It the COVID-19 Travel thread: https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/coronavirus-travel-during-and-after-covid.88247/
I had that exact attitude when I got home in March. Sooooo did not want to be patient zero in an outbreak! Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess if more of us were this way...
I wrote here that Ishiuchi Maruyama is opening new treerun zones. They haven't updated the website for 20 - 21 season yet, but I've got a brochure and it has the new trail map. "New! ツリーランコース" in the map is the new treerun courses (there are two areas as you can see).
Nice, both of those sections are pretty high up on the mountain too. It seemed a bit limited when i rode there, but that was just night-skiing so i didn't really explore much.
Ishiuchi Maruyama really needs tree runs if you are after powder. The bottom elevation is only 256m, and top is 920m, so powder can get slushy quickly, if the sun's out.
Yep, but I have very good memories at Ishiuchi Maruyama, Kandatsu Kogen, etc (low altitude ski resorts in the region) because I could choose the best days. I mean, ski resorts in the region are very easily accessible from Tokyo (only 90mins), so when I was a university student in Tokyo, I often decided at 6 am to go to the region to ski after seeing how much fresh snow they have (how much it snowed overnight).
Looks nice, there's a deceptively decent amount of terrain there. As per Sandy though it will get baked quick, so it's all about being there on the right day. Having said that, I'd have other priorities in that area on a powder day before Ishiuchi. We stayed down the bottom actually, nice little quieter area away from the main Yuzawa town centre.
Not skiing but it is tourism: Madarao have just announced their new Gravel Bike Park Got to get my deck out the front built so we can sit out there and watch.
It seems Geto Kogen will have a new night time shuttle bus. They have been having shuttle bus between the Shinkansen station (Kitakami station) and the ski resort, but they'll newly add a night time shuttle bus which leaves the downtown (Izakaya district) / Kitakami station at 10:15 pm so that people who are staying at Geto Kogen's ski-in ski-out rooms can drink at izakaya in the downtown till late at night. It will run only on Tuesday and Friday, so it's for the people who are skiing at Geto Kogen on Tuesday - Wednesday or Friday - Saturday. You need to book before noon (12pm) and it will run only in Jan and Feb. With the new shuttle bus, you won't need to hire a car there. I mean, Tokyo - Kitakami (Geto Kogen) - Morioka by Shinkansen and you hire a car in Morioka city (to ski in the region). It's more economical and less tiring. The orange part is the new one. The new trail map of 20 - 21 season.
A bit more torturous snow porn. Pic from a local friend today of new gondy station at Yamabiko, Nozawa. And looks to be more snow on the ground than there was mid December 2019. Oh the pain of it all
Nice to see the new gondola setup. I bet the guys working on it are cursing the early snow! I wonder if they got the snowmaking setup finished in time? They might not need it this year.
It will make the lifted area under the old gondola (Yunomine & Mizunashi) quieter then ever, since you can no longer mid load on the old gondola. That area is good on a weekend when everywhere else is busy. Powder stays longer.
Those LCCs are important for Japanese ski resorts, especially Tohoku. I mean, the foreigners we see the most here in ski resorts in Tohoku are Taiwanese. LCCs are flying between Taiwan and Japanese local airports. Tourists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc are repeatedly visiting Japan, so they don't need to fly to Narita / Haneda for visiting Tokyo, so many of them choose LCCs to local airports near ski resorts. Air Asia Japan only had one international flight between Taiwan and Nagoya, so it won't affect us much, but I hope other "important LCCs" won't go bankrupt.
Link to story in English https://japantoday.com/category/bus...sia-japan-unable-to-refund-23-000-air-tickets
Farewell Robot Restaurant and Mari Car https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2020/11/23/voices/tokyo-tourist-traps-coronavirus/
This is not really true: "A visit to Shibuya is starting to slowly feel like it used to. After months in which the Tokyo neighborhood saw its famous crossing deserted and streets left spacious, trips there now seem almost normal, with larger crowds of people zig-zagging around — masks on their faces, of course." Shibuya crossing is not as crowded as it was, but I was there around August, and it was still somewhat crowded, and certainly not deserted.
Never did get to the Robot Restaurant (although the boys did). But great memories of the youngest getting his licence so we could do MariCart as a family. Was actually quite an amazingly different way to see the city.
It was a fantastic experience. Might need to buy all the carts etc and do Green Season tours in Hakuba
Ha! Great minds. I was thinking it’d be a fantastic green season activity in Niseko. Much safer than in the middle of Tokyo too! You’d just have to ensure you were off the roads before they became icy!
I've written several times here that the prestigious British boarding school Harrow School is opening in Appi Kogen in 2022. It seems that the current owner (a Chinese company) and the local authority are serious and local papers are reporting that they'll keep investing and make the population of Appi Kogen 10,000+. Not sure the current population but I'd say it's less than 500 (the people who work for Appi Kogen resort + the people who have lodge business at the base of Appi Kogen ski resort). So, they are planning to build a new village from scratch. I guess nearly half of the students will be from Chinese speaking countries (the mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc). So, the students aged 11 - 18 can master 3 languages, English, Chinese and Japanese. Chinese economy is the second biggest in the world after the US and Japanese economy is the third biggest after the US and China, so the international school might be very good for kids from East Asia, ASEAN and Oceania in that they can learn the 3 most important languages of the region.
