to Madarao - I didn't note the price of this.

Arrived at Madarao on time at 1245 and used Google Maps to make the allegedly short walk to our hotel (Active Life Madarao) from the bus drop off. When I booked, I enquired about a shuttle from the bus drop off and was told it was less than 3 minutes walk and there was no hotel shuttle, despite a shuttle being mentioned in the advertising material . We left Seat Friend at the bus stop as she wasn't feeling 100% and did not want to walk around unnecessarily.

Well, we had a cold and unpleasant 10 minute walk dragging suitcases and ski bags through heavy snow as new snow fell on us and we looked for the very un-signed hotel. Once we found the hotel, the manager, Lisa (who is a total force of nature) had within minutes despatched a shuttle to the top of the hill for Seat Friend and her bags (she had no idea why I had been told no shuttle and was horrified when I showed her the message exchange), checked us all in, had her little helper carry our bags upstairs to our rooms, taken us on a hotel tour and escorted us to our rooms - Wow!! Unpacked and then sat in the guest lounge and ate our bento boxes for a very late lunch. Took an orientation walk of the very small village to check out the lie of the land, scope out the resort, and identify some of the restaurants Lisa had suggested for our stay.

Unfortunately this hotel is not ski in/ski out, and it is a solid 5 mins uphill to get to the resort. Lesson for next time is to read the blurb a bit more carefully. When I re-checked it, I found that it actually said it was ski in - which it kind of was if you were willing to ski through a car park, across 2 major roads and then about a further 100m down a smaller road to get to the hotel. In fact, skiing on roads is illegal in Japan and highly frowned upon by local people, and plus, the main roads were cleared of snow for the benefit of the traffic, so you had to stop and take off your skis and walk across and put them back on again. Probably should have read this and some of the comments on various travel sites a bit more closely and I wouldn't have made this mistake. This hotel also offered an "onsen" - which in fact was an onsen style pool that they operated like a Western hot tub - mixed gender and swimsuits required. Who takes a swimsuit to Japan?????

On the plus side, the rooms are lovely and the staff are very helpful. Plus the included breakfast was generous quantities of self serve cereal and toast/spreads, with a rotating daily special hot dish of things like quiche, bacon and egg roll, French toast etc. The hotel also offered a great bar snacks menu of Japanese classics at affordable prices ¥500-700, ($6-8) such as gyoza, karaage chicken, edamame with chilli salt etc, so for dinner we just had a drink and snacks from the bar. While we ate, we talked about the possibility of getting some ski lessons. We are all advanced skiers, but none of is is perfectly satisfied with our skills, and plus none of us had taken a lesson for at least 25 years or maybe longer. We found that we could get a 3 hr private lesson for up to 4 people for a total of ¥28,000 ($310) or 2 hour group lessons in a group or 8-12 for ¥10,500 per person so ¥3,100 ($33 ish) more for a shorter lesson in a bigger group. No brainer to take the private lesson in these circumstances. We mentioned this to Lisa as she cleared our dinner dishes and she let us know that the hotel had in-house ski instructors for guests and it would be ¥20,000 (about $220) for a 3 hour private session. She also introduced us to the Go Nagano web site which offered a 50% discount on weekday lift tickets with no catches at all other than the ticket receipt had to be shown on a smart phone and exchanged at a ticket office for a ticket. The site had an English page explaining all this, BUT you had to register to make a purchase, and registration was only available in Japanese, including the password instructions. I actually managed to understand about 70% of it as registration is pretty context contained (name, address, email, phone, nationality etc), so quite chuffed, but not enough to fully complete the process, but luckily there was a Japanese member of staff (off duty) who was happy to help us complete it. So we got a 2 day all mountain senior's pass for ¥5,000- about $55 for 2 days of skiing!!! very happy with that.

Went to be anticipating a great day tomorrow, only to be woken after a couple of hours by an extremely loud noise in our room - sounded like a heavy duty snow clearer. This continued to randomly happen thoughout the whole night, so woke up feeling shattered the next morning.

edit: typos

 

[Seat0B]

Thursday 2 February - Madarao

Snow clearer noise started up again at about 0600. Mr Seat 0A recorded it on his phone and we fell back into a deep sleep until the alarm got us up at 0730 to meet Seat Friend at 0800 in the breakfast room. Asked her if she heard the snow clearer all night - she said nope.

