Well, I knew I’d forget to write about something. One of the oddest moments we had in Japan was in the Akihabara district of Tokyo. We were a tad lost and trying to find the correct subway rail system. There were people crammed in all over the place and we were in an underground subway.
Suddenly, we could hear singing and we recognized the song. It wasn’t unusual to hear American music in Japan. In fact, we heard more of that than anything else. But this was different. This was the Battle Hymn of the Republic… being sung in by a bunch of very high voices that sounded like the Chipmunks, with a Japanese accent.
My g/f and I just looked at each other and we both could see the “WTF” look in each other’s eyes. It was pretty surreal…
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Japan - I'm Back!!
I’m actually still reeling from jet lag. For some reason, I can always travel west far easier than I can travel east. When I’ve gone to Europe it’s always harder for me to adjust. The same is true about coming home from Japan.
Going over there wasn’t really a problem. We flew business class (on miles) on a Boeing 777. The new cabins are pretty slick and it made the 12+ hour flight pretty enjoyable. We had to get a connecting leg in LA, so our total trip time was almost 20 hours by the time we caught our flights, busses, etc., and got to the hotel. Still, I adjusted to that fairly quick and within a day or two was pretty much on-track with the exception that I was getting up and going to bed fairly early.
Coming home, though, hasn’t worked out so well. Japan is approximately 13 hours ahead of DFW. From a time difference perspective we left Japan before we landed in DFW. The flight was also shorter since we flew direct to DFW and we had the jet stream with us (700+mph ground speed!! Nice tailwind) and were going against the rotation of the earth. Oddly enough, we landed in the biggest “snow storm” on record at DFW. Of course, we love the snow but everyone else on the plane and most people in DFW were freaked out about it. All in all, we got about 12.5” – highly unusual for us and it caused some damage with breaking branches and what-not. Here is a quick pic of my house with snow all over it.
By the time we got through customs and got a ride home from the airport it was about 10:30 or so in the morning and we had already been up for a long time. I don’t sleep well on flights even with the free-flowing Jack and cokes. I was pretty wiped out, but managed to stay up until about 3:00pm and then I crashed for an hour or so. I got up and then stayed up until midnight. But this morning I woke up promptly at 4:00am and was really dragging by 4:00pm. I took another “quick nap” and woke up almost 7 hours later and here I am writing at near midnight.
I figure I’ll just be a train wreck for a few days but I’ll get over it and it was totally worth it. Besides, I have over 1338 emails to go through only 25 of which are spam. That, plus laundry, organizing photos, gifts, thoughts, etc. is just going to take a while.
Going over there wasn’t really a problem. We flew business class (on miles) on a Boeing 777. The new cabins are pretty slick and it made the 12+ hour flight pretty enjoyable. We had to get a connecting leg in LA, so our total trip time was almost 20 hours by the time we caught our flights, busses, etc., and got to the hotel. Still, I adjusted to that fairly quick and within a day or two was pretty much on-track with the exception that I was getting up and going to bed fairly early.
Coming home, though, hasn’t worked out so well. Japan is approximately 13 hours ahead of DFW. From a time difference perspective we left Japan before we landed in DFW. The flight was also shorter since we flew direct to DFW and we had the jet stream with us (700+mph ground speed!! Nice tailwind) and were going against the rotation of the earth. Oddly enough, we landed in the biggest “snow storm” on record at DFW. Of course, we love the snow but everyone else on the plane and most people in DFW were freaked out about it. All in all, we got about 12.5” – highly unusual for us and it caused some damage with breaking branches and what-not. Here is a quick pic of my house with snow all over it.
By the time we got through customs and got a ride home from the airport it was about 10:30 or so in the morning and we had already been up for a long time. I don’t sleep well on flights even with the free-flowing Jack and cokes. I was pretty wiped out, but managed to stay up until about 3:00pm and then I crashed for an hour or so. I got up and then stayed up until midnight. But this morning I woke up promptly at 4:00am and was really dragging by 4:00pm. I took another “quick nap” and woke up almost 7 hours later and here I am writing at near midnight.
I figure I’ll just be a train wreck for a few days but I’ll get over it and it was totally worth it. Besides, I have over 1338 emails to go through only 25 of which are spam. That, plus laundry, organizing photos, gifts, thoughts, etc. is just going to take a while.
Japan - I'm Back Pt. 2
I wrote that after only being in town for a day or so. I’ve been home for several days, now and have almost got my jet lag under control. I’ve also finished my write up on Japan. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something or left something out. If you want to read it it’s all posted below. If you just want to skip to the pictures, click here.
Japan - The Prequel
As you can tell by the previous post Japan Bitches! We were scrambling to get things organized and done. One of the problem with both of us working so much right at the end was that neither of us had much time to organize and coordinate planning a 2 week international trip.
We had some help planning the trip from friends and acquaintances that live in Japan and the JTB travel guides were really quite nice even if we had some communications difficulties due to the language barrier.
Still, I felt just a little ill-prepared going over with the attitude that I’d figure some things out while I was there and that just the way it was going to have to be. I made my g/f promise that she wouldn’t show up at 2:00am the day we were supposed to leave with her hair on fire and completely stressed out. She kept it by showing up at 2:00am without her hair on fire and other than being tired she wasn’t too stressed. It was about 3:00am when we got in bed, leaving about 1.5 hours to sleep before we had to get up at 4:30am. I had a private car coming to take us to the airport – I figured we deserved it and I wasn’t about to try to mooch a ride to the airport off of someone at 5:30am.
My g/f was going over to Japan initially for work so we met her father at the airport in the Admiral’s club (international travel in business class gets access!) and sort of chilled in a zombie-like state until it was time for our flights. I showed my g/f a 747 and we talked about them for a while – little did we know this would foreshadow for what was to come.
