Looks really cramped. If you're still young and can handle 14-15 hour vacation days then should be OK, but it will be quite tiring.

Also, gala yuzawa you're planning to just play snow and try skiing for the first time? If so, try and sign up for at least half day group lessons in the morning so that you have the basics pretty solid and can explore some slopes on your own in the afternoon.

Can't really help there, all my ski holidays I've always only been able to afford places with shared toilet & shared bathroom.

Next month I'm going to Akakura Onsen / Myoko Kogen, tentatively staying at Kotobukiro which also is all shared bathroom rooms

Should be safe leh. My trips I had wife with me, she never felt it was dangerous or anything when going to the ladies bath alone. Not too different from going onsen ba where guys and girls need to split up anyway.

Nozawa Onsen we stayed at Mominoki, Zao Onsen at Suzunoya, both were pretty much the same style of family run old somewhat run down guesthouse with onsen in the basement and shared toilet upstairs.

The 2 places that I shared nothing is attached. Wanna go brush teeth or pee or poop or clean up after bedroom activities also must go shared bathroom.

If want more privacy of course can, just need to increase budget 🤣

This post has been edited by deodorant: Dec 6 2018, 07:46 PM

Day 2 Go Tokyo Big Sight first.
Then spend the rest of the whole day including night in Odaiba (Gundam, sit the ferris wheel, go joypolis, go Oedo Onsen).
Day 3 Go Shinjuku Robot Restaurant. Otherwise go Shibuya play Go-Kart https://maricar.com/en/shibuya.html

Do day trip from Tokyo to Yokohama and take that Shinkansen lo.

Are you asking our blessing for your plan to defraud the hotels by paying for 1 guest but trying to sneak in two?

So my suspicion was correct, you ARE trying to cheat the hotel. For this sort of hotel that clearly charges extra for 2pax in the same room, if both of you turn up at the front desk you will likely be charged for your 2nd guest.

If you insist on going along with this penipu scammer arrangement anyway, then during check in / check out, you go to the front desk alone and ask your wife hide somewhere else in the lobby or outside the hotel first lo.

Note that many business hotels have really small lobby areas and the guest lifts may even be in full view of the front desk.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Dec 11 2018, 06:15 PM

Tokyo itself a bit tricky, but you can day trip down to Kawazu to see the sakura there.

If don't want to go so far, Tokyo City itself some parks will have a couple of early blooming varieties here and there so you technically can see sakura, but it will be difficult to see fields of dozens of trees all blooming at once.

How many days are you willing to dedicate to skiing?

If you only planning to do 1 day then you need to be quite talented (or daring) as a 1st timer to improve enough to go higher up the mountain where the views are nicer (but where normally the slopes are also more difficult).

What I can say is, if you don't have someone who can ski going with you, then seriously consider taking at least a 1/2 day beginner lesson in the morning to get the basics down, then afternoon only go and explore the easier slopes on your own.

Anyway skis, boots, poles, and clothing (jacket + pants) rental should be around ¥4,500-ish per day; Ski Lift ticket ¥4,000-¥6,000/day.

For me my choice of flight (preferred airline, pricing, and schedule) is more important. Whether it goes to haneda or narita is normally just an afterthought.

I think one's experiences will depend a lot on whether one stays near a metro station or a JR station. For me most of the time I stay walking distance from a yamanote line station, so naturally many/most of my travel routes will involve a JR line, and therefore metro passes seldom make sense.

But even once when I stayed next to a Tokyo metro station, I still found that the money saved on the pass was simply not worth all the planning and additional detours that I'd have to make to stick to metro lines and avoid JR ones.

Cancelling my upcoming singapore airlines flights and booking cathay dragon now!!!

This post has been edited by deodorant: Dec 26 2018, 02:58 PM

If your idea of fun and excitement is to stand in the queue for hours for popular attractions then sure, weekends are better than weekdays.

Draft itinerary for upcoming ski trip done, any comments / issues / suggestions @ sifu sifu sekalian?
(costs are in sgd for 2ppl)

Purpose of trip is mostly for skiing and a few days in Tokyo to cover things I havent done before. Costs are high cos this time taking 4days ski lessons.



This post has been edited by deodorant: Jan 9 2019, 09:11 AM

RegentCid ooooh i record it down and try and plan it in.
sweet_pez good point. i might not necessarily do sushi though, this trip only few days in tokyo so don't want to spend too much time queueing.

Haha I'm taking this exact flight (sq638) on Thursday 🤣
1h10min is enough, it takes maybe 10min to get off the plane, and another maybe 20-30min max to transfer to T3 for sq638.

Having said that. I would 100% be comfortable with a 1hr10min connection coming back from holiday. But in the outgoing flight, IF your KUL-SIN flight gets delayed by more than like 20-30mins then you might miss the SIN-NRT. Of course SQ will take care of you and put you on next flight, but do you really want to deal with all that headache and schedule changes on the 1st day of your holiday?

This post has been edited by deodorant: Jan 22 2019, 03:02 PM

Wouldn't your photographer be the best person to give you suggestions? (I assume you're hiring one in Japan)