Made the steep walk up the hill carrying our equipment and by the time we got there I realised 3 things:

1. it was way warmer here than at Shiga Kogen
2. I was very overdressed and sweating profusely
3. it was a serious travel mistake to book something with a walk like this to the slopes.

Next mission was to find the ticket office to exchange the Go Nagano vouchers for our cheap ski tickets. Turns out that it is at the bottom of the first slope, which requires a leap of faith that if you ski down to it, you will get a ticket and be able to ride the lift back up again - otherwise you would face a long and sweaty climb back up the hill. Anyway, it all worked perfectly, and with our unbelievably cheap tickets in our jacket pockets, we headed out to explore at 0930.

Started with a couple of nice warm up runs, and then a steeper one that turned out to be quite the challenge. Actually it bevame very steep in parts, was wholly ungroomed and the layer of snow on top concealed some serious moguls. Not my idea of fun but I gritted my teeth, gave myself a talking to and suprised myself by doing rather well (even if I say it myself ). Next run we took the neighbouring run, which was lovely - same level of steepness, just a bit more groomed. Very nice. Did it three times, then it was time for lunch before our afternoon lesson. We went into the main cafeteria/food hall restaurant called Heidi, and got good coffee ¥600, a couple of red bean oyaki (anman) ¥275 ea and a big blueberry twist softserve icecream ¥400. I must say I'm feeling a bit nervous about having a lesson after so long, and not all my previous lessons had been a positive experience.

Met our instructor Henry at 1pm - a young (20) Kiwi with flowing long dark hair. He confessed that we were the first people who actually knew how to ski that he had ever taught, and it did take him a little while to work out what to do with us, but then....it was incredibly valuable. He identified all of us as having different technique flaws - mine is not fully carving the whole turn, Seat Friend skis old school with her legs glued together and her feet touching, and Mr Seat 0A is inclined to sit back and/or lean into the hill when he is tired or challenged or just feeling lazy.

edit: somehow I have accidentally posted this before it was finished, so I will continue in a new post.

 

[Seat0B]

Thursday 2 February - Madarao part 2

My technique correction is to initiate weight transfer to the new downhill ski before it crosses the fall line rather than after, using a more pedalling action (like you do for short radius turns) with about 80% of weight on the new downhill ski, unless it's very soft snow, when the weight would be more like 50:50. Well talk about instant feedback and instant improvement . I immediately felt much more stable and in control of my turns, and a huge added benefit of this improvement in technique is a massive reduction the the quad burn that I've experienced for many years. Quad burn has effectively vanished with this better technique.

Henry took us all over the mountain, with something for everyone. Mr Seat 0A took a few jumps, which Seat Friend and I were happy to avoid. We all did Powder Line, a challenging, steep, powder covered, tree lined, mogulled, black run and I totally nailed it despite this being about my worst possible ski nightmare! Tip - plant pole well downhill to master the moguls. I am absolutely thrilled with my improvement. And a bit annoyed with myself for taking so long to invest in lessons once past the beginner/intermediate stage. I guess we spent all our money on lessons for the Seat Kids, who both now ski impeccably and look like ski instructors!

When we got back to the hotel, we mentioned the loud noise and played the recording. They knew what it was immediately - it's the water pumpt that circulates water from a large holding tank to a smaller ready use tank and is activated every time someone has a bath or shower. They were unaware how loud it was in the nearby rooms and quickly offered to move us to a new room tomorrow - tonight is unfortunately fully booked, so we gratefully accepted this plan. We also booked another lesson with Henry tomorrow.

Decided to do bar snacks and drinks for dinner again. When we sat in the guest lounge (which has only 2 large tables and lot of tables for 2), one of the large tables was occupied by a guy using his lap top, so we 3 took the other large table and started chatting about our day. A few minutes later, he put on head phones. A couple more minutes and he came over and told us to keep our noise down because "I'm in a meeting here" and said that if we couldn't be quiet (in a public area no less) we should move to the table around the corner - a little table set for 2. This really got up my nose for some reason, and I wish I had the speed of thought to reply "well poor you, I'm on holiday here." But instead I just said that as there were 3 of us and only 1 of him, and it is a guest lounge, and we were actually not particularly noisy, he could feel free to move to the table around the corner to the little table if he wanted. Anyway, he moved and later gave a footballer style apology "sorry if I was rude before but I was here first and ypu were too noisy." What an entitled dick.