We also jumped on the Internet kiosks and made an effort to reserve our ski and snowboard gear once we got to Niseko. Working with the Japanese web sites can be fairly difficult because it’s a mixture of Japanese and really fucked up “Engrish.” We were pretty sure we got our reservations made, but they had to confirm them so all we could do now was wait.
Unfortunately, in making the reservations my g/f had taken her little tiny bag that holds her credit cards and driver’s license up to the kiosk. The bag is black, the countertops are black – you can see where this is going and we realized she had left them behind once we landed in LA. Not much we could do about it at that point so she started calling to cancel her cc’s prior to the next flight. I told her not to sweat it and that I still had my cc’s and plenty of cash.
And finally, we were on our way…..
We had some help planning the trip from friends and acquaintances that live in Japan and the JTB travel guides were really quite nice even if we had some communications difficulties due to the language barrier.
Still, I felt just a little ill-prepared going over with the attitude that I’d figure some things out while I was there and that just the way it was going to have to be. I made my g/f promise that she wouldn’t show up at 2:00am the day we were supposed to leave with her hair on fire and completely stressed out. She kept it by showing up at 2:00am without her hair on fire and other than being tired she wasn’t too stressed. It was about 3:00am when we got in bed, leaving about 1.5 hours to sleep before we had to get up at 4:30am. I had a private car coming to take us to the airport – I figured we deserved it and I wasn’t about to try to mooch a ride to the airport off of someone at 5:30am.
My g/f was going over to Japan initially for work so we met her father at the airport in the Admiral’s club (international travel in business class gets access!) and sort of chilled in a zombie-like state until it was time for our flights. I showed my g/f a 747 and we talked about them for a while – little did we know this would foreshadow for what was to come.
We also jumped on the Internet kiosks and made an effort to reserve our ski and snowboard gear once we got to Niseko. Working with the Japanese web sites can be fairly difficult because it’s a mixture of Japanese and really fucked up “Engrish.” We were pretty sure we got our reservations made, but they had to confirm them so all we could do now was wait.
Unfortunately, in making the reservations my g/f had taken her little tiny bag that holds her credit cards and driver’s license up to the kiosk. The bag is black, the countertops are black – you can see where this is going and we realized she had left them behind once we landed in LA. Not much we could do about it at that point so she started calling to cancel her cc’s prior to the next flight. I told her not to sweat it and that I still had my cc’s and plenty of cash.
And finally, we were on our way…..
Japan - Misplaced Health Concerns
One thing we felt that the Japanese are a little off on are their health concerns. You see a good portion of the population wearing air filter masks. You also see them use wet-naps prior to every meal and they are fanatical about taking your shoes off and wearing slippers inside the house, hotel, or restaurant. If you go to the bathroom they even have a different pair of slippers to wear.
When I was going through the airport I would take my shoes off due to them being steel toed and heeled. I know they would set off the metal detectors so I just took them off. The security folks would force me to wear slippers. I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t want them, but they were very insistent about it.
So my question is, how is slipping on a pair of slippers that everyone has had their feet in any more or less clean than me just walking 10 feet in my socks?
When you hit a public restroom don’t expect anything to dry your hands with. There might be an air dryer, but I only saw one public restroom the entire time that had paper towels. Soap was 50 / 50. Due to all of this, most guys didn’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. My g/f says that the women’s bathrooms were no better and often didn’t have any toilet paper. She also said the Japanese style toilets often times had some type of liquid substance all over and around them – and then no soap or towels.
In the U.S. we know that washing your hands is one of the single best defenses against becoming ill. Not masks, and not taking your shoes off. We just found it a bit odd.
When I was going through the airport I would take my shoes off due to them being steel toed and heeled. I know they would set off the metal detectors so I just took them off. The security folks would force me to wear slippers. I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t want them, but they were very insistent about it.
So my question is, how is slipping on a pair of slippers that everyone has had their feet in any more or less clean than me just walking 10 feet in my socks?
When you hit a public restroom don’t expect anything to dry your hands with. There might be an air dryer, but I only saw one public restroom the entire time that had paper towels. Soap was 50 / 50. Due to all of this, most guys didn’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. My g/f says that the women’s bathrooms were no better and often didn’t have any toilet paper. She also said the Japanese style toilets often times had some type of liquid substance all over and around them – and then no soap or towels.
In the U.S. we know that washing your hands is one of the single best defenses against becoming ill. Not masks, and not taking your shoes off. We just found it a bit odd.
Japan - Chillin' in Tokyo
You’ve probably heard that things are a little more expensive in Japan. That is true to an extent, but our first experience was Tokyo. In some ways this was good because big cities are similar the world over and it was a good way to ease into being in a foreign country.
Things aren’t much worse in Tokyo than they are in NYC as far as expense goes. If you go to Manhattan, NY it’s pretty expensive. It’s about the same in Japan but they don’t tip – it’s already included in the price. That helps. Of course, as you wander around you do come across the oddball things like the $100+ cantaloupe, but this was not the norm.
I also ended up ordering a $25.00 Jack and Coke by accident. The night we arrived it was really late when we got to the hotel and I was fried. We were at the bar at the hotel and I didn’t even think to ask what the cost would be. It’s always a little more expensive at the hotel bars, but when we got the tab there was shock and amazement all around at the cost of my Jack and Coke. My g/f is not letting me forget that a self-proclaimed cheap bastard ordered a $25 Jack and Coke.
My g/f had business meetings the first few days we were there so I was left to explore on my own. My first real experience on my own was walking out of the hotel lobby early in the morning to find some coffee (for my g/f) and a coke for myself. Most hotels in Japan included some type of kettle for making hot water and tea bags. There wasn’t much in the way of coffee in the rooms and I don’t drink coffee so we took the streets most mornings trying to find that vital sustenance to wake up with.
