Trip Report 23rdJan – 4thFeb – Tokyo/Nozawa-Onsen/3 Ryokans

This is my trip report about 13 days to Japan. Feel free to ask any questions.

My Trip:

1st Day Arrived in Tokyo 9:30pm. Stay 1 night in Karaksa Hotel Tokyo Station.

Took monorail followed by JR Yamanote Line from the airport. As next day we are traveling out via Shinkansen, so I stayed in this hotel which is very near to Tokyo Station. 6ish hours of flight from Singapore so there is no jet lag. Once I arrived in Tokyo Station (11pm), I went to the machine that is able to print out my JR Pass and the reservation tickets that I had bought and reserved online. That helps to save time from queuing up in the Reservations Centre the next day. I stayed in this hotel before. Small but near to Station and meet my needs.

2nd Day Travel to Echigo-Yuzawa (1 night)

Took a morning train around 9am. We also bought the bentos in Tokyo station to eat in the train. Total travel time is 1.5hrs. We reserved the (2x) seats at the back of the car so that we can put our 3 big luggage there. We didn’t reserve any luggage space as this is not required.

Our Ryokan/hotel is Yukemurinoyado Yuki-no-Hana. Since we are there early, and check in time is only 3pm, the hotel kept our luggage and we went exploring. Head back to station where there is more than 100 sake to try, had lunch there and decided to sit in the cafe for cakes/coffee. Suddenly a huge snow storm occurred after we stepped in. Since the storm is quite bad, we decided to stay longer and only went back to the hotel for check in around 2ish. There is a shoe locker at the lobby area and we walked around the hotel without any shoes. The room is also cosy that comes with both toilet and shower area. We enjoyed our stay with Onsen and Dinner/Breakfast (included). There are private onsen rooms too. Total price for 1 night was around USD$200.

3rd Day – 5th Day Nozawa Onsen (3 nights) Snowboarding activities

We were little worried as the snow storm had caused quite a lot of cancellations and delays in the train lines in Japan. Luckily for us, our train was quite on schedule. (Slightly late). And we managed to reach Nozawa Onsen and hotel around 1pm. The usual 3pm check in applies, so we went for lunch and even went up the ski area to book our snowboard equipment. Our friends who were traveling from Osaka, had to divert to Tokyo before traveling up to Nozawa, sadly, due to the snow storm and the shinkansen (between Osaka and Tokyo) was stuck at the track for quite a while and they only managed to reach Nozawa around 6pm. We didn’t manage to stay with our friends as by the time we were looking for hotels in Nozawa back last year October, most of the accommodation were full. This hotel Haus St Anton has quite a few business including a French restaurant, cafe and ski equipment rental. The room that we booked doesn’t come with toilet. It was about USD$170/night and we also opt for 2 days of breakfast except for the checkout day since we are leaving early. There are quite a lot of foreigners in Nozawa and quite a few of the school instructors are Caucasians. There’s quite a lot of public (free) onsens in the village but the onsen water is very hot.

6th Day Karuizawa / Shima Yamaguchikan Ryokan

Took Shinkansen to Karuizawa where we pick up our rental car from Toyotal Rent a Car. We parked in Karuizawa Shopping Plaza for shopping. 1st 2 hours parking is free followed by every hour at 100 yen. It was Saturday and the place is packed with mostly Japanese. Around 2ish, we left for Yamaguchikan Onsen which took us about 2 hours. Our shoes were also left at the Lobby, walking around the Ryokan with our socks. The hotel is cosy too but my issue is that the toilet which is located near the entrance of the room is on a slightly colder side. What I like about this place is that the view from the onsen is beautiful: snowy slopes with lots of trees. Since it is Saturday, this Ryokan is quite crowded as well. USD270/night

7th Day Takaragawa Onsen Osenkaku

It was another 2 hours ride but we also went around exploring other places and including an urban supermarket. Bought some food stuff to eat in the next Ryokan. Surprisingly, in this trip all the Ryokans we been to had to leave our shoes in the lobby. The highlight of this Ryokan is the outdoor onsen. We had to get out of the main building and walk about 100m or more to the open air onsen. However, the water is not as hot as some of the places we been to. It is a mixed outdoor onsen so we had to cover ourselves with another clothing. Another downside is the weather is below 0 deg Celsius. It was extremely cold in the outdoor onsen. USD240/night

8th Day – 13th Day Tokyo

We drove the car back to Karuizawa and shop a little more before heading back to Tokyo. This time round we stayed in Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyobashi (near Tokyo Station) which is USD$115/night without breakfast. Since I’m been Tokyo quite a number of times, our trip here is to re-visit some of the places that we had always been to except for Shibuya Sky and TeamLabs. Love visiting Isetan or Daimaru Food section. Especially during evening times, you will see lots of Japanese usually off work will buy food for their dinner. Lots of cakes too. It was so crowded that sometimes you might get shoved.

Love Teamlabs too. We bought the tickets online and the first slot of the day. It was quite crowded even for weekday.

You can also buy tickets from online for Shibuya Sky and it is slightly cheaper too.

I always go to Sensoji Temple to check my annual fate/luck. Just deposit 100 yen into the hole, hold on to the big metal cannister and start shaking till a wooden stick appears. You can take the “fortune note” from the cabinet based on the number on the stick. After visiting, it is time for lunch, I decided to choose Unatoto, Unagi restaurant. This is a very very small restaurant and by far this is the cheapest Unagi I ever tried. You will need to queue outside the restaurant to wait for your turn. They also do have English menu.

Talking about English menu, I was in Shibuya looking for lunch and came across this (also) small restaurant. I went in and was given a Japanese menu. I asked for English menu but surprisingly they dun have. Luckily we took a picture of the food outside and pointed to the waitress what we want. The lunch set was cheap! Less than USD$10, a middle rare steak!

Others and afterthoughts:

Phone Internet: Ubigi 10GB for USD$17. Due to my settings in my iPhone, I managed to use up all 10GB during my stay.

Been traveling to Japan since 2005. My visits had been to various places except the southern part of Japan.

I had always encourage people to take Limousine Bus but in this trip we couldn’t due to the timing of our flights (late arrival, early departure). Luckily our flights are in Haneda Airport which is around 30-40 mins of local train ride. That is also the reason why I choose to stay around Tokyo Station. Tokyo Station has both local and Shinkansen trains. And this station is much easy to navigate as compared to Shinjuku. There are a lot of food and shopping available within the station and that makes it less complicated to look for food.

One of the things I like about Japan is Public Toilet. No matter where I go, it is clean and easily accessible. Even when we are driving the rental car, all we need to is look for 7-11 where toilets are clean and sell delicious sandwich and fried chicken!

I will be planning for another trip with more family members either end of the year or Feb next year.

Please feel free to comment!