Family trip to Japan - Tokyo and ski adventure

[QF WP]

After getting kitted out, time to head to the first resort - some photos from the trip to Inowashiro.

Here’s the resort slopes in the distance - off we go!





As we got closer, it started to get real. What would my body remember after 20 years break?



Nice snow depth in the town below the slopes :



Some of the snow on the roofs defy gravity. Don’t be standing underneath:



Seriously getting deep snow:



Views of the Urabandai lake:













Finally we got there! Urabandai Lake Resort

View from our window



View from our kids room - better

 

[markis10]

Was at Gala on the 18th Jan 2019 with jr, until that trip I thought going to the snow was the same as having a cold shower and ripping up $100 bills, great memories and I bet your making heaps!

 

[QF WP]

To give an idea of where we are:



More of the room:







Yes, it’s hiding a Toto bidet toilet:



A step down to the bath/shower:



Time to have our first group dinner at a local Urabandai restaurant especially opened for us. Two of these on the table for our group of 10 (2 tour leaders including @rugbyskier and 8 participants):





Whilst it looked unusual it was very tasty. Reminded me of shabu shabu:



My bowl was full, it was cold outside:



We had us QF WP’s, a couple from Canberra and a couple from Adelaide/Noosa. Was a great time to start to get to know each other.

 

[rugbyskier]

As the organiser of the tour that QF WP and family came on, I can add a bit of background to the area and the recent photos.

The region where we skied is called Aizu and is located in the western part of Fukushima Prefecture. The regional centre is Aizuwakamatsu, which has a similar population to Toowoomba, and is where Tsuruga Castle is located.

Inawashiro, which has a population of 13-15,000, is the local town for most of the ski areas in Aizu and is famous in Japan as the hometown of the man on the (now old) 1000 yen note, scientist Hideyo Noguchi. The local symbol is Akabeko, a red cow, which is everywhere as a toy with a nodding head.

Urabandai, where we spent the first night is a small village located in a highland region north of the volcano Mount Bandai. The Urabandai region was created from the 1888 eruption of Bandai and contains the famous Goshikinuma (5 coloured) Ponds.

I described the decor at the Urabandai Lake Resort hotel as "Nanna chic".

I'll hand back to QF WP to continue his story.

 

[QF WP]

So onto Day 1 skiing. Mrs QF WP and I haven’t skied in almost 20 years (pre-kids Xmas 2005 in Big White, Canada). Miss QF WP and Master QF WP have been in snow but never skied.

This resort wasn’t ski-in ski-out so we had to load up the van:



and head to the ski field:







@rugbyskier had organized the lift passes so we got them and put them in our sleeve pockets (their system scanned them as you went through the chair lift gates). One downside was the open chairlift to the beginner slopes).

As the other 2 couples were accomplished skiers they went off to the intermediate (blue) and advanced (black) runs, @rugbyskier spent an hour with us at the bottom helping us to find our skiing feet.



Then he took us up for the first run of the day.
The top of the run was steep and not the way a green run should start.



The first third of the run was a challenge and then it became a perfect green run.



A moguls run, certainly too advanced for us. I wanted to keep my ACL’s intact



The view down:



Looking back up the run

 

[rugbyskier]

The first day's skiing was at Nekoma Mountain, a 10 minute drive from Urabandai Lake Resort. Nekoma Mountain is a merged ski resort, consisting of North Side (which was formerly Nekoma Snow Resort) and South Side (formerly ALTS Bandai). The two areas were connected by a two-way lift that opened in 2023.

We started at North Side and I gave the WPs an informal beginner/refresher lesson. They stayed on the new Friendly Cat Express lift for the day and I took the others in the group for a lightning tour of South Side for 2 hours before coming back for a couple of runs with the WP family.

QF WP and his wife got their skiing legs back quickly, which I expected as muscle memory is a strong thing. The kids also picked up skiing well, their skiing ability after an hour was equivalent to where I usually get an adult group class after two 2 hour lessons. Miss WP in the last photo has a solid snowplough technique and she's doing the classic beginner pose and looking at her skis. I'm always telling guests "Don't look at your skis, they'll always be there. Look to where you're going and that's where your skis will go."

 

[Quickstatus]

Inawashiro

And if I may,
Inawashiro has hosted several freestyle skiing world cups over the years. Japan is big on mogul skiing

 

[rugbyskier]

And if I may,
Inawashiro has hosted several freestyle skiing world cups over the years. Japan is big on mogul skiing

That reminded me, last year I shared a lift at Nekoma North Side with a member of the Japan moguls team at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics who is now a coach. He had trained in Australia and we chatted about Thredbo when I told him I worked there as a part-time instructor.

 

[GarrettM]

I dunno @QF WP ....

All that snow looks mighty cold to me.

