Crazy massive Japanese post of super awesome!! (part 2)

Yes, I'm back in Australia now. Have been for a week. Why haven't I posted parts 2 and 3 of my Japan report? Well, first of all, I'm lazy. You all know that. Secondly, Net access in Japan was a bit odd. The first hostel we stayed at had some not-so-cheap Internet terminals, which I mainly used for e-mail checking. We tried looking for an Internet cafe, but all we could find in the cities (namely Tokyo and Sapporo) were these places that charged per person, not per computer. They also had showers. It all seemed a bit suspect, so we stepped slowly away from these places and decided to make do without Internet for a few days. Other than that, a couple of the hotels we stayed at had really old laptops in the lobby. It's what I used to post my first Japan update, and I wasn't in the mood to do it a second time.

Here's part 2.

Disclaimer: This place is too good

I'd like to preface this part by saying that I will not directly name this ski resort that we visited for this leg of the journey (I will elaborate on the why later) but if you pay enough attention and do a small bit of research you can figure out where it is quite easily.

We got up too early. We only found this out when we got to the subway station at Asakusa on the morning of the first leg. We got to the entrance to the subway, and the shutters were still closed. We walked around a bit more and eventually found an entrance that was open, although it is equally likely that we simply walked around for long enough and the gates had opened by the time we got to that particular entrance.

Anyway, the important thing was that we caught the train we were meant to catch and we got to Ueno station with time to spare. We used this time to buy some onigiri (the stuff I incorrectly referred to as "rice buns" in the previous post) and other snacks for the Shinkansen ride to Yamagata. One of the items I purchased was a Kit Kat of unknown flavour. I couldn't really figure out what it was meant to taste like, nor could I figure out what the picture was meant to be on the package. All I know is that I was disappointed not to find any of the fabled soy sauce flavoured Kit Kats.

The snow cover got thicker and deeper as we traveled north. The Shinkansen split up when we got to Fukushima as the line forked. The train climbed through the mountains and I began to get genuinely excited for the week ahead. We caught a bus up from Yamagata to the ski resort and walked over to the hotel to check in. What we found out days later (when we were checking out) was that we could have rung ahead and gotten the hotel to pick us up from the bus station. This is what the language barrier does - it separates the normal people from the idiots (us). It was refreshing, though. Sure, there were language issues in Tokyo, but it was mostly manageable. Once we got far enough away it was truly a foreign experience.

Since we got there early, we had to leave our bags in the lobby (and get changed in the lobby) so that we could go snowboarding. I really liked the lift pass system in a lot of the places in Japan. It's similar to the one I saw in Innsbruck - you buy your pass and you get given a magnetic card. You use this card to get past gates, and since it's a proximity card you don't need to take it out every time. When you're done with it, you slip it into a machine and you get your card deposit back. It's a lot more convenient than having to show a lift pass to ticket checkers at the bottom of every lift. What's more is that you can buy cards that have points instead of hours or days. Each lift is worth a certain amount of points (usually 2 or 1) and you get that amount of points deducted from your card every time you pass the gate for that lift. It's a great alternative for those who perhaps plan to do backcountry and don't need to pass many lift gates, or for those who only plan to do a limited amount of runs.

The resort itself was amazing. I can confidently say that it's one of the best I've ever been to. We caught two gondolas up to the peak and watched as the trees got whiter and whiter until they were completely covered with snow and ice. Understandably, the top was full of Japanese tourists who were there not to ski or snowboard but to marvel at the beauty of these ice-covered trees. It certainly explained a lot of the traffic we saw at the first gondola, because the amount of people on the ski hill was pretty reasonable. Certainly more reasonable than an Australian resort.

What I was thrilled to discover was that barely any of the people who were actually on the ski hill had ridden anything in the trees. For some reason that I forget at the moment (I think it's some sort of cultural or religious belief), the Japanese seem to avoid the tree line as much as possible. This, compounded with the fact that barely any westerners visited this particular resort, meant that there was a lot of fresh powder to be ridden in the resort despite the fact that the last snowfall was half a week before we got there. It's almost surreal looking down from a chairlift and seeing only two tracks in the easily accessible trees - and they're both yours! This is the main reason I didn't want to name this resort. It's supposedly set to become a more popular international tourist destination in the coming years, but I do not want to contribute to its popularity. It's selfish, I know, but it's rare to find something this good and I'd like to come back some time in the next few years and experience something similar.

