Memoirs of Aleisha

View from the window of the accommodation, right at the base of the ski slope:

Hakuba is a great ski resort for the village vibe and its facilities. It’s also quite international – plenty of bars and dining options and a few onsens as well. It was one home to the Nagano Winter Olympics back in 1998.

Hakuba ski resort consists of 7 separate mountains, so you need to select your mountain pass options wisely. And the mountains are connected by free shuttle buses. Over two days, we managed to board at 3 of the mountains. Happo-One is best for skiers, not snowboarders. And the runs are quite steep and moguly.

Iwatake was great as was Tsugaike (athough Tsugaike is probably a little more beginner-friendly). Iwatake was pretty ideal out of the three we visited. Would have liked to have spent more time at Tsugaike but only managed to do a couple of runs there.

It was an awesome weekend though. Bluebird days and the mountains and the vista were absolutely majestic.
If a picture speaks a 1000 words, then consider this blog post Homer’s Iliad.

Ogle the Mogles:

EPIC:

Snow business: Sayonara Nozawa

March 13, 2014October 8, 2016memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

Have managed to snowboard at about 6 different ski resorts this winter season. Last weekend was my final trip for the season. Back to Nozawa again.

It’s time to Suit Up!

Off to a BOARD meeting:

There’s no business like snow business, baby!

Just wearing my jump suit:

Gone fishing:

Conditions were awesome in Nozawa, particularly the Saturday. Lots of fresh powder. Lots of practice going through the trees. I’m still not that good. We did have a bit of a scare when we fully got buried in the powder and couldn’t get out.

Trees and Powder:

This was the 3.2km (mostly narrow) Skyline run on the Sunday. It requires a section that goes slightly uphill!

Now that winter is over, bring on summer! Sunshine, swimming, beach and SUPing. That’s what I’m talking about.

JUMP

February 24, 2014October 11, 2016memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

Went snowboarding again over the weekend. This time we actually made it to the ski resort!

Bluebird days and magnificent mountain views.
Plenty of reasons to jump for joy.

The evolution of the snow jump:

From Jump

Oh what a feeling. Hakuba!

From Jump

Defying gravity:

From Jump

Star Jump:

From Jump

Holding up the sun is hard work! You’re welcome.

From Jump

Taking a break:

From Jump

Woo Hoo:

From Jump

Happy Days:

From Jump

If only there were two of me….oh wait, there is!

From Jump

Fun times:

From Jump

Snowpocalypse

February 15, 2014October 11, 2016memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

Tokyo had some unprecedented snowfall yesterday. Ended up getting stranded and didn’t get home until 6am this morning. What a long cold night it was.

It snowed all day in Tokyo yesterday. Some workplaces declared snow day. All we got was a 5pm earlymark.
When I left the office a little before 6pm, here is what it looked like outside my office building:

It wasn’t too bad. Subways were running (although a few train lines were down).
I headed to Shinjuku where we boarding a bus bound for Hakuba for a weekend of snowboarding.
Our bus left Shinjuku at 7:30pm and we hit the road. It took us an hour just to get out of the city and onto the highway.
We then spent 5 hours on the bus only to travel 50km and we were technically still in Tokyo. Traffic had been diverted off the highways as the highways shut down due to the snow. We just crawled along.

At about 12:30am the decision was made to head back home to Tokyo. By this time we were outside Takaosan train station. There was no way we were going to reach our destination. Snow trip officially cancelled.

Stopped in the middle of the road, where we walked to the nearby train station to use the toilets:

Here are some pics in the middle of the night at the pit stop:

We made it back to Tokyo where the bus dropped us off in Shinjuku. It was now 3:30am and we were stranded in Shinjuku as no public transport was running. They close during the night. Not a single taxi was available either. We tried to hail over a dozen taxis. They were either all full or no one wanted to pick us up.

By this time, we were super tired, freezing cold and wet. Ugh. Sooo cold.

These were the conditions trying to cross the roads in Shinjuku:

With no way to get home, my friend and I camped out a ramen shop where we ate a bowl of ramen at 4am. Even the 24 hour Maccas was closed! They had decided to close at 4am and were only doing takeaway to stop people from camping out inside.

Cars struggling in the snow in Shinjuku:

I finally got home at 6am this morning, once the trains were up and running again at 5am. Had a long hot shower to thaw out, and crawled into bed with my hot water bottle.

There was so much snow for this weekend, but ironically no one could get out to the slopes to enjoy it. All the highways have been shut. Quite the adventurous weekend so far, and it’s only Saturday morning!

Am now settled in for having a bludgey day indoors. It’s freezing though and super slushy outside. although it has stopped snowing.

Here was the view from my balcony this morning:

Powder Power – Houdaigi ski resort

February 13, 2014October 8, 2016memoirsofaleishaLeave a comment

Another weekend snowboarding last weekend in Minakami (Gunma-ken) for a friend’s birthday weekend and the Snow Splash festival. Was an amazing weekend of powder – one of the best days on the slopes in a long time. Powda in the day and Louda in the night. But meanwhile, back in Tokyo, I missed out on one of the biggest snowstorms to hit Tokyo in the last 45 years. By the time I got back on Sunday night, there was still plenty of snow around Tokyo and my neighbourhood. Why couldn’t we have a snow day on a weekday so we don’t have to go to work.

Anyway, it didn’t make much of a difference to me, as we enjoyed a glorious weekend of powder snow. Went to Houdaigi ski resort which although small, has some really great runs. I thoroughly enjoyed the runs there and snowboarded for both days. Even got in an intermediate snowboarding lesson where we got to go off-piste a little bit and into the trees. Still gotta work on those narrow turns though. Was heaps of fun though. And if I was to ever learn how to ski, I would want to do it at this resort. They had some of the best beginner-friendly green runs I’ve ever seen.

The Minakami area is just as popular in the summer for activities like rafting, canyoning, hiking and bungee jumping. We passed through the Minakami Dam as well.

Lotsa snow:

One of the gourmet specialty’s of the area is the Dam Curry! (where the rice is served as the dam wall for the curry). This amused me greatly.

Now here is the onslaught of photos that you know and love from a powder-filled weekend of snowboarding . Soooo much fun.

This was a lot steeper than it looks here (It was the top of the black run):

All strapped in:

Knee deep in powder:

All but deserted:

Powder Powder: