Do you ski? If you ski then I'd say go Nozawa Onsen and ski a couple of days, then daytrip from there to see the snow monkeys. Do note that the trek from the road into the actual snow monkey pond is around 15-20mins on snow/ice, so make sure you have proper footwear.



Skip to around 4min mark to see the walking route.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Jul 25 2018, 03:26 PM

Arashiyama Benkei

https://benkei.biz/en/



Can reserve the open air bath for private use.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Jul 27 2018, 10:10 AM

Any particular reason why you want to stay in Oedo Onsen overnight (twice some more)? Is it just for costs so that you don't need to book hotel?

Also, like other people have said, train from tokyo all the way to sapporo takes 8 and a half to 9 hours, are you sure you want to spend so much time on it?

If you really must go Tokyo then sure, but the kansai region has plenty of stuff to keep you fully occupied for the entire 6 days. don't forget nara, kyoto, kobe, etc.

"Family" means with small kids? Babies?

https://tabelog.com/en/osaka/rstLst/yakitori/

Any ski'iers/snowboarders here?

Thinking of a short getaway to get some powder. At the moment considering between Naeba and Hakuba Cortina on Honshu for maybe 3 days of ski'ing. Any thoughts / recommendations?

I know Hokkaido has the best pow, but it also has the best (i.e. most expensive) prices, so ... a little out of my budget for this season.

sweet_pez様がんばっれ! My curriculum now focusing a bit on 丁寧語、尊敬語 and 謙譲語 (the trio of keigo ie polite speaking) and it's super confusing to me.

Anyway I'll probably be going back to Nozawa Onsen for late Jan ski trip. Mostly cos my BIL and his GF are tagging along and I don't know if they want to ski 3 days; if they don't then the 3rd day they can ownself go day trip to see the snow monkeys nearby or something.

Rough itinerary

Jan 24 overnight flight to Tokyo
Jan 25-28 Tokyo
(gonna check out new tsukiji toyosu market and just hang out eating ramen and stuff)
Jan 28-Feb01 Nozawa Onsen (skiing)
Feb01-Feb02 Kawaguchiko*
Feb02 overnight flight to KL

* Nozawa Onsen to Kawaguchiko is like 5.5hrs journey so I wonder if that's too much sitting in a train for one day. Wife wants a ryokan/onsen with mt fuji view to recuperate after skiing though 🤷🏻‍♂️

This post has been edited by deodorant: Sep 20 2018, 10:26 AM

Blofeld if you aren't planning to make hours-long calls then why not just use your own digi/maxis/whatever roaming to make the calls?

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/l...arting-10764830

RIP maricar? Sooner or later I guess.

"TOKYO: Nintendo said on Thursday (Sep 27) that it has won a court battle against a popular go-kart operator that allows drivers to dress up as Super Mario and other game characters to zip through the streets of Japan.

Visitors to Tokyo and other major Japanese cities are often stunned to see convoys of karts driven by people - usually tourists - dressed up as Mario, Yoshi, Princess Peach and other popular Nintendo characters buzzing around busy streets.

Unlike many countries, Japan has no ban on people driving go-karts on public roads.

But the court ruling looks set to bring such Nintendo-themed antics screeching to a halt.

The video gaming giant said the ruling blocks the "MariCAR" go-kart service from lending Mario and other characters' costumes to its customers."

the inner market and also apparently the inner market shops (uogashi yokocho area) will move, the outer market will remain.

personally i don't like visiting the outer market anymore (except for the divine gyudon beef bowl) cos it's too crowded and too touristy nowadays, but your mileage may vary.

Hmmm if I read the news properly, the only thing that they're not allowed to do is to provide mario character costumes, the go-karting itself is still kosher.

This one liao -- https://selected-ryokan.com/ryokan/jinpyoka...ibu_nagano.html only ~5mins walk from the entrance to the snow monkey trail.