As I left the hotel and hit the streets I noticed that there weren’t that many people out and about. It was still early, but back home in a big city there would have already been throngs of people. A younger couple turned towards me, laughed and ran off. I couldn’t tell if it was because of me or something else. Regardless, I was on my way exploring.
Tokyo is a huge city – about the size of the entire DFW metroplex and it is home to over thirty-million Japanese. That’s more people than the entire state of TX. It’s pretty much wall-to-wall people wherever you go and at almost any time of day or night – except the mornings. It seems like they like to get going a little bit later than we do, but they also seem to work later in the evening. For that reason, we didn’t find much to eat for breakfast except at the hotels. There was a Denny’s across the street and while none of us wanted to eat there, the $30 breakfast buffet at the hotel was a bit much so we tried it out. Check out the section on eating in Japan.
As I said it was pretty much wall-to-wall people. Especially if you visited a market place or alley. While these were great to experience, I quickly found myself wanting to get out of the crowds, though you could buy just about anything there:
Our hotel room in Tokyo was large, especially by Japanese standards of which we would later find out. They are also fond of their heated toilet seats and fancy bidets / showers, etc. This one had a seat warmer, a “shower” for the front or back, and a pulsing water option. I found some later that also had a “no odor” option. Aside from spraying an entire bathroom wall with jetting water as I was trying to figure these things out I sort of came to like them.
Our first bathroom was also built into telephone-booth-style stalls. I don’t think the photo could capture it very well, but the doors on both the stalls were hinged like a phone booth and you did your business (whether shower or bathroom) in one of them.
All of this was odd as we quickly found out that the public restrooms often did not have soap, toilet paper, or anything to dry your hands with.
But one thing I was very impressed with while in Japan is their attention to detail. No matter what they did, no matter how menial, they took great pride in their work and did it with enthusiasm. Only once or twice did we come across anyone who didn’t seem to care to be at their job. As a result, they kick our ass in certain things, little things, like this control panel in the hotel room – alarm clock, and lighting controls all right by the bed. This was not unusual in any of the rooms we stayed in.
I also found their elevators to be smooth as glass. So smooth that you might not have realized that the elevator begun to move. Even the leveling at the landings was extremely smooth and controlled. But it didn’t stop there. It was at nearly every level of their products, culture, infrastructure, etc.
Here is a picture of a bathroom mirror. They heat them up over the sink so that they don’t fog and you can continue to shave or get ready after stepping out of the shower (note the socks hanging to dry!):
As I was saying, my g/f and her dad had business to do so I was pretty much on my own to wander the streets of Tokyo for a few days. I walked every day for several hours and really enjoyed it. It was quite cool in Tokyo but only “cold” on a handful of days. The Japanese were dressed fairly warm with heavy coats, sweaters, scarves, and other items. One thing about the Japanese is that they apparently like it really warm once they get inside somewhere. Everywhere we went we would start sweating almost immediately upon entering a building of any type. We would be stripping our jackets and things off and the locals would stay bundled up. This got old really fast as I was constantly sweating and felt icky on most days and in need of an extra shower. I had brought mostly warm clothes since I knew it was supposed to be cold, but I really didn’t need them in Tokyo and found it difficult to dress so that I would be cool indoors and warm outdoors.
Everyone in Japan was extremely friendly even if we couldn’t easily communicate. They are a very humble and proud people and always willing to help out. Most of the communication we did was visual, especially if we didn’t speak the same language. Finger pointing and gesturing went a long way with just a few words of Japanese or “Engrish” between us.
Tokyo was also very clean in spite of the large number of people that were all over the place. I think part of this is due to Japanese culture and the fact they just take a lot of pride in their country and where they live. Here are a few quick shots just to show you the city a bit:
And of course, enter The Matrix:
At the parks it was interesting that there were these huge freaking cats everywhere. They seemed pretty nonplussed by us, but I wasn’t so sure about them. I had visions of trying to explain to people that I was mugged by a cat while walking through a park in Tokyo.
A Japanese duck – note the slightly slanted eyes eyes:
The Emperor’s palace is in Tokyo. It’s moved a few times, but currently resides there. I took a few quick shots as close as I was allowed to get to it. It’s kind of cool because it’s surrounded by moats.
Things aren’t much worse in Tokyo than they are in NYC as far as expense goes. If you go to Manhattan, NY it’s pretty expensive. It’s about the same in Japan but they don’t tip – it’s already included in the price. That helps. Of course, as you wander around you do come across the oddball things like the $100+ cantaloupe, but this was not the norm.
I also ended up ordering a $25.00 Jack and Coke by accident. The night we arrived it was really late when we got to the hotel and I was fried. We were at the bar at the hotel and I didn’t even think to ask what the cost would be. It’s always a little more expensive at the hotel bars, but when we got the tab there was shock and amazement all around at the cost of my Jack and Coke. My g/f is not letting me forget that a self-proclaimed cheap bastard ordered a $25 Jack and Coke.
My g/f had business meetings the first few days we were there so I was left to explore on my own. My first real experience on my own was walking out of the hotel lobby early in the morning to find some coffee (for my g/f) and a coke for myself. Most hotels in Japan included some type of kettle for making hot water and tea bags. There wasn’t much in the way of coffee in the rooms and I don’t drink coffee so we took the streets most mornings trying to find that vital sustenance to wake up with.
As I left the hotel and hit the streets I noticed that there weren’t that many people out and about. It was still early, but back home in a big city there would have already been throngs of people. A younger couple turned towards me, laughed and ran off. I couldn’t tell if it was because of me or something else. Regardless, I was on my way exploring.