On return to our room, Mr Seat 0A somehow slipped on the polished wood floor (wearing too loose/big house slippers) and smacked his foot into a wall - and he now has clearly broken a toe given the bruising, the swelling and the odd angle. Went straight to Lisa, and she provided a proper ice bottle thing that you fill with ice, showed me where to get more ice, provided some strapping tape and a stretch bandage and very kindly agreed to postpone our non-refundable, non-cancellable just booked lesson until next week so that Mr Seat 0A might be able to participate. He clearly won't be getting his foot into a ski boot for the next couple of days. I straightened the toe as gently as I could, and strapped it to the toe next to it as advised by Dr Google. I really feel for him.

Woken again by the noisy pump a couple of times, so really glad to be changing rooms tomorrow.

Coffee and icecream for lunch!

 

[Seat0B]

Friday 3 Feb 2023 - Madarao

Poor Mr Seat 0A is black and blue today. The ice has reduced the swelling but there is extensive bruising coming out and he cannot tolerate wearing a shoe, so skiing is definitely out. So, leisurely breakfast and a bit of re-planning of our day, while the lovely staff prioritised moving us to our new room - we were able to transfer in by 0945, amazing effort. Our new room is much bigger than the old one, but with a less luxurious bathroom. It is much, much quieter, so that will be appreciated.

Mr Seat 0A settled in with his computer to while away the day, having pushed Seat Friend and me to go out and ski. i felt pretty mean doing that, but hey, no friends on a powder day, right? We basically did a repeat of the runs we did yesterday in an attempt to consolidate our gains from our lesson. When I remember to do the pedalling action early in the turn, things are just so much better, but I still have to think about it and overcome years of bad muscle memory. I did a couple of long runs top to bottom with no quad burn at all - would previously have needed 2 or even 3 stops- so pretty thrilled with that - who knew that technique was so important

Took some beautiful photos of Seat Friend with magnificent snow trees as the background, lunch at Heidi and I headed in early about 1430 to keep Mr Seat 0A company, while Seat Friend did a few more runs. Did a couple of loads of washing, and then we settled in for a nice evening of bar snacks and board games with an early night at 2100 - again I am feeling very tired for no reason that was obvious at the time. Our new room is quiet and I slept very well -yay!

 

[Seat0B]

Saturday 4 Feb 2023 - Madarao

Slept late today and had to rush to make last call on breakfast at 0845. Despite all the sleep, I woke up feeling terrible, which lasted all day - exhausted and headachy, and with a weird pain in my right side and ribs (subsequently confirmed to be likely to be caused by an enlarged liver, courtesy of the hairy cell leukaemia - 20/20 hindsight is making a lot of sense of a range of weird health experiences). Luckily we had planned a rest day today, before anyone got hurt or tired!

We caught the 0945 super crowded community bus into the nearby town of Iiyama for ¥500 each. A number of locals heading to town for their daily lives, but a large group of young Australians with ski bags everywhere, dropping the F bomb at the top of their voices and not wearing a mask (which was still compulsory, and culturally was very poor form indeed). Mr Seat 0A got the last seat, having greater need than me. But I certainly could have used a seat if one of those rude youngsters had thought to offer me one (grumpy old woman, I know). Never mind, it was a beautiful scenic ride and I spent a fair bit of time wondering about all the abandoned houses (akiya) along the way. Arrived in Iiyama at 1015 and hit the supermarket for supplies for the next few days and the pharmac_ for some better painkillers and strapping items for Mr Seat 0A.

