I made this part of my Japan trip a separate post because it really felt like a trip within a trip for me. It would have been enough for me to explore Tokyo for 7-8 days, but venturing out into the country on my own was something distinct.

I got the Shinkansen (high speed train) from Shinjuku to Nagano. These train are mind blowing. I’ve been on the TGV in France but this was next level. It takes roughly 1 hr 50 minutes to cover what takes a car about four and a half.

Once there I transferred to a bus to take me to the Shiga Kogen Prince Hotel where I was staying, about another hour.

Very cool to leave the city and switchback our way into the birch tree mountains, stopping to chain up along the way as the snow got thicker. As we got further into the preserve, the snow banks on either side of the road became as tall as the bus. This place gets DUMPED on in the winter time. I had obviously heard about this phenomenon but I assumed it was over exaggerated. After all, we get a lot of snow in Newfoundland most years, so my expectations weren’t that high. This base was something different though.

We snaked along the road passing resort after resort. It sort of reminded me of leaving Montréal and driving to Tremblent when I was a kid. There were small resorts everywhere. The Shiga Kogen Prince Hotel is one of the last resorts along this road. I grabbed my bag and went to check in. As I approached the hotel there was a guy probably a little younger than me waiting to greet me. I was surprised when he greeted me in English. Keep in mind that up til now the only English I’ve heard was the announcements on the subway and the people who worked at my hostel. Other than that I’ve been walking around in silence for days.

His English skills were huge, because I had made the risky decisions to not bring my own snowboard, but try to rent one at the resort. I had anxiety about this due to a) not really knowing if they had rentals, and b) the language barrier. He quickly alleviated both these concerns, showing the rental area and how it all worked.

With that I moved up to my room, got some food, and actually got a half day pass for the afternoon. That first day was crisp and had been tracked out pretty good after the Christmas ski season. The next couple days there was a lot of snow, especially in the glades. I’ve never seen anything like it. I rented a much bigger board than my regular east coast slush stick. Nevertheless, I was basically drowning. I’ve never ridden in powder like that before, and the quads were burning after the second day.

The hotel was really nice but very isolated. There was one restaurant where I ate all my meals. I should have definitely taken more stuff from civilization with me, i.e. booze.

Anyways, it was a really cool experience and I’m glad I did it. I now want to do a proper snowboard trip to Japan, maybe to Sapporo.

Here are photos I took staring out the window of trains and buses, as well as some hill selfies.