Tokyo is a huge city – about the size of the entire DFW metroplex and it is home to over thirty-million Japanese. That’s more people than the entire state of TX. It’s pretty much wall-to-wall people wherever you go and at almost any time of day or night – except the mornings. It seems like they like to get going a little bit later than we do, but they also seem to work later in the evening. For that reason, we didn’t find much to eat for breakfast except at the hotels. There was a Denny’s across the street and while none of us wanted to eat there, the $30 breakfast buffet at the hotel was a bit much so we tried it out. Check out the section on eating in Japan.
As I said it was pretty much wall-to-wall people. Especially if you visited a market place or alley. While these were great to experience, I quickly found myself wanting to get out of the crowds, though you could buy just about anything there:
Our hotel room in Tokyo was large, especially by Japanese standards of which we would later find out. They are also fond of their heated toilet seats and fancy bidets / showers, etc. This one had a seat warmer, a “shower” for the front or back, and a pulsing water option. I found some later that also had a “no odor” option. Aside from spraying an entire bathroom wall with jetting water as I was trying to figure these things out I sort of came to like them.
Our first bathroom was also built into telephone-booth-style stalls. I don’t think the photo could capture it very well, but the doors on both the stalls were hinged like a phone booth and you did your business (whether shower or bathroom) in one of them.
All of this was odd as we quickly found out that the public restrooms often did not have soap, toilet paper, or anything to dry your hands with.
But one thing I was very impressed with while in Japan is their attention to detail. No matter what they did, no matter how menial, they took great pride in their work and did it with enthusiasm. Only once or twice did we come across anyone who didn’t seem to care to be at their job. As a result, they kick our ass in certain things, little things, like this control panel in the hotel room – alarm clock, and lighting controls all right by the bed. This was not unusual in any of the rooms we stayed in.
I also found their elevators to be smooth as glass. So smooth that you might not have realized that the elevator begun to move. Even the leveling at the landings was extremely smooth and controlled. But it didn’t stop there. It was at nearly every level of their products, culture, infrastructure, etc.
Here is a picture of a bathroom mirror. They heat them up over the sink so that they don’t fog and you can continue to shave or get ready after stepping out of the shower (note the socks hanging to dry!):
As I was saying, my g/f and her dad had business to do so I was pretty much on my own to wander the streets of Tokyo for a few days. I walked every day for several hours and really enjoyed it. It was quite cool in Tokyo but only “cold” on a handful of days. The Japanese were dressed fairly warm with heavy coats, sweaters, scarves, and other items. One thing about the Japanese is that they apparently like it really warm once they get inside somewhere. Everywhere we went we would start sweating almost immediately upon entering a building of any type. We would be stripping our jackets and things off and the locals would stay bundled up. This got old really fast as I was constantly sweating and felt icky on most days and in need of an extra shower. I had brought mostly warm clothes since I knew it was supposed to be cold, but I really didn’t need them in Tokyo and found it difficult to dress so that I would be cool indoors and warm outdoors.
Everyone in Japan was extremely friendly even if we couldn’t easily communicate. They are a very humble and proud people and always willing to help out. Most of the communication we did was visual, especially if we didn’t speak the same language. Finger pointing and gesturing went a long way with just a few words of Japanese or “Engrish” between us.
Tokyo was also very clean in spite of the large number of people that were all over the place. I think part of this is due to Japanese culture and the fact they just take a lot of pride in their country and where they live. Here are a few quick shots just to show you the city a bit:
And of course, enter The Matrix:
At the parks it was interesting that there were these huge freaking cats everywhere. They seemed pretty nonplussed by us, but I wasn’t so sure about them. I had visions of trying to explain to people that I was mugged by a cat while walking through a park in Tokyo.
A Japanese duck – note the slightly slanted eyes eyes:
The Emperor’s palace is in Tokyo. It’s moved a few times, but currently resides there. I took a few quick shots as close as I was allowed to get to it. It’s kind of cool because it’s surrounded by moats.
Japan - Snowboading in Niseko - The Sickest of the Sick!
We left Tokyo and headed to Niseko, on the Hokkaido island. We had heard that they get consistent and reliable powder and I was dying to get some runs in and check this out. Leaving Tokyo was a little sketchy because we were now completely on our own and had to switch trains, catch flights, busses and other forms of transportation.
We grabbed a train to the airport and only had a little difficulty putting all of that together. Supposedly the rush hour was supposed to be over, but it was still pretty packed. Once we got to the airport we whizzed right through security. They were some of the nicest and friendly people I’ve ever had to deal with.
We showed no ID, ever. We also were not required to remove our liquids or our shoes (though I knew mine would set off the metal detectors so I did anyway). There was no rudeness or people on power-trips. We simply got through security efficiently and without any problems.
On the flight, it was again stuffy. I never quite figured it out, but the Japanese are just not into having air flowing. They seem to like it stuffy and hot and I was freaking dying on the plane, but at least it was only a 1 hr. flight. Something they did that I thought was really cool is that they show a forward facing camera on the big screens during take off. Once the gear is up, it switches to a downward facing camera until it’s time for the in-flight entertainment. Upon landing, the sequence is reversed. I really enjoyed that and wished we did it here in the U.S.
After landing in New Chitose we met up with a representative of the travel company and got on the right bus. For some reason we thought it was only a 45 minute bus ride. Fortunately we found out it was close to 2.5 hours. This gave us a chance to grab some chips to take on the bus as we were close to starving at this point. It also would have completely freaked us out to have not stopped after an hour and we’d have been wondering if we were even in the right place.
But we made it to Niseko and I was amazed at how much snow there was. Granted, I haven’t been all over the world in the winter, and I’ve experienced some good hard dumps in MT, WY, UT, and CA, but this was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was dumping snow when we arrived and it pretty much didn’t stop for the entire three days we were there. Morning, noon and night it dumped snow.