As always when I travel, I really enjoyed the leisurely mosey around the supermarket. Things I noticed:

• super high quality of fruit and veg, at reasonable prices
• huge array of seafood items, most of which I did not recognise
• meat super expensive (at least $40/kg for cheap cuts, and better cuts in the $60 range) except for pork
• massive choice of different types of mushrooms
• massive choice of soy sauces for different uses
• massive choice of different miso
• rice is expensive - on a par with what I pay at home for koshihikari rice (the short grain, slightly sticky rice that makes eating with chopsticks a delight)
• alcohol is super cheap 750ml of brand name scotch, vodka or other spirits for ¥1,600 (about $18) and 2.7 litres of local scotch for ¥2500 (less than $30)

From where I took the photo below all the way down to Seat Friend with our trolley was just different types of mushrooms, and look at those prices - very affordable.


From where I took the photo below all the way down to Seat Friend with our trolley was the miso selection!!



Plus, beers of all sizes


Bought bento boxes and pastries for our lunch and caught the 1240 bus. Pressed into service by the bus driver who was very anxious that a western passenger who got on somewhere up the mountain did not disembark at Iiyama JR station. Turns out she was American and actually wanted to go to Madaro, but got confused on got on the bus from the wrong side of the road and ended up in Iiyama by mistake. I was able to translate between the two of them and felt very successful! She actually wanted to go to Tangram, and this bus definitely did NOT go to Tangram, but at least she was forewarned and able to let her hotel know to collect her from Madarao.

Got back to the hotel, had lunch, strapped up Mr Seat 0A's toes with the new stretchy self adhesive tape, shuffled the washing I did yesterday to try to get it dry without too many wrinkles (paging @RooFlyer), wrote up my paper travel diary (that is allowing me to recall all these details for this belated TR), and before we knew it, was time for the now traditional bar snacks and drinks and board games. Snowing heavily.

Tomorrow we had already planned a day trip to Nozawa Onsen. Originally thought we might ski, but Mr Seat 0A will definitely not be up to that, so we will see how we feel tomorrow, but thinking that we might actually just go fully Japanese and do a visit to a few of the onsens, have lunch and call it a day.

 

[RooFlyer]

But I certainly could have used a seat if one of those rude youngsters had thought to offer me one (grumpy old woman, I know).

What? You haven't learned Grumpy Old Folk Rule #41? If in a public place, pick one of the wimpier looking ones and berate them in front of his/her mates. Especially effective if there is another seat-needy person nearby and you can point to them. Said wimpy one might give up the seat (and then you can move onto the next one - divide and conquer) but the all should have some shame.

I have no interest in skiing or ski resorts, but still following along with great interest. Your diaries must be fantastic!

 

[Seat0B]

Sunday 5 February 2023 Madarao - day trip to Nozawa Onsen

Up at 0745, breakfast and get ready and head up to the Madarao Kogen Hotel to catch the bus at 0930 to Nozawa Onsen. Trip was via Iiyama and cost ¥1,200 (about $15) each way - time taken about 1 hr. This bus was not crowded at all, and from Iiyama to Nozawa Onsen there was no one else on board. Got off at the Chuo bus station, where they have built a new waiting room since we were here in 2020.

Over to the tourist info for a map of the onsens, followed by a saunter down the hill to the lower (and therefore cooler) ones where we selected Kumanoteara-yu) a small and authentically local onsen. Two young girls were finishing up as we arrived and soon we had the place to ourselves (Seat Friend and I - of course Mr Seat 0A was in the men's side). An elderly Japanese lady arrived as we were doing our perparatory wash and she was very sweet to us. Smiled and giggled when I exclaimed "atsui" (hot) and suggested that the other pool was cooler (nerui), told us it was Ok to pour clean cold tap water into the onsen using a clean wash basin, diverted the flow of natural hot water and then gave both of us a vigorous back scrub with soap that "tightens the skin". I thanked her profusely in my poor Japanese, and she batted our thanks away, saying it was nice to see respectful foreigners enjoying the onsen in the traditional way. A delightful and authentic little interlude. Photos below show 2 of the three Onsens we visited!



And the third one was empty when we arrived so I got to snap a couple of photos. These are really authentic onsens, used by the local people, compared with the fancy upmarket hotel spa style onsens used by many tourists. It's a bit hard core, but so much fun.