So I did a bit more of that then went back to the hotel to check in. The first thing we noticed was that the hotel room stank of cigarette smoke. I assumed this was from the air conditioning unit circulating air from other areas of the hotel where people were smoking - indeed, it was ok to smoke anywhere in the hotel, as is common in Japan. Other than that, it was a pretty good room. In the drawers were Japanese robes, which a lot of the guests wore all around the hotel. Dave and I tried them on but I don't think we wore them more than once. They looked cool, though.

We watched random programs on the television (some utterly baffling, others bafflingly hilarious) then headed off to find some dinner. On my way down, I ran into a Japanese couple who asked where I was from (in English - their English was better than my Japanese). I told them I was from Australia and their eyes lit up. "What's the weather there like at the moment?" one of them asked. "Around 40 degrees," I said. "40? That's great!" was the reply. I smiled and nodded. I didn't want to shatter their dreams and tell them that 40 is too bloody hot, thank you very much. I like my temperatures nice and cold.

Places seemed to close fairly early at this resort. We later found out that other places opened late. It was bizarre. We wanted to find a place to eat and could only find one that was open at the time. As we were walking home, we saw another place about to open. This was the place we ended up eating at for the next 3 nights. They served food and alcohol and the guy serving us overpoured the sake we ordered on purpose, telling us that it's ok to drink the overflow that went on the little glass holder (it was tasty sake, too).

The next few days on the hill were similar to the first. I went off and looked for some good tree runs while Dave slowly but surely improved on the easier runs (and sometimes, by accident, on the really hard runs). I fell a lot while practising my switch (and got really sore doing so) and on the third day almost fell into a tree. Yes, you heard right. It was bad visibility at the top of the mountain but it was good enough at where I wanted to go. Dave handed me his camera to film some footage, which I did for a while. The camera handling distracted me and I ended up going too slow. I went close to a tree and stopped, and some of the snow less than half a metre in front of me fell down towards the bottom of the tree (that's how deep the snow was). It was powder where I was sitting, and it took me a couple of minutes to get out of there. After this, I decided it was a good time to put away the camera and focus on the riding. It was a shame, too, because the rest of the run would have made for really good footage.

Après-ski?

The other thing we discovered about the more "traditional" Japanese ski resorts is that après-ski activities were a bit different. For one, we couldn't find any places resembling a pub or club anywhere on the resort (this could be partly because we couldn't read any of the signs). We ended up getting beer and sake from the convenience store and drinking at the hotel while watching wacky TV on most nights. One particular night we cracked open a local sake that was wrapped in newspaper. It tasted really good, and Dave got a bit too drunk from it. So drunk, in fact, that he couldn't pour himself any water afterwards.

One thing I found out much later from a random English-language publication advertising things to do in Japan was that après-ski in Japan was different to other places around the world. For example, going to an onsen is more common in traditional resorts than going out to a bar. This would probably explain why I was the only person at the hotel's nearby onsen when I decided to check it out. The natural hot spring baths are split up into male and female sections, and you go into them clothesless (in uncommon cases, onsens are mixed-sex and allow the use of towels in the bath). Onsens often have different naturally occurring minerals or chemicals that they claim to have medical benefits. This particular one was a sulphur onsen. I can't speak for the medical benefits, but I can say that this onsen certainly smelled like sulphur, and it was very very hot. Still, it was nice and relaxing. I smelled like a used matchstick afterwards.

The T

In our hotel room when we checked in was, amongst other things, a puzzle. It was a wooden shape puzzle called The T, and we had no idea what we were actually meant to do with it since the instructions were in Japanese. We theorised that we needed to make the shapes shown on the packaging out of the four shapes they gave us. However, it seemed impossible to do so thanks to the irregular shapes. I suggested that perhaps we only needed to make one of the shapes and the other ones were distractions. On the second day, I managed to get one of those shapes and declared victory over David for having solved the puzzle. Still, it bothered me why all these other shapes were there on the box. On the last night, we were packing and since I felt lazy and didn't want to pack yet, I decided to give the puzzle one last chance. After a few minutes a got one shape and gloated some more to Dave. So he had a look and told me to move a few pieces, which led to another shape. And another. And another. And another. A few more minutes later, we had made all the shapes that were displayed on the puzzle's packaging. It was one of the most fulfilling moments of our time away from the ski hill on that leg of the trip.