We walked down to the main village to get a bite to eat. We were really starving at this point and saw a pizza joint so we stopped in and ordered a pizza. The guy making the pizza came out to ask us how we wanted the tomatoes done – cooked in or put on top after? We said cooked in and it was an awesome pizza.
The guy’s name was Rob – like the bank – and was a very friendly guy. He said he was from Alaska and was very adamant to point out that it was not part of the U.S. He was very disgruntled with American politics. When I asked him why he left the U.S. he said because of George Bush. I had to commend him. He is the first and only person I ever met that put their money where there mouth is and followed through with leaving the country after Bush got re-elected.
There is a fire hydrant buried somewhere under there…
Me in front of a sign for a restaurant…
There was so much snow in fact that some of the folks had taken to using snow blowers to get it off the roof. I wasn’t sure which was more amusing, that there was that much snow, or that it was such a common occurrence that getting the snow blower up there didn’t seem to be a problem.
At some point we decided that this would be the 9th Circle of Hell for our friend Bling! so we just started snapping pics of the snow for him.
The ice bar…
We stayed at a nice little bed and breakfast called Locomotion. It wasn’t anything grandiose, but it had a warm shower, was cozy, and all we really needed after a day on the slopes. A view from our window:
Note the snow drift on the left side of the pic…here is what it looked like from inside the room:
We used the snow as a refrigerator at the B&B where we stayed:
Did I mention that this was a room on the second floor? Look again… I’m telling you it was sick.
We finally hit the slopes and it was awesome! As I said, it never really stopped snowing so there was fresh powder and TONS of it everywhere you went – even on the groomers, though you couldn’t tell they were groomed because of all the fresh powder.
Niseko is also largely built up from the Aussies and Kiwis so just about everyone speaks English and you will hear a lot of accents and see more Caucasians than anywhere else. But I gotta tell ya, the Aussies are wusses when it comes to the cold. It was about 15 F, when we got there and they were already complaining how cold it was. “Going to be a lot colder tomorrow!” “really? How cold” “-15 or so.” That is -15 Celsius, which is about 5 Fahrenheit. My cut-off for boarding is about -10 or so Fahrenheit. We did see -22 Celsius up towards the top, which is almost -10 Fahrenheit. I was still OK with that, but it was definitely getting colder. Still I got tired of hearing them whinge about the cold over and over again.
We hit a good warm-up run and my g/f said her legs were already tired and she didn’t want to kill them so I should take a run on my own. No problem! Up I went and I lucked out as the sun broke free of the clouds and I was able to take black runs all the way down the mountain in the deep powder. It was awesome and one of the best runs I had the entire time as my legs were fresh, the powder was largely untracked and deep, and the sun was shining, but only briefly. It was quickly obscured by clouds again.
In fact, one of the few times the sun came out and it quit snowing we realized we were on the other side of a valley from another mountain / volcano! We had no idea it was there. This sequence of pictures was taken in the span of about 10 minutes:
By the time this next photo was taken you can see that the clouds were already backing in and within a couple of minutes the view was gone again:
At times, the snow was almost overpowering. We went up to the near top of the mountain and the winds picked up and started blowing like crazy. It was getting under our helmets and through our goggles and making my head literally hurt from how cold it was. The visibility dropped and once we got off the lift I was literally almost blown over by how strong the wind was. Visibility reduced to about 10 yards, and I don’t mean it was good visibility. There was a warming hut about 30 or 40 yards away that would “disappear” and we’d have to wait for the wind and snow to die down so we could find it. Even at 10 yards you had to be careful because you couldn’t see very well. We waited most of that one out in the hut and warmed up enough to trek across the mountain to the other side and skied / boarded down. Once at the bottom we stopped to get a beer. Here is a view from the window:
Can you see the huge lift towers? Same view a few minutes later:
That’s why I don’t have many pics of us actually hitting the runs. Visibility was poor and the poor camera was having problems with the cold. I would like to see Niseko on a bluebird day, but we simply didn’t have that many days to hang out. The second day of boarding I got my g/f to go up and try the black under the chairlift. She did OK even though she had a nice yard sale and a face plant.
I know it’s not a great pic, but we just never had good visibility during the day.
Most of the time you couldn’t see the valley floor at all and it was very flat light which made it difficult. For that reason, we tried out the night skiing.
Again, this was totally sick. The lights put great shadows on the slopes and you could read the runs!! We were able to ski / board harder and faster than at any other time and because it was at night most people were gone. Wide open powder fields were all mine and I conquered them in the same clumsy fashion as I do any other deep powder run. There was even enough light to run trees, though I was a lot more cautious because it quickly got dark in the tree line out of the lights. I am now hooked on night skiing and if I ever have an option to do it when there is a flat-light day I am going to save up for the night skiing.
I would love to go back there some day and spend about a week snowboarding. It was our understanding that this is consistent and reliable year after year. None of this taking a trip and worrying about there being snow stuff. Just go an enjoy deep powder. We were there when they are averaging over 155+ inches of snow. During the peak season they get even more. Nice.
I almost forgot, in Niseko we saw food vans and busses. These were converted vans or busses that they served food out of. The g/f got a crepe from a school bus…
We grabbed a train to the airport and only had a little difficulty putting all of that together. Supposedly the rush hour was supposed to be over, but it was still pretty packed. Once we got to the airport we whizzed right through security. They were some of the nicest and friendly people I’ve ever had to deal with.
We showed no ID, ever. We also were not required to remove our liquids or our shoes (though I knew mine would set off the metal detectors so I did anyway). There was no rudeness or people on power-trips. We simply got through security efficiently and without any problems.
On the flight, it was again stuffy. I never quite figured it out, but the Japanese are just not into having air flowing. They seem to like it stuffy and hot and I was freaking dying on the plane, but at least it was only a 1 hr. flight. Something they did that I thought was really cool is that they show a forward facing camera on the big screens during take off. Once the gear is up, it switches to a downward facing camera until it’s time for the in-flight entertainment. Upon landing, the sequence is reversed. I really enjoyed that and wished we did it here in the U.S.
