Then it was up on the Romantic Road, through Manza Onsen and then to the Shirane-san crater.

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A sight to see, for sure and the weather was fully co-operating.









Next up, Kusatsu. Was getting a bit tired by now, but I think another reason I enjoyed it more last time in winter was because of all the steam coming up which was absent yesterday. So perhaps winter is best for the full atmoshpere here



Back home at 10pm, very tired!


Source: Karuizawa, Onioshidashi, Shirane, Kusatsu (Nagano/Gunma) - Golden Week 2012

Part two of our Golden Week travels and we decided to have a big long day out in Nagano and Gunma. It turned out to be a bit of a mammoth day with lots of driving (330+km), but the weather was so lovely and everywhere was looking so gorgeous and so colourful in the sun that we wanted to make the most of it and get as much in as possible. There were some really perfect white fluffy clouds in the blue skies - a big contrast to the rather miserable start to the day back home.

So we started out from Minamiuonuma and got the expressway down to Karuizawa.

First stop was the lovely Kumano shrine (熊野神社) up behind old Karuizawa (Usui Toge).
It's only small but lovely up there and a perfect opportunity for more photos of stone thingies and shrine stuff.

























After checking out a lovely waterfall and failing comically to get any half decent shots of it, on to Onioshidashi Park at the foot of Mt Asama. It's about 20 minutes out of Karuizawa and I think it is officially in Tsumagoi town.

I have been here before but it rocks, quite literally - it's made up of 'a stream of solidified lava formed by a eruption' way back.
It makes for impressive scenery and feels very other-worldly. Highly recommended.

































Lots of (well, 4) toll roads on the route from Karuizawa to Shirane.
I think it was 300 yen, 360 yen, 360 yen and 1020 yen for the final bit up to Shirane.
Kind of curious how they come up with these toll charges and why the road going to and from Onioshidashi is counted as two.



Source: Karuizawa, Onioshidashi, Shirane, Kusatsu (Nagano/Gunma) - Golden Week 2012

Last weekend I spent a few days in the Niigata city area with a few friends.

On Saturday we went to the lovely Kokujo-ji temple in Mitsuke.
It is a really beautiful setting, and for me the most pictureseque in Niigata-ken (along with my local Untoan).
Lots of enormous beautiful and varied trees, sakura, temples buildings and all the pretty statues and decorative things that you find at temples.
Tons of eye-candy, I could easily spend the day there just looking, though perhaps I should mention that it is not on the same kind of scale as a place like Nikko.

The weather was beautiful, the sakura were in full bloom and it was just looking so beautiful. Of course, we had a picnic under the sakura with the petals raining down on us.

Surprisingly it wasn't busy at all either. Bonus!










































Source: Temples, sakura and gardens (Niigata) - Golden Week 2012

Considering this place is the second closest ski-jo to where I live (the closest being Muikamachi Ski Resort) and less than 10 minutes to the lifts, it's pretty amazing that I had never been until today.

Today was the day though and we thought we would check it out - and actually were quite surprised at how big it was. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means big but certainly bigger than I thought. 4 quite slow pair lifts and two 'bases'.

Yet another of the resorts along the recently named 'Paradise Alley'.

It's basically a bit further north than Joetsu Kokusai, which can easily be seen from Chateau. That also of course means that it is also not far from the magnificent Mt Granview. Perhaps the upcoming gondola from Ishiuchi Hanaoka > Mt Granview could be extended to Chateau Shiozawa to create an even Mega-rer Resort.

Snow was very heavy and granular and spring. Very warm. I noticed a thermometer on one of the lifts saying +9 degrees.
Thighs will have had a good work out.

Runs apart from the top one basically just long and gentle-ish cruisers, so the bottom areas would be pretty good for kids I suppose and there were a fair few down there.

No good camera today, as I have sold all my lenses as I wait for a new camera, so just some fun snapshots time.









The top bit... might be more fun on a powder day.





The Yoshizato side base, very close to town actually really low





The resort basically has rice fields to the left and right. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the courses were over rice fields







The other base. Not sure if twins called Kevin own that building on the right...



Maiko on the left and Yuzawa behind in the distance



The cheese shot



Tired thighs but good exercise




Source: Chateau Shiozawa (Minamiuonuma, Niigata) - 11th March 2012

Very strange day today weather wise.
Started off snowing, then around 8am it was bright blue skies, then it quickly clouded over again.
Back to sun after 9am and as I hadn't been skiing since Hakuba last week I thought I would go out and have a half day.
Lovely blue skies for an hour or so and then it got all grey and clouding over once again around lunchtime.
Lots of different shades of blue, then grey.
It was almost like it was different days looking in different directions.

