February 1st - Tokyo to Akakura
The alarm woke us at 7am, a solid five and a half hours of sleep in the ever reliable Haneda Airport hotel and we were out the door by 7.20am.
Tokyo monorail to Hamamatsucho, transfer to the Yamamote Inner Loop and in to Tokyo Station. Alas no time for Vegan ramen (maybe on the way back). No reserved seats left on the Hakutaka 555 Shinkansen but there was no queue in the first car so easy enough to grab both two pairs of seats and the coveted gap between the wall and the last seat for luggage.
While we were lining up, Mrs elSpike grabbed a few of these vegetable bentos from the little shop on the platform. Delicious. Maybe ¥1000 each.
As we were leaving Tokyo, Fujisan reared it’s head. I can see why people have written much about the mood of this city being tied to how visible this mountain is. So iconic.
Arrived in Nagano at 10.20am and straight on to the local train at 10.40am. (¥840 for a ticket. No Pasmo tap on) What a pretty line it follows, pacing a river with little villages every few minutes.
We arrived in Myoko about 11.30 and only had a five minute wait for a taxi to take us to our hotel. I think the fare was about ¥2200. Very reasonable.
We dumped our gear and walked down the street to Myoko Snowsports. I must say. The experience here was chalk and cheese to the one we had in Shiga. Exceptional customer service, great advice, attention to detail on the bindings and DINs.
For those who followed my thread in the equipment section, I ended up with K2 Wayback 88s @ 174, with the option to swap out another day. I had a ball on them and Couldn’t believe how light they were compared to the usual intermediate rental ones.
Mrs elSpike was especially pleased with the bogan underbody lights on her skis...
We were advised that an afternoon on just the Akakura Kanko side would be all we needed so we got a PM pass and off we went.
Vis was shocking at first.
So bad that we almost missed the Hesta restaurant in the gloom. Thankfully not though or I would have missed first soft serve of the weekend.
After lunch the visibility got much better and we had a great time playing on the edges and generally enjoying being on skis in the snow rather than home in the humidity of Singapore.
After last lift we dropped our skis at Myoko Snowsports (they let you leave them there rather than carrying up the hill) and we’ll collect them before jumping on the box tomorrow.
Our hotel allows private booking of the onsen so we did things backwards (for us) and had dinner first.
Managed to snag a table at Samurai. I only got the front page of the menu but it’s all very reasonable and delicious.
Shashimi bowl: ¥1200
Sake tasting flight ¥1500. I wish you could pay another ¥500 and choose your favourite to round out to 4.
On the way back up the hill I got another “look how much snow” pic. There has been a bit fall here.
Sugi tomorrow I think.
The alarm woke us at 7am, a solid five and a half hours of sleep in the ever reliable Haneda Airport hotel and we were out the door by 7.20am.
Tokyo monorail to Hamamatsucho, transfer to the Yamamote Inner Loop and in to Tokyo Station. Alas no time for Vegan ramen (maybe on the way back). No reserved seats left on the Hakutaka 555 Shinkansen but there was no queue in the first car so easy enough to grab both two pairs of seats and the coveted gap between the wall and the last seat for luggage.
While we were lining up, Mrs elSpike grabbed a few of these vegetable bentos from the little shop on the platform. Delicious. Maybe ¥1000 each.
As we were leaving Tokyo, Fujisan reared it’s head. I can see why people have written much about the mood of this city being tied to how visible this mountain is. So iconic.
Arrived in Nagano at 10.20am and straight on to the local train at 10.40am. (¥840 for a ticket. No Pasmo tap on) What a pretty line it follows, pacing a river with little villages every few minutes.
We arrived in Myoko about 11.30 and only had a five minute wait for a taxi to take us to our hotel. I think the fare was about ¥2200. Very reasonable.
We dumped our gear and walked down the street to Myoko Snowsports. I must say. The experience here was chalk and cheese to the one we had in Shiga. Exceptional customer service, great advice, attention to detail on the bindings and DINs.
For those who followed my thread in the equipment section, I ended up with K2 Wayback 88s @ 174, with the option to swap out another day. I had a ball on them and Couldn’t believe how light they were compared to the usual intermediate rental ones.
Mrs elSpike was especially pleased with the bogan underbody lights on her skis...
We were advised that an afternoon on just the Akakura Kanko side would be all we needed so we got a PM pass and off we went.
Vis was shocking at first.
So bad that we almost missed the Hesta restaurant in the gloom. Thankfully not though or I would have missed first soft serve of the weekend.
After lunch the visibility got much better and we had a great time playing on the edges and generally enjoying being on skis in the snow rather than home in the humidity of Singapore.
After last lift we dropped our skis at Myoko Snowsports (they let you leave them there rather than carrying up the hill) and we’ll collect them before jumping on the box tomorrow.
Our hotel allows private booking of the onsen so we did things backwards (for us) and had dinner first.
Managed to snag a table at Samurai. I only got the front page of the menu but it’s all very reasonable and delicious.
Shashimi bowl: ¥1200
Sake tasting flight ¥1500. I wish you could pay another ¥500 and choose your favourite to round out to 4.
On the way back up the hill I got another “look how much snow” pic. There has been a bit fall here.
Sugi tomorrow I think.