After landing in New Chitose we met up with a representative of the travel company and got on the right bus. For some reason we thought it was only a 45 minute bus ride. Fortunately we found out it was close to 2.5 hours. This gave us a chance to grab some chips to take on the bus as we were close to starving at this point. It also would have completely freaked us out to have not stopped after an hour and we’d have been wondering if we were even in the right place.
But we made it to Niseko and I was amazed at how much snow there was. Granted, I haven’t been all over the world in the winter, and I’ve experienced some good hard dumps in MT, WY, UT, and CA, but this was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was dumping snow when we arrived and it pretty much didn’t stop for the entire three days we were there. Morning, noon and night it dumped snow.
We walked down to the main village to get a bite to eat. We were really starving at this point and saw a pizza joint so we stopped in and ordered a pizza. The guy making the pizza came out to ask us how we wanted the tomatoes done – cooked in or put on top after? We said cooked in and it was an awesome pizza.
The guy’s name was Rob – like the bank – and was a very friendly guy. He said he was from Alaska and was very adamant to point out that it was not part of the U.S. He was very disgruntled with American politics. When I asked him why he left the U.S. he said because of George Bush. I had to commend him. He is the first and only person I ever met that put their money where there mouth is and followed through with leaving the country after Bush got re-elected.
There is a fire hydrant buried somewhere under there…
Me in front of a sign for a restaurant…
There was so much snow in fact that some of the folks had taken to using snow blowers to get it off the roof. I wasn’t sure which was more amusing, that there was that much snow, or that it was such a common occurrence that getting the snow blower up there didn’t seem to be a problem.
At some point we decided that this would be the 9th Circle of Hell for our friend Bling! so we just started snapping pics of the snow for him.
The ice bar…
We stayed at a nice little bed and breakfast called Locomotion. It wasn’t anything grandiose, but it had a warm shower, was cozy, and all we really needed after a day on the slopes. A view from our window:
Note the snow drift on the left side of the pic…here is what it looked like from inside the room:
We used the snow as a refrigerator at the B&B where we stayed:
Did I mention that this was a room on the second floor? Look again… I’m telling you it was sick.
We finally hit the slopes and it was awesome! As I said, it never really stopped snowing so there was fresh powder and TONS of it everywhere you went – even on the groomers, though you couldn’t tell they were groomed because of all the fresh powder.
Niseko is also largely built up from the Aussies and Kiwis so just about everyone speaks English and you will hear a lot of accents and see more Caucasians than anywhere else. But I gotta tell ya, the Aussies are wusses when it comes to the cold. It was about 15 F, when we got there and they were already complaining how cold it was. “Going to be a lot colder tomorrow!” “really? How cold” “-15 or so.” That is -15 Celsius, which is about 5 Fahrenheit. My cut-off for boarding is about -10 or so Fahrenheit. We did see -22 Celsius up towards the top, which is almost -10 Fahrenheit. I was still OK with that, but it was definitely getting colder. Still I got tired of hearing them whinge about the cold over and over again.
We hit a good warm-up run and my g/f said her legs were already tired and she didn’t want to kill them so I should take a run on my own. No problem! Up I went and I lucked out as the sun broke free of the clouds and I was able to take black runs all the way down the mountain in the deep powder. It was awesome and one of the best runs I had the entire time as my legs were fresh, the powder was largely untracked and deep, and the sun was shining, but only briefly. It was quickly obscured by clouds again.
In fact, one of the few times the sun came out and it quit snowing we realized we were on the other side of a valley from another mountain / volcano! We had no idea it was there. This sequence of pictures was taken in the span of about 10 minutes:
By the time this next photo was taken you can see that the clouds were already backing in and within a couple of minutes the view was gone again:
At times, the snow was almost overpowering. We went up to the near top of the mountain and the winds picked up and started blowing like crazy. It was getting under our helmets and through our goggles and making my head literally hurt from how cold it was. The visibility dropped and once we got off the lift I was literally almost blown over by how strong the wind was. Visibility reduced to about 10 yards, and I don’t mean it was good visibility. There was a warming hut about 30 or 40 yards away that would “disappear” and we’d have to wait for the wind and snow to die down so we could find it. Even at 10 yards you had to be careful because you couldn’t see very well. We waited most of that one out in the hut and warmed up enough to trek across the mountain to the other side and skied / boarded down. Once at the bottom we stopped to get a beer. Here is a view from the window:
Can you see the huge lift towers? Same view a few minutes later:
That’s why I don’t have many pics of us actually hitting the runs. Visibility was poor and the poor camera was having problems with the cold. I would like to see Niseko on a bluebird day, but we simply didn’t have that many days to hang out. The second day of boarding I got my g/f to go up and try the black under the chairlift. She did OK even though she had a nice yard sale and a face plant.
I know it’s not a great pic, but we just never had good visibility during the day.
Most of the time you couldn’t see the valley floor at all and it was very flat light which made it difficult. For that reason, we tried out the night skiing.
Again, this was totally sick. The lights put great shadows on the slopes and you could read the runs!! We were able to ski / board harder and faster than at any other time and because it was at night most people were gone. Wide open powder fields were all mine and I conquered them in the same clumsy fashion as I do any other deep powder run. There was even enough light to run trees, though I was a lot more cautious because it quickly got dark in the tree line out of the lights. I am now hooked on night skiing and if I ever have an option to do it when there is a flat-light day I am going to save up for the night skiing.
I would love to go back there some day and spend about a week snowboarding. It was our understanding that this is consistent and reliable year after year. None of this taking a trip and worrying about there being snow stuff. Just go an enjoy deep powder. We were there when they are averaging over 155+ inches of snow. During the peak season they get even more. Nice.