I'm thinking of kawaguchiko in end-Jan next year but ... scared that the weather gonna be bad then pay so much for no view

Wah interesting. But hmmmm my schedule at first is ski Tues to Thurs then Friday go kawaguchiko ryokan/onsen and Sat back home, but the fireworks only on sat and sun night.

If wanna see means must previous weekend go kawaguchiko means terbalik onsen before ski liao

Just to chip in, annual/seasonal flu jabs don't give resistance against ALL types of flu. They only protect against what the experts predict will be the most common serious flu vaccines for the upcoming year/season.

Example: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-se...n-2018-2019.htm



If you take the flu jab and get exposed to any variant other than these 3-4 variants, if your immune system gets overwhelmed you will still get sick anyway.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Oct 19 2018, 04:38 PM

JR East Nagano-Niigata pass, take the Shinkansen to Iiyama, then from Iiyama there is a 20-25min shuttle bus to the town.

As to where to stay, uhhh ... I honestly don't know what's best. I stayed on a small minpaku along the main street near the Shinden bus stop (for the shuttle bus to the slopes). The location also not too far from town -- around 10mins walk -- for shopping and meals.

https://www.nozawaholidays.com/wp-content/u...6-Season-LR.pdf

For ski'ing I based out of the Nagasaka area instead of the Hikage area (the Hikage area is the bigger base I guess) because that's where the shuttle bus dropped us off first lol. Anyway we went with Sports THANX for the rental which was awesome cos they have a decent size ski storage area so once you get off the slopes you can dump your skis and boots there and head straight to town in normal shoes instead of having to lug everything back to your minpaku/ryokan/hotel.

Nozawa onsen is an onsen village that happens to be at the base of a ski area (rather than a purpose built ski village) so there isn't much ski-in ski-out stuff.

For dinner, I remember the mushroom soba at Yoshimi Soba was quite nice.

Anyway blogwh0re post here: http://look-see-eat.blogspot.com/2016/02/n...awara-plum.html



This post has been edited by deodorant: Nov 6 2018, 06:17 AM

Current Events guy Ah in that case there are shuttles from the airport but they're 6 hours (instead of SKS/bus which is about 3 hours).

https://www.nozawaholidays.com/shuttle-bus/

No, the mountain isn't big enoigh for a week. I think even 4 days might be a little boring if you only stick to on-piste (unfortunately I'm not skilled enough for BC/SC so no experience there). I'd say at most 3 days, then take the 4th day off to go see the snow monkeys or something, or extend your trip and do 2-3 days nozawa onsen and another 2-3 in a different nagano area resort. Myoko kogen maybe?

Nothing much to rate. If I had only 2 days in Tokyo I'd go to totally different places, but that's based on my own interests, I assume you've crafted your itinerary based on yours.

About not understanding Japanese, don't worry lar, Japan gets 20m+ tourists a year, how many of them do you think understand Japanese? Just go in point at pictures on menu can liao.

Anyone attended Sumo tournament before? Any tips on which website is the best for gaijins to pre-order / buy?

I'll be in Tokyo 24th-27th Jan which coincides with the last few days of the January tournament (13th-27th Jan). Thinking of attending either 24th (Thurs) or 25th (Fri).

Wondering if I should pay a reseller to book for me or just wait for 8th December when ticket sales open and ownself go and place orders on the english website http://sumo.pia.jp/en/sumo01.jsp

This post has been edited by deodorant: Nov 18 2018, 07:00 PM

I stay APA Hotel leh, they dun even like holding luggage for me how to ask them to buy Sumo tickets lol.

シッド様、I'm not made of money leh. In Tokyo / Osaka / cities that I won't spend much time in hotel I stay APA or other biz hotel then use that money on food and activities instead. Normally only when go ryokan and gonna spend the whole day relaxing there then only splurge for more expensive place

Anyway I found this gaijin website. https://shop.buysumotickets.com/shop/ but sexpensive, they charge ¥12000 for Arena A tickets that only cost ¥8500 if you ownself buy on ticket pia site. Think I will just risk it and sendiri try to get tickets on 8th Dec opening, think weekday shouldn't be so bad ba.