Japan 2011- info

may be heading to HAKUBA this season.

any idea of the current base in hakuba?

another shitty start to the season :) Niseko is fine, but nagano isnt even close to starting. Its going to take a proper dump to kick things off! Im watching the hakuba web cams daily and its a rollercoaster ride. Some days its green and rain, and others its looking nice and white. JUST START ALREADY, YOU BASTARDS!!! 

Hey guys.
Keen on heading to Japan in February. Just wondering is it safe to go, or should I wait till 2013.

I'm going to be doing it real cheap, since I have spent the last 12 months abroad. And this is my stop-over before I return to Australia. Was thinking of 3 days in Osaka, 2 days in Kyoto, a week in Hakuba and 3 days in Tokyo. Whats the best and cheapest way to get around.

What kind of budget would I be looking at? I'm keen on eating supermarket food, and bunking with others.

Cheers


martin, my trip last february was pretty much identical to the one your planing. i booked a return flight from australia so i'll discount that from the costs, but we booked through a hostel and hired most of our gear, got return transfers from narita airport in tokyo to hakuba and 6 days of lift tickets and 7 nights of accommodation in a hostel dorm for 900 australian dollars.

After that i spent about 10 days in tokyo,osaka and kyoto and nara and booked a 1 week JR rail pass for the bullet trains for 350 aus. I reckon all up for 3 weeks away excluding flights was roughly 2500 and thats hiring gear and lift tickets and all our accomodation and other expenses for 3 weeks.

Is ~$4200 for 14 weeks of room, food, lift tickets and a guide a good price?  Although I don't need a guide, but it's what's included.

kyoto is alas right on your route. It goes something like this on the train

Originally posted by ctoma Originally posted by matic Originally posted by jenni you guys are so mean to the poor guy. you can go snowbaording if you want, l dont believe thats the area thats affected. its not like the whole japan islands are all contaminated. japan is fine. i was just there on a coast to coast trip. was amazing!  Did you encounter any Radioactive Ninja Zombies?

zomb jitsu is not an effective technique because you'll be in direct chomping distance from them as you perform your jitsu on them, and pain doesnt register for them anywyays

^^LOL!! if he did, he wouldnt have made his way back here now would he

Originally posted by jenni you guys are so mean to the poor guy. you can go snowbaording if you want, l dont believe thats the area thats affected. its not like the whole japan islands are all contaminated.

you guys are so mean to the poor guy. you can go snowbaording if you want, l dont believe thats the area thats affected. its not like the whole japan islands are all contaminated.

Originally posted by rye ^^yeah but these arnt regular zombies like ctoma says, they are really fast and what they do is sit by the border where the government zoned off to keep intruders in, and really the nuclear crisis was all a hoax just so the government had an explaination to clear a whole area to give to them

Originally posted by martindagun Hey guys. Keen on heading to Japan in February. Just wondering is it safe to go, or should I wait till 2013. Cheers

Hey guys.
Keen on heading to Japan in February. Just wondering is it safe to go, or should I wait till 2013.

I'm going to be doing it real cheap, since I have spent the last 12 months abroad. And this is my stop-over before I return to Australia. Was thinking of 3 days in Osaka, 2 days in Kyoto, a week in Hakuba and 3 days in Tokyo. Whats the best and cheapest way to get around.

What kind of budget would I be looking at? I'm keen on eating supermarket food, and bunking with others.

Cheers

Originally posted by ippollite I think he means its not going quite as mental as western media reports would indicate (radiation clouds coming to destroy tokyo; mass evacuations; no food; no electricity; dogs and cats living together...) And from what i gather its generally correct. Theres a great deal of story manufacture going on from people who probably should know better. Even the BBC, that legendary source of information has been driving me insane with its hypotheticals, qualifiers, and exaggerations.

Originally posted by Nachitox Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think except the affected area, and the radiation issues, the rest of Japan is working like nothing happened.  Rephrasing, there's normal activity in the rest of the country, right?

that's not true. many parts of japan are having black outs to conserve energy as their nuclear reactor failed to generate electricity.

Originally posted by ippollite thats sad to hear. Any info on it? ETA: I just checked hakuba now on snowjapan and they dont even mention it. :?

there was an avalanche that clamed 3 lives from the first earth quake on Friday afternoon here in Hakuba,

The ski fields are running at 1/2 speed on the lifts as there are now one here.

Shame as we just got a good 40 50cm up the top of the mountain last night. and good pow!

japan is gonna blast through this.

Originally posted by woodyy05 shtook! hope anyone that's over in japan is alright! did you guys feel anything at the mountains? heart goes out to them

well let me rephrase, there was quite a number of foreigners. but from what everyone had told me before i left that there would be lots of foreigners on the slopes, i was a little bit surprised. maybe it was because i was there out of our holiday season..but i duno..

haha sweeeet lock by the way! guess from what your saying i mustn't have been paying as much attention to locks as i thought

Originally posted by woodyy05 speaking of board thefts, really theres barely any gajins in hakuba.. might not be the same in niseko, but all the westerners (pretty much all australians) i met on the slopes all left there boards unlocked and nobody said anything about stolen gear. i think i saw about 2 locks in my whole 6 days of boarding. you'd have to be super unlucky/have alot of bad karma to get stuff stolen on the slopes in japan from what im saw/heard.