I almost forgot, in Niseko we saw food vans and busses. These were converted vans or busses that they served food out of. The g/f got a crepe from a school bus…
Japan - Sapporo and the Snow Festival
From Niseko we headed to Sapporo to check out the snow festival. We got on the bus for another long ride. This time there were some more Europeans on the bus and like us, they quickly became hot because once again it was stuffy and there was no air moving. They managed to crack one of their windows open about an inch. As we traveled it got colder and colder and when we stopped for a bathroom break they decided to close the window – only it was now frozen open.
Several people including the driver tried to close the window without any luck. The driver even got a can of de-icer and sprayed it everywhere but it didn’t work. Without a word he went back to the front of the bus and when he returned he had a small blow-torch. I’m not kidding. He lit it and proceeded to heat the window frame for a few minutes. We thought this was hysterical and were getting a good laugh out of it, but it worked and he got the window closed.
When we arrived in Sapporo there wasn’t that much snow and I remarked to my g/f that they should have had the festival in Niseko. Little did I know I’d eat those words later. Our hotel was fairly nice, but it was very hot in the room. I cranked the AC down but nothing happened. I guess they just turn it off in the winter time. Again, it was very stuffy and very uncomfortable. Temp wise, it was the worst stay we had the entire time.
The hotel had some tv guides / brochures for “non-theraputic” massages. I should have got a picture of these, but I didn’t think they would show up very well. It was fairly evident that you could get a happy ending in that town without any problems. I found this a bit strange that the hotel would carry the ads since it was a fairly nice and upscale kind of place. But they even ad some good ads for Japanese porn on the TV:
We took off and headed for the snow festival. It wasn’t any colder than when we were in Niseko, but we weren’t dressed as warmly and quickly found ourselves freezing. Still we checked out a few block’s worth of the sculptures before heading back to the hotel for a good dinner (see the crab feast!).
The next day we only had a few hours, but it was plenty of time to check out the snow festival, and we were dressed a lot warmer. Here are some pics from the festival – some of the sculptures took several months and umpteen dump trucks of snow to build.
Here is part of a sculpture:
And to give you an idea of how big it really was:
Here is some more of the same sculpture:
And the whole sculpture:
This was one of my g/f’s favorites:
A castle made of ice:
And a handful of Japanese oddities:
The even liked Tigger:
And boy, did it ever start snowing. Mostly it was just cold and lightly snowing but after emerging from a basement bar from lunch it was pounding snow. That’s me standing on the street corner after walking in the snow for maybe 5 or 10 minutes.
From Sapporo we headed back to Tokyo for about a day and a ½ before moving on to Kyoto. We were supposed to fly on an Airbus, which I am not fond of. As it turns out, we both had our first flight on a 747. They use a lot of 747’s in Japan. This one was a 747-400 and had a 400+ passenger configuration. We got lucky and had one of the only rows with a spare seat. Again, no air and it was stuffy.
I was glad to get some down time in Tokyo. At that point I needed the break as I had been walking or snowboarding for over a week straight and my old ankle injury was really starting to give me a fit.
Several people including the driver tried to close the window without any luck. The driver even got a can of de-icer and sprayed it everywhere but it didn’t work. Without a word he went back to the front of the bus and when he returned he had a small blow-torch. I’m not kidding. He lit it and proceeded to heat the window frame for a few minutes. We thought this was hysterical and were getting a good laugh out of it, but it worked and he got the window closed.
When we arrived in Sapporo there wasn’t that much snow and I remarked to my g/f that they should have had the festival in Niseko. Little did I know I’d eat those words later. Our hotel was fairly nice, but it was very hot in the room. I cranked the AC down but nothing happened. I guess they just turn it off in the winter time. Again, it was very stuffy and very uncomfortable. Temp wise, it was the worst stay we had the entire time.
The hotel had some tv guides / brochures for “non-theraputic” massages. I should have got a picture of these, but I didn’t think they would show up very well. It was fairly evident that you could get a happy ending in that town without any problems. I found this a bit strange that the hotel would carry the ads since it was a fairly nice and upscale kind of place. But they even ad some good ads for Japanese porn on the TV:
We took off and headed for the snow festival. It wasn’t any colder than when we were in Niseko, but we weren’t dressed as warmly and quickly found ourselves freezing. Still we checked out a few block’s worth of the sculptures before heading back to the hotel for a good dinner (see the crab feast!).
The next day we only had a few hours, but it was plenty of time to check out the snow festival, and we were dressed a lot warmer. Here are some pics from the festival – some of the sculptures took several months and umpteen dump trucks of snow to build.
Here is part of a sculpture:
And to give you an idea of how big it really was:
Here is some more of the same sculpture:
And the whole sculpture:
This was one of my g/f’s favorites:
A castle made of ice:
And a handful of Japanese oddities:
The even liked Tigger:
And boy, did it ever start snowing. Mostly it was just cold and lightly snowing but after emerging from a basement bar from lunch it was pounding snow. That’s me standing on the street corner after walking in the snow for maybe 5 or 10 minutes.
From Sapporo we headed back to Tokyo for about a day and a ½ before moving on to Kyoto. We were supposed to fly on an Airbus, which I am not fond of. As it turns out, we both had our first flight on a 747. They use a lot of 747’s in Japan. This one was a 747-400 and had a 400+ passenger configuration. We got lucky and had one of the only rows with a spare seat. Again, no air and it was stuffy.
I was glad to get some down time in Tokyo. At that point I needed the break as I had been walking or snowboarding for over a week straight and my old ankle injury was really starting to give me a fit.
Japan - Kyoto
We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. I think the train was a 700 series train and they are capable of traveling at speeds up to 177mph. I don’t think we ever went quite that fast, but I’m guessing we were doing about 130mph on the average.