In between our onsen soaks, as I said, we acted totally Japanese for the day, so we did a lot of grazing and bought omiyage (souvenirs to give to people back home). First photos are of some oyaki, the local speciality of steamed buns with various sweet or savoury fillings - delicious, and only ¥200-250 each, and the others are our various coffee stops




And finally the tourist stuff - shichimi togarashi (a delicious spicy blend of 7 spices including chilli, to sprinkle on rice, eggs, fish) and the display of local handicrafts in a beautiful little shop where I spent waaaaay too much money on cutsie nicknacks....



the very hot cooking onsen only accessible by locals, and the shrine, which was snowed in so much that you could not climb the very steep stairs to enter it ...


And some street art...


Late afternoon bus back to Madarao arriving at 1705, and the mountains looked spectacular in the golden hour, but I could not capture it through the dirty windows of the bus, so you will just have to imagine it.

Mr Seat 0A was in severe need of ice and elevation for his foot, so he headed home and Seat Friend and I headed to the burger restaurant "Unjaune" recommended by Lisa the hotel manager where we got fries and burgers almost as big as our heads (pulled pork for Seat Friend and panko crumbed cod with apple slaw for me)! I don't know how we found the room for them after grazing all day, but we managed pretty well (I took half home in a doggy bag for Mr Seat 0A, who was pleased to eat it) and forgot to take any photos, so this from Trip Advisor will give you the flavour. Costs were in the range of ¥2,200-Y3,000 ($25-35ish) but really good value as the serves were huge. Bring your appetite!


What a great day. Hoping Mr Seat 0A will be able to ski tomorrow.

 

[Seat0B]

What? You haven't learned Grumpy Old Folk Rule #41? If in a public place, pick one of the wimpier looking ones and berate them in front of his/her mates. Especially effective if there is another seat-needy person nearby and you can point to them. Said wimpy one might give up the seat (and then you can move onto the next one - divide and conquer) but the all should have some shame.

I have no interest in skiing or ski resorts, but still following along with great interest. Your diaries must be fantastic!

I have a lot to learn about being a Grumpy Old Woman - seems like it has just suddenly caught up with me

And I love keeping a paper diary - I stick in tickets, and receipts, and bits of brochures and all sorts of things that really bring the day back to life for me. It takes a while to do it, but somehow I always manage to find a few quiet minutes with a coffee to hand to get it down.

 

[Seat0B]

Monday 6 February 2023 - Madarao

Well the walk up to the slopes is not getting any easier despite 2 rest days and was a serious push for Mr Seat 0A with hsi swollen foot. We did not see him wrangling it into his ski boot this morning, but I bet it wasn't any fun.

Anyway, he skied down to the ticket office without any drama and we headed over to Tangram (the joined up neighbouring resort), but it was very icy and not much fun, so we quickly returned and did several runs on Sky Love which was fast becoming my favourite run in the resort. Weirdly there were a lot more people at the resort today - must be the beautiful sunny weather bringing people out. Stopped for lunch and then headed back to the main area of Madarao, and called it quits for the day after 12 runs, which is a massive effort from Mr Seat 0A. Sent Seat Friend off to wear herself out and we went back to the hotel, arriving about 1430. Ski conditions were really Australian today - it hit 2⁰ at lunchtime today and the snow was a mixture of icy hard patches, softening wet heavy snow, and death cookies everywhere. The base is deep and stable. If I got these conditions in Perisher I'd be happy enough, but for Japan, I found today a bit meh . Also, I am feeling very tired and sluggish again, which in hindsight must have been the leukaemia starting to bite. Wah!

I did 2 loads of washing and hung these around the room to dry, had a long shower, wrote up the travel diary, did Japanese practice and planned bar snacks for dinner. Enjoyed some live music and a couple of games of pool before another early night.

 

[Seat0B]

Tuesday 7 Feb 2023 - Madarao
A great day's skiing improvement today. Did a few warm up runs, then in for coffee, ice cream and lunch before our deferred lesson with Henry. Heaps of practice on short radius turns and carving turns. My takeway from today's lesson is that a reason my turns are partially skidded rather than fully carved is because I don't get up enough speed to force the ski to carve. This makes total sense to me as I was always a cautious skier, and since having both knees replaced, even more so. So my drill was to ski straight down the fall line with Henry just behind and only turn when he told me to - quite scary the speed I needed to raise, but it did make me carve the turns! Mr Seat 0A managed quite well considering the state of his foot.

We all discussed tomorrow and decided to book one final lesson in the morning.