Same here. My son finished high school recently. After several road trips through Japow (variously, with my daughter, friends and solo) I had promised him a father-son road trip this coming northern winter. He has his license now, so it would have been a great experience for him to get some supervised snow driving in as well. Part of the plan was the Mario Cart in Tokyo, before heading up to ski. Bummer
Looks like Nozawa getting ready to raise the curtain. Pic from local friend. Testing out their new toys!
A major Hong Kong based developer PCPD (Pacific Century Premium Developments) have announced that they'll build and open a new hotel with 230 rooms in Niseko region. The construction site is next to Park Hyatt (which opened last season at the base of Hanazono). Edit: It seems PCPD are planning to construct 11 buildings there and the hotel is only one of them.
I love the graphic design around skiing in Japan. One interesting aspect I have noticed is many ski resorts show the slopes as busy, I think it's marketed as "not all ski resorts are run down and abandoned, we have people at our one!"
China - Japan Tourism Summit is going to be held next week (17th and 18th). More than 50 Chinese tourism agencies are joining including Chinese biggest online tourism agency "Trip.com Group". Among Japanese ski resorts, Appi Kogen, Hakuba Valley and Hakkoda are joining.
This is Nozawa Onsen's new gondola(10-seater) filmed yesterday. Reportedly, Vertical = 789m, Length = 3129m and it takes only 8mins.
One of my information sources says "Alts Bandai and Nekoma might be linked with lift(s) and they might install the lift(s) as early as 2022 summer". Really?. That's what I've been waiting for. I really want it to happen, but considering the current situation, I doubt it can happen as early as 2022 summer (2022 - 2023 season).
that would be fantastic if it happened. i would go back again in a good season as it was quite a bit of effort to get the bus around especially when it takes a wrong turn to Urubandai ski resort on a powder day!
This morning, NHK (it's like Japan's BBC) was reporting about Shimukappu village (where there is Tomamu) and another village in Hokkaido. There are 160 foreigners working in Tomamu now but due to COVID-19, many foreigners who are supposed to be working in Tomamu now can not fly to Japan yet. A young Australian woman is one of them and she was interviewed. I wonder if the Australian girl is a member of this forum? NHK was reporting 30% of the village (Shimukappu) population is foreigners. For some Hokkaido villages, foreigners are very important for local communities and economy. A small village in Hokkaido (it's not a ski resort village) opened a public Japanese language school. In order to help foreigners (including the Japanese language school's students and workers), the village is financially supporting them now by paying 35,000 Yen for a flight ticket and paying for the cost they need during the quarantine.
The GoTo program has been suspended over the New Year period. Of course there was a lack of details provided, particularly around existing bookings over that period. There seems to be a global view that Japan has been a leader in C19 controls when really its been the opposite. To be honest its been a ridiculous thing to financially encourage travel during a pandemic and the huge amount of money spent would have been better targeted to small businesses to keep them shut. We are now reaping what we sowed.
Well, I fed up with talking about COVID-19 and it's not COVID-19 thread, so basically I won't write about COVID-19 much here, but I want to write about it a bit now(please don't write about COVID-19 much here but in COVID-19 in Japan thread). First of all, with or without the campaign, Tokyo is almost as crowded as average year now. The commuter trains are super crowded. NHK and major media also say "as crowded as every year". The situation here in Japan is still quite different from the US, Europe, etc (Japan is a lot better). I've been travelling Tokyo - Chiba - Ibaraki - Fukushima and Yamagata quite often in the past 3 months. Tohoku Shinkansen and highways are as crowded as last year but they are a lot less crowded than Tokyo. Some people overestimate the influence of Go to Travel campaign too much. With or without the campaign, the number doesn't change much. People going to movie theaters in Tokyo are people living in Tokyo, 95% people I see at restaurants & bars in Tokyo are people living in Tokyo. So, with or without Go to Travel campaign, I think the infection number won't change much. People change how to behave and act accordingly. Even under the current infection number, I feel most people in Japan put importance on "normal life as possible" now, rather than "Stay Home". Hence, everywhere is almost as crowded now, and it's actually not because of Go to Travel campaign. People tend to be eager to look for something that they can make the "scapegoat" (in this case, Go to Travel campaign is the scapegoat), however, finding a scapegoat won't solve the situation. Super crowded commuter trains, etc have a lot bigger influence.
No. The GoTo travel campaign is a symptom of the problem. Reducing movement, reducing crowds, taking measures to lessen the contact between people (work from home, plastic shields in shops, masks - which Japan has better than anywhere) are required at this stage of the pandemic. Stop or slow the spread, buying time for the vaccine to arrive and be implemented. When you have no cases or after vaccine rollout THEN you need to encourage tourism and consumerism to get the economy running again. It’s not looking for a scapegoat. It’s identifying poor policy that is adding to the spread and stopping doing it.
