Travelling – well that sucked. All the trips ran on perfect time though (and as you can see, Percy and I thoroughly enjoyed the business lounge in Sydney):
After about 30hrs of travelling we arrived at the Hirafu Welcome Centre where one of the guys who works at our accommodation came to pick us up. There are only about 6 staff here and they are all very nice, although to me they sometimes seem a bit disorganised. I say “to me” because I am a bit annoying when it comes to organisation :p
We arrived about 4pm that first day and literally just collapsed. Knowing that the worst thing to do is give in to jet lag/no sleep and then give in to tiredness we went out for tea. They have a system here where the driver takes you wherever you want to go and picks you up whenever as well, it works pretty well. This is because Freedom Inn is located about a 600m walk from Hanazono Base and not actually on the village side. The first night the staff recommended Nakama which is a tiny little restaurant in a side street with NO ENGLISH. Haha baptism by fire.
Lots of pointing and nodding finally resulted in this which was pretty amazing after only eating mentos and one chicken stick thing all day:
This was the view driving from the airport to the village (which took about 2hrs) and frankly…was amazing.
Annnnnd this is the view from our room for the next 12 days!
So that was day 1. We made it to 8:14pm and then crashed and burned.
At 7am the next morning we were up bright and early (and pretty bushy tailed after a good 11hrs sleep, even for me which is unheard of) and enjoyed the free breakfast provided by the inn. Then we sorted out my hire skis and were off on the slopes. There’s no proper practice area in Hirafu so I has just had to start on a green run which was a bit traumatic, I fell over a lot. These runs are groomed so the snow only has some powder and the only time I fell over was when I went near the powder!
By lunch time my legs were starting to shake so we stopped for food. Hanazono was extremely busy because 6 out of 10 lifts were closed on the mountain so people had limited options to go up higher (too windy). Here are some photos of both of us being complete idiots on soft powder:
It was amazing! Haha B just literally launches himself head first into it which is hilarious to watch.
By 2pm my legs had completely given out but my skiing had improved a lot. We walked back to the hotel, had a rest and then went to an onsen! My first naked experience. I was a bit freaked out going in but I was very relaxing to sit in a hot bath for an hour and I really enjoyed it. We walked down through central Hirafu after and into A-bu-cha which is a renowned restaurant that has a one month booking list. Our hotel suggested we try it since there were only 2 of us and we got lucky, we were seated after only 20mins wait.
I had my first taste of sake which I actually really liked:
We are what they are famous for at his place, which was a hot pot. Ours was a spicy pork and vegetable one and it was delicious. They put all the raw ingredients on the little hot plate and then it boils and cooks it all.
After dinner we were in bed by about 9:30pm again. I am technically writing this on day 3 and am not sure how today will go. I have been awake since 1am with a splitting headache, leg cramps and feeling really nauseous so I may have a day in bed while B actually gets to go out and play in the red and black trails (which he can do and I can’t). I’ll see how I am in an hour or two when he wakes up.
Mel's Travel Blog 