The next morning we got up and went to the lobby to check out. The lights were out and reception was empty. After ringing the bell for a while a guy eventually came out and checked us out. He asked if we were going to the bus station, and he took us there. This is when we found out they did free pick-ups and drop-offs (d'oh!). When we got there he talked to the station agent for a moment and then he told us that since it was a Sunday, the first bus of the day that headed down to Yamagata wasn't running, which meant we had to wait an hour at the station for our bus. We got up too early.

Japan (part 2) overview

Days spent: 4
Consecutive nights at the same restaurant: 3
Best vending machine location: Mid-mountain on the side of a run
Westerners spotted: 7

Crazy massive Japanese post of super awesome!! (part 1)

I'm currently sitting at a hotel lobby's laptop that's probably not meant to be for long use, but I can't understand what the signs say, so I'll use it anyway. I'll split up the Japan updates into three, one for each leg of the trip. We're currently on the eve of the third leg but this is the first time I've actually had time to sit down at a computer and write something comprehensive.

Bright lights, big city

It was raining when we arrived in Tokyo. The trip from Sydney was long as we had a layover of a few hours in Cairns where we met up with Luke's friend, Brendan. We also ran into a friend of Dave P's on the flight to Cairns - coincidentally taking the same route to Japan, and spending some time snowboarding while in the country.

After a long but uneventful line-up at customs and quarantine, we were met by a massive map of Tokyo's transit system and had no idea which buttons to press. Some kind Japanese girls helped us out and it turned out that it was actually quite easy to understand the whole ticket system. We briefly split up with Luke and Brendan because they decided to use the first day of the JR Pass and had to take a different line to Asakusa. I was quite impressed by Tokyo's trains. Not only were they impossibly efficient but they also had warm seats! Obviously the latter was important considering the weather.

From Asakusa station we made our way to our hostel through the rain and the seemingly lifeless streets - it turned out a lot of places close early in Asakusa even on a Friday. The room we got was tiny, which meant that we hung out at the lobby most of the time, drinking and socialising with the other backpackers. For dinner, we had food at some random 24 hour Japanese diner. I had some sort of katsu dish.

We had to take care of some formalities the next day, namely to pick up our JR East Pass and train reservations from the service centre in Ueno. It was still raining outside, and it was quite amusing seeing people riding bikes around with umbrellas.

We spent most of the day hanging around Akihabara. I was hunting down some Nintendo DS games and Dave was looking for an elusive Olympus camera. We had food at a yakitori place and inadvertently ordered some food we didn't particularly desire to eat. I had chicken gizzards and Dave had a chicken breast cooked rare. Dave looked far more uncomfortable eating raw chicken than I did eating chicken guts.

On my search for a games store that sold the games I was looking for, we came across many shops selling entertainment of a questionable nature. I wasn't surprised about the availability but at how openly they were displayed. Ironically, we went to a Maid Cafe, which we thought would be dodgy, but ended up being rather innocent (albeit expensive). After finding what we had been looking for, we had a snack at Mos Burger, a Japanese burger chain that had a few items that used rice instead of bread as buns.

After dinner at a sushi train (where we made quite a good mess of some green tea), we headed to Roppongi for a night out. Despite telling him that the Hard Rock Cafe was mostly a restaurant that happened to have a bar, Dave insisted we make that our first stop. After an expensive drink, we went to the Gas Panic, a bar that made sure you had a drink in your hand at all times. We met some Aussies and Kiwis there, and went with them to another bar, though we split suddenly to catch the last train back (trains stop running at about midnight). We made it as far as Ueno, but the connecting line had stopped running trains, so we had to walk from there to Asakusa.

Castle on a cloud

We had a flexible 4-day pass for JR East, two of which would be used to get to Yamagata and back. This meant that we would have two extra days of free rides on any JR East line. We decided to use the first of those to hop on the Shinkansen and head towards Aizu-Wakamatsu, whereupon we would find an old Japanese castle.