I was really pleasantly surprised at the snow - it was really decent out there today.
Actually it was easily better than last week (in Hakuba), which was unexpected given the weather we had since then.

I know I have posted pics from Maiko from this season before, so try some different ones.
Messing about with fisheye, lovely snowy trees, sunshots and.... well, some more trees. I like trees.
What fun!



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Giant overlooks the little people













I reckon last weeks warm weather did some of this



























Wu-e-hey!




Source: Centleisure Maiko (Minamiuonuma, Niigata) - 28th February 2012

First part of this trip report from Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba 47 here:

http://www.snowjapan...-february-2012/

For the afternoon, I moved over to Happo-one.

Words will just spoil it, so here's photos I took there. Look out for really tiny people in some of them.













































Source: Happo-one (Hakuba, Nagano) - 20th February 2012

Recently I have been working on days I normally wouldn’t work, just so that I can be sure to be in a position to make the most of clear and sunny days and go skiing then. Monday 20^th was looking like it would be an almost guaranteed fine clear day over in Hakuba – with clear skies forecast for the night before and after - so I asked my boss (me) and luckily he said it was ok. So Hakuba it was. Dreams were about to come true!

It takes just under three hours to get there from where I live (curiously, more like two and a half coming back – probably because when I got it is very early morning, icy and busier) and the journey takes me over to Tokamachi, goes past Tsunan, Sakae, Nozawa Onsen and a bit of expressway past Nagano city. Then up on over to Hakuba. Starting out at about 5:30am, I was in Hakuba just before 8:30am.

I was very happy to see those lovely blue skies over Hakuba. There was some cloud on the tops of the mountains, but they were to disappear for a good few hours in the middle of the day, enough for me to get in my photos.

I parked in the Goryu car park and started off there, straight up to ‘the top bit’ as I call it. The snow was pretty decent up there, but I would say comparable with the snow quality in Minamiuonuma. What is different from Minamiuonuma of course is the scale of the mountains over there. The backdrop mountain scenery is truly stunning and there’s a real ‘big mountain’ feel. Feels very different to my home valley.

I spent the morning in Hakuba Goryu and Hakuba 47. It wasn’t that busy – I didn’t wait for any lifts at all, though it was busier than a weekday resort in my town. And there were certainly many more foreigners, that was very noticable.

In the afternoon I made my way over to Happo to make the most of the good weather and get my shots in over there. More on Happo in a different post.

Here’s some photos from Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba 47.













I clicked on a wrong key somewhere but it looks cool!
































Source: Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba 47 (Hakuba, Nagano) - 20th February 2012

Just a quick entry for the records.
Went to Maiko for the morning.
My, it was busy. Perhaps the busiest I have ever seen it.
Good for them, not good for me - being used to quiet weekdays.
At least I got some good exercise walking from the car to base!
Not complaining, it was fun, but felt lucky that I can do weekdays most of the time.

No photos - for once I didn't take a camera!

Today is the first day/night of the annual Tokabochi Tokamachi Snow Festival.

Tokamachi is about 30 minutes drive from Muikamachi, in the next valley parallel to where I am.

We had clear skies earlier on this evening but it started snowing which kind of spoilt some of the later photos I took, but here's some anyway to get an idea of what was on show.




































Source: Tokamachi Snow Festival (Niigata) - 17th February 2012

This morning started off really cloudy, then it snowed and by lunchtime we had the sun out and blue skies.
Time to ski.
So I went to close-by Joetsu Kokusai for the afternoon.

I realised today that I am rarely at a skijo in an afternoon. Apart from quickly changing weather conditions again - quite quickly clouded over - late afternoon brings with it different colours.
The snow was decent at the top Atema part, but like sand down at the base.
But I had fun.

I always want to like Joetsu Kokusai and I think I would more if the lifts were better. Sometimes you feel like you are there for sightseeing as much as skiing. OK in a chilled out kind of way, but not if you want to be, er, skiing!
The two lifts connecting the main area to Atema are the worst culprits as they as both basically two-way "connecting lifts". So people pulling funny faces to each other as you go past. Or maybe that was just me.
Having said that, Atema always has the best snow at JK and so worth getting to.

'The Overlook' Hotel



(It's not really called that).







Peace!









The Atema area at the top of Joetsu Kokusai



Lots of scenery like this at JK.







Looking over to Minamiuonuma











Not open today



Not that busy today



Late afternoon



Having fun!




Source: Joetsu Kokusai (Minamiuonuma, Niigata) - 16th February 2012