Feb 1st – Travel to Aomori and Start of Tohoku Trip
We were on the road by 9am to head to the Shin-Hakodate train station to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Aomori in Tohoku, the far northern tip of Honshu. We had to return the van to the Nippon Rent-a-Car next to the station first. We had purchased reserved seats the day before and had seats close to the baggage area at the front of the cabin. It was a quiet train so we used some of the overhead luggage compartments to store a couple of the ski bags.
I was excited to ride the train under the ocean but we found that most of the 1-hour long ride was through tunnels, so there wasn’t much to see. Still, it was another cool bullet train experience. Price was around $70 for a seat in standard class. We got to Aomori and it was raining. Yuck! Don’t forget that Aomori is one of the snowiest cities in the world, so this was a bit of a shock for there to be no snow. Oh well. We picked up our new van from across the road and circled back to load up the bags and the rest of the crew.
Then we headed to our hotel (the Daiwa Roynet Hotel) which was on main street, a little closer to the Aomori station compared to our hotel last year. This hotel is really nice, it’s brand new and well-priced. We were early for check-in so we went for a walk and had some lunch at a really nice branded steakhouse ($18 for a 300g ribeye). Then we checked in and had a little rest and catch up with work. We headed out around 630pm for dinner at an Izakaya restaurant that was a little expensive for the quality (plus you had to pay a 400 JPY cover charge to get in).
We finished off the night with a session of Karaoke at a place we had been to several times before. I’ve grown to love Karaoke in Japan, it’s lot’s of fun and I look forward to it now. Here you hire your own private room and order drinks, plus food if you want it and then hire the room in hour blocks. We hired it for 2 hours and that’s plenty of time. We had a fun session and then headed back to the hotel around 11pm.
Feb 2nd – Skiing Aomori Springs Resort
It was about 1 hour 10 minutes to get to the resort from the city. They’d had some decent snowfalls the day before (6 inches of fresh) but it was wet and heavy. I got to meet an old friend from Gulmarg who was instructing and guiding at the resort. I’d not seen Mike for 9 years or so but we’d kept in touch via Facebook for all these years. It was great to catch up.
It was the weekend and we didn’t get on snow till after 11am. My expectations were low. We took the gondola up and went down a green cruiser towards an old abandoned chairlift. We went straight into the trees next to the side of the trail and it was untouched. It’s a mellow pitch but a great warm-up. The skiing in the fresh was great. We took that down to the high-speed quad and then did a long traverse to the other side of the ski area to get over to the double chair and the upper trees that are steep and open.
Unbelievably, the snow in the trees was still untouched and I couldn’t believe it. It was lunchtime on a Sunday and no one had been in the trees yet. Score! We had the place to ourselves so we skied all 3 different tree lines. There was still plenty of untouched powder left over. The snow was awesome and we had a ball. We lapped there for several hours before it was time to start heading out. We had to drive to our new hotel in Hirosaki where we will be staying for the next 2 nights.
We checked in around 4pm at the Art Color Hotel, near the main station in Hirosaki. We drove to a really cool soba noodle restaurant run by a really nice lady who spoke some English. She was lovely and we all enjoyed some great noodles in broth. We were home early by 630pm and I could catch up on some work. Tomorrow we will hopefully do some skinning up higher and ski some of the longer runs through the trees.
- Matt
We were on the road by 9am to head to the Shin-Hakodate train station to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Aomori in Tohoku, the far northern tip of Honshu. We had to return the van to the Nippon Rent-a-Car next to the station first. We had purchased reserved seats the day before and had seats close to the baggage area at the front of the cabin. It was a quiet train so we used some of the overhead luggage compartments to store a couple of the ski bags.
I was excited to ride the train under the ocean but we found that most of the 1-hour long ride was through tunnels, so there wasn’t much to see. Still, it was another cool bullet train experience. Price was around $70 for a seat in standard class. We got to Aomori and it was raining. Yuck! Don’t forget that Aomori is one of the snowiest cities in the world, so this was a bit of a shock for there to be no snow. Oh well. We picked up our new van from across the road and circled back to load up the bags and the rest of the crew.
Then we headed to our hotel (the Daiwa Roynet Hotel) which was on main street, a little closer to the Aomori station compared to our hotel last year. This hotel is really nice, it’s brand new and well-priced. We were early for check-in so we went for a walk and had some lunch at a really nice branded steakhouse ($18 for a 300g ribeye). Then we checked in and had a little rest and catch up with work. We headed out around 630pm for dinner at an Izakaya restaurant that was a little expensive for the quality (plus you had to pay a 400 JPY cover charge to get in).
We finished off the night with a session of Karaoke at a place we had been to several times before. I’ve grown to love Karaoke in Japan, it’s lot’s of fun and I look forward to it now. Here you hire your own private room and order drinks, plus food if you want it and then hire the room in hour blocks. We hired it for 2 hours and that’s plenty of time. We had a fun session and then headed back to the hotel around 11pm.
Feb 2nd – Skiing Aomori Springs Resort
It was about 1 hour 10 minutes to get to the resort from the city. They’d had some decent snowfalls the day before (6 inches of fresh) but it was wet and heavy. I got to meet an old friend from Gulmarg who was instructing and guiding at the resort. I’d not seen Mike for 9 years or so but we’d kept in touch via Facebook for all these years. It was great to catch up.
It was the weekend and we didn’t get on snow till after 11am. My expectations were low. We took the gondola up and went down a green cruiser towards an old abandoned chairlift. We went straight into the trees next to the side of the trail and it was untouched. It’s a mellow pitch but a great warm-up. The skiing in the fresh was great. We took that down to the high-speed quad and then did a long traverse to the other side of the ski area to get over to the double chair and the upper trees that are steep and open.
Unbelievably, the snow in the trees was still untouched and I couldn’t believe it. It was lunchtime on a Sunday and no one had been in the trees yet. Score! We had the place to ourselves so we skied all 3 different tree lines. There was still plenty of untouched powder left over. The snow was awesome and we had a ball. We lapped there for several hours before it was time to start heading out. We had to drive to our new hotel in Hirosaki where we will be staying for the next 2 nights.
We checked in around 4pm at the Art Color Hotel, near the main station in Hirosaki. We drove to a really cool soba noodle restaurant run by a really nice lady who spoke some English. She was lovely and we all enjoyed some great noodles in broth. We were home early by 630pm and I could catch up on some work. Tomorrow we will hopefully do some skinning up higher and ski some of the longer runs through the trees.
- Matt