This was our first trip on a Shinkansen and it was very impressive. The trip was smooth and fast. We got off at Kōriyama to transfer to a conventional line. This leg of the trip was much shorter than the Shinkansen leg, but took a few minutes longer. The differences between the two types of trains was obvious.

The snow cover began to get thicker as we approached our final destination and we even passed a mini blizzard. Aizu-Wakamatsu was much colder than Tokyo, and I regretted not wearing my thermals. We decided to walk to the castle instead of catching the bus service, which was quite a bad idea due to the weather and the distance. My legs were killing me by the time we got there.

The castle was quite impressive, though perhaps not worth the walk. It was surrounded by a moat, and stood majestically atop a tiny incline of stone walls. It was surrounded by a few shrines and looked great with the thin scattering of clouds above it.

We got momentarily lost on the way back to the train station, and had to wait an hour and a bit for the next train. By this time we just wanted to get to the Shinkansen and have a rest. We missed the first train from Kōriyama and ended up staying at the station watching Shinkansen go past at crazy speeds. One thing I noticed on the Shinkansen was that they had normal toilets and male-only toilets. The male-only ones had a urinal, no lock on the door, and a little window on the door to see if there's anybody in there.

We had dinner at a ninja-themed restaurant in Akasaka, which I would equate to dinner theatre. The meals were expensive but it was worth trying it once for the experience. After speaking to the receptionist a ninja would come out of a trap-door wall and show you through a series of corridors with secret passageways. During dinner, a ninja would come along and do some magic tricks for you. It was entertaining but as I said, it's something I would not want to try again due to the cost.

Fish!

We woke up early the next morning to check out the fish market at Tsukiji. It took us a while to find it but once we got there we were greeted by a slew of trolleys driven with abandon by people looking to transport goods around. It was amazing how aware everybody was considering the lack of road rules in the fish market area. There certainly would have been many accidents had the drivers (and the pedestrians) not been on the ball.

Amongst fish and weird-looking seafood of many shapes and sizes, we managed to find a whale vendor. The kind man sliced us a piece to sample. It was kind of fatty. Instead of eating a proper meal at one of the restaurants at the market, we made the silly decision of getting grilled eel from a street vendor. It was cold and still had some bone in it (a bit of which was stuck to my mouth for most of the day).

The next stop was Harajuku, fad capital of Tokyo. One particular street, Takeshita Sreet, was lined with shops catering to every fashion fad you could think of. We bought novelty tees while we were there. Nearby was Yoyogi Park, but we were too tired from the early start and the constant walking to bother going through all of it.

Dave went on to the Tokyo Tower, an Eiffel Tower style commications tower (that's slightly taller), while I looked for a bank to exchange some money. I found one but it was pretty extortionate. Not only did they want to charge me a ridiculous exchange rate, but they said that they couldn't change one of my notes due to the series of the serial number. I ended up not getting any money changed since taking money out from the ATM was more economical. We finally headed back to the hostel afterwards, ending 12 hours of exploring the city.

We had okonomiyaki for dinner, a Japanese type of pancake cooked on a hot plate at the table. We had no idea how to cook the things because we weren't given any instructions. Fortunately, the Japanese couple sitting next to us gave us some pointers.

We headed to Odaiba the next day, an artificial island off Tokyo Bay. It was very hazy, which we first thought was pollution, but which may have been related to the volcano that erupted elsewhere in the mainland.

Some highlights of the island was the miniature Statue of Liberty replica, the architecture of the Fuji TV building, and a shopping complex that copied the faux Roman atmosphere of the Forum Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas almost to a T. After checking out free exhibits by Toyota and Panasonic, we grabbed some rice buns and headed back to the port. The rice buns - filling covered in rice wrapped in seaweed - were incredible and inexpensive.

We hung out at the hostel lobby until 1 in the morning sharing photos and stories with other backpackers, perhaps a bit too late for our early morning start to head to Yamagata the next day.

Japan (part 1) overview

Days spent: 5
Maid Cafes visited: 1
Most outrageous food eaten: Chicken gizzards on a stick
Vending machines: Too many to count