 

[Quickstatus]

A moguls run,

Looks delicious.
Miss QS is the expert in our family - Aus WC moguls team member - retired
Use softer boots to get ankle flexion. Don't dig the skis in let them slide and also be over your skis and pressure the front of the boot. Etc etc etc. it's the ultimate test of whether the skier is over the skis .

member of the Japan moguls team at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics who is now a coach

Interestingly one of the team of 4 at Vancouver OWG is a native of Inawashiro - Sho Endo.

Sorry @QF WP for the hijack

 

[rugbyskier]

Interestingly one of the team of 4 at Vancouver OWG is a native to Inawashiro - Sho Endo.

That's who I think he was.

 

[HirafuHeartAttack]

Always been fascinated by these:

View attachment 426417

Looked like they were outside some municipal building.

View attachment 426418

Sorry I only just caught up on this but wow what a trip so far! You have certainly picked agreat year to ski in Japan, particularly Honshu with the amount of snow they've had!

Just on the above that building is a Kabuki Theatre and the Sake barrels are normally used for good lukc and prosperity at festivals and celebrations, more often than not at shrines but also around New Years at various buildings. Some of the other Japanophiles can likely expand on this. Here's a link to the installation as well! Yoshiko Arima on Instagram: "Thirty (30) barrels of sake “Hakkaisan” are getting stuck up in front of Kabuki-za Theater in Ginza in preparation for New Year ! 72 liters x 30 = 2,160 liters of sake!! The central sign of “O-iri” is a wish for “sell-out” of all the tickets for the new year’s program So festive! So Japanese We don’t know how to appreciate this kind of customs that we are too accustomed. At any rate, new year’s a big business season!! #sake #barrel #nihonshu #hakkaisan #newyear #八海山 #japanesenewyear #kabuki #kabukiza #kabukitheater #ginza #tokyo @hakkaisan_1922"

 

[Quickstatus]

@QF WP There is something wrong with your photos.....
Where is everyone?

...
Dec 30 Part City UT (Bookface)

 

[Sprucegoose]

Interestingly one of the team of 4 at Vancouver OWG is a native of Inawashiro - Sho Endo.

Do they get a ski run named in their honor ala North Amercian style?

 

[Quickstatus]

Do they get a ski run named in their honor ala North Amercian style?

Zali and Matt got one named after them at Perisher.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Zali and Matt got one named after them at Perisher.

Indeed they did. The lovely Kelsey Serwa got one at Big White where the OP originally skied (so I dont go OT too much)

 

[QF WP]

With Day 1 over, it was time to move to our main Resort, where we’d be got the next 5 nights. Our bags had been taken between the resorts by our 2nd tour guide John (Jack Snr we called him) so we checked in and were hanging around the Lounge when @rugbyskier spied another gaijin (from Sydney) in the check-in line they’d met a couple of years ago. Small world indeed.

So now it was time to check out our new room:







A lovely gift and the nuts soon became a fixture of our afternoon post-skiing ritual with a cuppa.





Not a shabby view - down below us was the ski path to go down to the Resort.



But first, a night in the bar/lounge off the foyer, with a view to the trees in the photo above and kids (not ours) building snowmen outside the floor to ceiling glass windows.







The bar manager Fuji-san became a nightly fixture when we went down. His English was great.

 

[QF WP]

We checked the weather app before we went to bed:



Looks like pretty good weather for skiing for the rest of our ski days



So we awoke the next morning to a nice additional coating of snow on our balcony and we excitedly went down to have breakfast:





The snow in the trees outside the breakfast restaurant window said it all:



We were lucky to find a booth and plan what we were doing today.



So we fueled up on a mixture of Japanese and Western fare. It wasn’t long before we were at our lockers getting our gear and trying to slide into our ski boots (the hardest part of skiing every day)

We made it out and slowly down the path and a short ski down to the Resort:





Not a bad view up the mountain with the chairlift at the bottom:



We checked the Resort Map and decided to head up to Main Street first, a green run half way up the mountain via the Gondola. @rugbyskier was going to give Miss and Master QF WP an hour and we were going to find our ski legs on the gentle slope, hoping we could start skiing together as a family by this afternoon:



Good luck wave as we started off, up the mountain



Initially it didn’t look good with the wind and it was gently snowing - the view from the gondola was worth it:

 

[QF WP]

We’d agreed to meet everyone down in the Resorts main restaurant for lunch at 1pm. We’d had a late-ish start so we were ready after burning off some calories on the slopes:

Main area after the entrance (we came in the back every day)









They had crepes (didn’t try them) and an ice cream shop (never saw it open):





We took photos of the kiosk lunch menu so the kids could decide:

 

[ellen10]

Just caught up with this great trip report.
Thanks for sharing