When I was taking those pics they came on the PA and announced in English – “Please stand back.” I thought that was amusing because while I was on the rail, I wasn’t leaning over it or anything.
Kyoto is a very interesting city and well worth the visit. It is a very old city and a lot of the Japanese culture, religion and superstition stems from Kyoto. We really didn’t have enough time there and were only able to see a few of the city's great highlights and features.
We did manage to take a small tour and visit a few really cool places like the Nijo Castle. This place was built in 1603. That makes it a tick over 400 years old as of this writing. The castle was used by the Shogun and it was a really beautiful work of architectural art and engineering. One of the things we thought was really cool was the “nightingale” floors which they used as a security measure in case someone was creeping in the castle late at night. Check out the video on this page and you’ll hear what it sounded like to walk on the floor. http://www.zen-garden.org/html/page_nightingalefloor.htm
We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the castle, and I’m not sure how the folks in the above link got the video. They might have been sneaky about it or it might have been before they disallowed photography. In any case, here are a few quick shots:
The main gate:
The entryway into the interior:
And the main building:
Please understand that these photos do not do it justice. The buildings are enormous and inside are some beautiful paintings on the walls. This is also only one of several buildings on the grounds.
Next we went to go see the Golden Pagoda, which is really covered in gold leaf:
And the 400+ year old Bonzai tree that was planted by a Shogun:
And then we visited the old Imperial Palace before it moved to Tokyo. This part of the tour was a bit odd because they made us line up in four lines of 11 people to enter the palace. They didn’t seem to care if we stayed in those lines, but we had to do it to get through the gate. Once in, we walked around the grounds and were constantly watched by police and guards – sort of like the secret service. We were not allowed to enter any of the buildings nor were we allowed in many of the courtyard areas that were reserved for ceremony and royalty.
The original palace was only supposed to be in one place, but it burned down so many times they finally said “fuck it” and changed the location. BTW – it takes them 27 years to replace all the roofs of the palace!!!
We also hit an arts and crafts center where we picked up some souvenirs for people and also picked up some nice artwork for ourselves. We hadn’t done much shopping up to this point because we were traveling so much and didn’t have a lot of space.
Here is a pic of the main station building in Kyoto. Unfortunately this doesn’t do it justice. The building is huge both inside and out and has a fairly open architecture. Our hotel was in the building as well as the train station, a mall, etc.
If you look closely you can see a lot of various design elements in the building – some of which don’t go together at all. It was the same inside and at one point I joked that I could see a conference room full of bickering architects and the lead project guy calming them all down by saying something like “no…no….everyone will get to have their input.” And that is what it looked like…a mix-match of elements and styles that was loosely coordinated.
After leaving Kyoto we got back on the Shinkansen and headed back to Tokyo for a brief dinner, a chocolate covered waffle, and a quick stop at a local and traditional Japanese store for writing and stationary. Then it was on to Narita for our last night before coming home.
When I was taking those pics they came on the PA and announced in English – “Please stand back.” I thought that was amusing because while I was on the rail, I wasn’t leaning over it or anything.
Kyoto is a very interesting city and well worth the visit. It is a very old city and a lot of the Japanese culture, religion and superstition stems from Kyoto. We really didn’t have enough time there and were only able to see a few of the city's great highlights and features.
We did manage to take a small tour and visit a few really cool places like the Nijo Castle. This place was built in 1603. That makes it a tick over 400 years old as of this writing. The castle was used by the Shogun and it was a really beautiful work of architectural art and engineering. One of the things we thought was really cool was the “nightingale” floors which they used as a security measure in case someone was creeping in the castle late at night. Check out the video on this page and you’ll hear what it sounded like to walk on the floor. http://www.zen-garden.org/html/page_nightingalefloor.htm
We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the castle, and I’m not sure how the folks in the above link got the video. They might have been sneaky about it or it might have been before they disallowed photography. In any case, here are a few quick shots:
The main gate:
The entryway into the interior:
And the main building:
Please understand that these photos do not do it justice. The buildings are enormous and inside are some beautiful paintings on the walls. This is also only one of several buildings on the grounds.
Next we went to go see the Golden Pagoda, which is really covered in gold leaf:
And the 400+ year old Bonzai tree that was planted by a Shogun:
And then we visited the old Imperial Palace before it moved to Tokyo. This part of the tour was a bit odd because they made us line up in four lines of 11 people to enter the palace. They didn’t seem to care if we stayed in those lines, but we had to do it to get through the gate. Once in, we walked around the grounds and were constantly watched by police and guards – sort of like the secret service. We were not allowed to enter any of the buildings nor were we allowed in many of the courtyard areas that were reserved for ceremony and royalty.
The original palace was only supposed to be in one place, but it burned down so many times they finally said “fuck it” and changed the location. BTW – it takes them 27 years to replace all the roofs of the palace!!!
We also hit an arts and crafts center where we picked up some souvenirs for people and also picked up some nice artwork for ourselves. We hadn’t done much shopping up to this point because we were traveling so much and didn’t have a lot of space.
Here is a pic of the main station building in Kyoto. Unfortunately this doesn’t do it justice. The building is huge both inside and out and has a fairly open architecture. Our hotel was in the building as well as the train station, a mall, etc.
If you look closely you can see a lot of various design elements in the building – some of which don’t go together at all. It was the same inside and at one point I joked that I could see a conference room full of bickering architects and the lead project guy calming them all down by saying something like “no…no….everyone will get to have their input.” And that is what it looked like…a mix-match of elements and styles that was loosely coordinated.
After leaving Kyoto we got back on the Shinkansen and headed back to Tokyo for a brief dinner, a chocolate covered waffle, and a quick stop at a local and traditional Japanese store for writing and stationary. Then it was on to Narita for our last night before coming home.
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