Wednesday 8 Feb 2023 - Madarao
Our last day of skiing for this trip - another clear warm day, with temperature around 2⁰ at 0930. Snow is forecast for this afternoon, and is definitely needed as things are getting quite Australian here. Today's lesson was lots and lots of carving practice at both Madarao and Tangram. To make me carve and have the speed to do it, Henry took us through a bunch of tree lined chutes (so you have to ski straight down and don't get to do turns to bleed off speed) and then we carved the turns out of the chutes. This was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, and I did a few really great carves. I just obviously need more time on task to perfect this and get over the fear factor. Nothing bad happened to me, so I don't really know why I felt so afraid. Then we shouted Henry out to lunch, much to his delight - ski instructors are not well paid, and he was a growing lad, so he loaded up his plate and we enjoyed a chat about life in general.

By the start of lunch it had started to snow as forecast, and by the end of lunch it was powdering down. So off we went to make the most of the last few runs in heavy snow and accumulating powder. Makes it hard to leave when the snow is falling....

Back at the hotel, we checked out luggage forwarding to the airport for our ski bags and equipment which will make the rest of our trip much easier to manage. The ubiquitous Kuro Neko (Black Cat) will collect our bags from reception tomorrow and send them straight to Haneda Airport to await our collection on Tuesday 21 Feb for the flight home to CBR.

Preliminary packing done, out to Unjaune for massive burgers, chips and beers to celebrate our last night at Madarao.

I've quite enjoyed our time here, but I don't think we will come back again. The resort is quite small, and after 8 days we felt we had pretty much covered the turf. The village is very small and doesn't offer the same amenity that we found in Hakuba or Nozawa Onsen, although much better than Shiga Kogen (Ichinose). However, the skiing at Shiga Kogen is sublime that really makes up for it.

 

[Seat0B]

Thursday 9 February 2023 Madarao to Matsumoto

Filled in the Black Cat paperwork, deposited our ski bags etc with reception and paid ¥2,500 (about $28) per ski bag and ¥2,200 (about $25) per other bag and waved them goodbye. I'm a bit surprised and disappointedd at how heavy my luggage remains - it's defintiely not clothes, more likely all the laundry gear, picnic set (for our snack meals), and medications...

Waited about 20 minutes for the Nagano Snow Shuttle to JR Nagano, all the while it was powdering down snow. Then there was a delay in departure of 20 minutes caused by the snow and the need for the driver to fit chains for our trip down the mountain. The drive to Nagano was absolutely spectacularly beautiful - no shots because of condensation on the bus windows.

On arrival in Nagano, we set Mr Seat 0A up in Starbucks as his foot was not great - I honestly don't know how he managed to ski those last three days. Seat Friend and I went in search of eki ben for our lunch and bought tickets for the trip to Matsumoto for ¥1170 on the local train from the ticket machine (cash or Suica/IC card only) rather than spend ¥2,700 on the limited express, and settled in for a very snowy 1 hr 15 minute scenic trip to Matsumoto. Arrived uneventfully into very heavy snowfall and large quantities of snow on the ground. Our hotel was only 500m away, but it was a hard effort to drag our bags that distance given the extent of the snow.


We are staying at Onyado Nono, for a very Japanese experience, paid about $150/night including a generous breakfast. It is a tatami mat hotel, so strictly shoes off on arrival and put them into a locker at reception before entry. The wheels of our bags were inspected by the staff, and brushed and dried before we were allowed into the reception area. All female staff were wearing kimono and males their equivalents, and very traditional hair styles and ornaments, samisen music plucking away in the background, symbols of the Takagawa era daimyo families all throughout the hotel. Just wow - and very very Japanese. Our rooms were a lovely take on modern traditional, with lots of light wood, low furnishings, tatami mats and floor cushions, but a low western style bed. Plus there is an amazing, beautiful natural spring onsen on the roof. Seat Friend and I indulged in the full experience - thorough wash off, hot soak, hot outdoor soak, cold soak (12⁰) more hot soaking, moisturiser and body lotion and then "post-onsen icy poles" which turned out to be free choc coated vanilla icecreams. Just delightful.




Hotel photo of the onsen as there were others using it when we were there - but it did look exactly like this



Took advantage of the free ramen/udon, tea, coffee, juice and snacks in the hotel lounge and played some board games. Planned a modified day for tomorrow as there is 40cm of snow forecast overnight, and some things are expected to be closed or limited access because of the weather.

 

[zig]

Really enjoying your TR. I'm not a skier and would never do this trip, but am still enjoying it immensely.
Your energy levels and capacity to go go go is amazing, particularly given what you now know was your health status at the time.

 

[rbjhan]

Onyado Nono together with Dormy Inn are my favourite hotel chains in Japan!
Haven't been to the one in Matsumoto though as it's pretty new, but I do plan to go some day...

Speaking of ski in ski out places in Nagano, Akakura Kanko Hotel in Myoko Kogen is my all time favourite.

 

[Seat0B]

Onyado Nono together with Dormy Inn are my favourite hotel chains in Japan!
Haven't been to the one in Matsumoto though as it's pretty new, but I do plan to go some day...

Speaking of ski in ski out places in Nagano, Akakura Kanko Hotel in Myoko Kogen is my all time favourite.

You won’t regret staying at the lovely one in Matsumoto - it was really nice.

 

[Fifa]

How did you book this deal @Fifa? Direct to hotel or via booking.com or similar? We would probably stay at West on our next visit for a deal like that.

I booked it via a Japanese travel agency in Sydney. We’ve used them and a second good agency many times. I’ll send you a message with the details if you like.
Two of our other fave ski-in/ski-out resorts are Furano and Tomamu. Much easier and cheaper to get to from New Chitose Airport than the resorts in Honshu.

 

[Seat0B]

I booked it via a Japanese travel agency in Sydney. We’ve used them and a second good agency many times. I’ll send you a message with the details if you like.
Two of our other fave ski-in/ski-out resorts are Furano and Tomamu. Much easier and cheaper to get to from New Chitose Airport than the resorts in Honshu.

Thank you a message with those details would be great!

And I have a friend who is a Furano fiend, so that will be on the cards very soon (as long as I can get well!) and I've also heard good things about Tomamu, so if you want to share any details about those locations, I'd love to have it.

As I said upthread, our first experience of Hokaido was very sad, and we have not been able to "force" ourselves back there when we have generally had such a good run on Honshu. But now I am nearly retired and have more time and money on my hands, we are skiing longer each visit and I think it's past time that we got over ourselves and ventured north again - as was the original plan for this 2023 trip....

 

[Seat0B]

Friday 10 Feb 2023 - Matsumoto - Part 1

Mr Seat 0A was up early today and headed off to the onsen, which he had entirely to himself and thoroughly enjoyed. I slept late, and thoroughly enjoyed that 0

It had bucketed with snow overnight (about 30 cm) and was still snowing steadily all morning. It was also very cold - hovering around -7⁰, but luckily not too windy.

Next was our washoku (traditional Japanese) breakfast. What a spread! Here's a sample of what we ate:

• rice with a full range of pickles (eg daikon, umeboshi, nozawana, ginger etc) and furikake (things you sprinkle on the top - mainly spices, nori shreds, chilli etc)
• miso soup with spring onions, tofu, mushrooms
• tempura prawns and tempura vegetables
• soba noodles with optional oysters
• vegetable fritters
• various fried and steamed fish
• tofu with spring onions and a lovely savoury glaze
• scrambled eggs
• fried eggs
• fruit and yoghurt
• pastries and...
• cake!!

Here is a photo of my first tray - after that it got pretty messy

I really enjoyed this breakfast, and it seemed to be a very authentic experience as there was only one other non-Japanese couple, and everyone else was Japanese. I wouldn't want to eat this way every day, but for a splurge, I really enjoyed it.


Our original plan for the day was to rent a bike and visit the famous Matsumoto black castle, and then trip around the town and the pretty riverside area. Our modified snow day plan was to go to the JR station and reserve our remaining seats (pop quiz from early in this thread - why didn't we do that at Haneda on our first day?? - yes you are right, disaster was lurking in that whole process, about to unfold on us). While we were at the station, we planned to visit the Tourist info for some snow day ideas and to find out what was affected by the weather, have a coffee at the station Starbucks and make our plan for the day, and then go to the castle for a visit and snow photos. But, like all good plans, this one did not survive contact with the enemy!

Just after I had dressed in my cold weather attire (thermal underwear, several layers of shirts, a jumper, a coat, hat gloves, scarf and thick socks) ready to leave the hotel, Mr Seat 0A asked me if by any chance I had his JR pass and shinkansen tickets somewhere? I did not. There then ensued a thorough searching of the room, his bags, my bags, my folder of trip paraphenalia, my handbag, the pockets of his coat, the pockets of his jeans etc, but all to no avail. The mess in the room (including all the clothes I stripped off along the way) was astounding, so we put up the do not disturb sign to keep the poor housekeeping staff out. This took more than an hour, after which we delcared the pass lost. These passes cannot be replaced once activated, so it was going to be an expensive exercise, plus a test of my Japanese language skills to report it lost (in case of an insurance claim) and then sort out what to do. Once we knew we were going to be a while, we sent Seat Friend off to explore the shops around the JR station.

First attempt was to see if the pass could be replaced. I knew it could not be, but worth asking. That was a hard no.
Next step was to report the pass lost and get a report so I could claim on TI. To my surprise, that was also a hard no. The problem was that when I started out, I just said the pass had been lost. They asked me exactly where it had been lost, and my big mistake (another one for the travel mistakes thread!) was to say that I did not know where. This was the truth - it was lost somewhere between Haneda and Matsumoto via all the places in between, but I have no idea where. I even contemplated at that time (but did not say, fortunately) that it might have ended up in one of the ski bags that we sent via black cat yesterday. As an aside, it was not found in any of the ski luggage after our return home, so it really weas genuinely lost somewhere. Anyway, they refused to give me a report because "we don't know that you lost it here and it must be reported at the place where you lost it" - which I suppose is fair enough at some level , because it actually was not lost at Matsumoto, but not very good at another level because we had no idea where it had been lost. My Japanses (and google translate) was not up to the task of conveying that all I wanted to do was report it lost, somewhere, not specifically lost here, and eventually I just had to give up. I went to the police counter to report it lost, and got the same response. It's kind of weird when ypu think about it - if I knew exactly where it was lost, it wouldn't be lost, would it?? I was pretty anxious that the TI claim was now doomed to fail because I did not have the loss report that they specified as necessary for a claim for lost documents/tickets/cash.

Here's a photo of the JR staff member and google translate as we tried to resolve the issue.



While all this was going on (took more than another hour), Seat Friend continued to have an excellent time looking in the shops and buying a few little kitchen gadgets and trying on a lot of clothes - most of which were too small! We arranged to meet up in Starbucks for a hot beverage and re-group, and decide what to do next.

In the end, there was no alternative but to fork out for separate tickets for Mr Seat 0A and just get on with it. So I left him and Seat Friend hoeing into some pastries and a second round of coffee as I toddled back to the JR office to get him tickets to match our first leg (Matsumoto-Kanazawa), and then to book seats for all three of us for our other major travel legs. Again, it was a good workout for my Japanese to confirm to the clerk (Hayashiyama san) that I only wanted to buy tickets for one person (hitori) but needed to reserve seats for three people (san nin). But in the end we got there, and I was practically the new best friend of this clerk for persisting with my dodgy (but improving) Japanese. When booking the final leg between Kyoto and Tokyo, she asked me if I would like "Fuji no mi no mado" (seats with a view of Mt Fuji) and I was able to reply "Onegai shimasu" - yes please!!, and also was able to ask her about the reservations for large luggage on this leg - ōkii nimotsu. Over an hour and almost ¥45,000 later, we all have matching transport arrangements - yay!! I felt quite effective. Not all the tickets are included in this photo, but this gives a sense of what I had to convey to Hayashiyama san to get it sorted.



Rejoined the others at Starbucks, I had a second coffee, Seat Friend took her purchases back to the hotel and returned and reported that it was still pelting with snow. While she was gone, I reviewed the tourist info (a mix of English and Japanese) and worked out how to get to the castle by bus as Mr Seat 0A's foot was still giving him grief and he wasn't keen to walk now that renting a bike was out of the question. Given how much of the day we had already lost, and the weather conditions, the castle might be the only thing we do today, and that's OK.