By Melissa Chester
Melissa from Travel + Leisure Co. shares the experiences she and her family enjoyed – and what they learnt – during their recent winter escape to Japan.
Recently, my family of four – two adult children, and my husband and myself – were lucky enough to spend around about two weeks in Japan. The core of the trip was based in Shiga Kogen at Club Wyndham South Pacific’s new ski-in, ski-out property.
We try and get away to a ski location at least once a year, and have been regulars to Wanaka, with its choice of ski fields. We've also been to Canada and done Banff, and everybody's hands-down favourite now is definitely Shiga Kogen! That'll be one that we go back to.
Shiga Kogen was a great ski field for us because it was actually not overly busy, compared to Hakuba, just on the other side of Nagano. There was lots of snow cover at the time, which was beautiful. We were literally there and skied for six days, and we can confidently say there were areas of the ski fields that we didn't even get to. And we actively did try to check out all of the different areas.
On the weekends – obviously the busiest days – I think the longest wait times we experienced for a chairlift was around about eight minutes. In those other locations, you can stand in line for the lift for a lot longer than the ski run. But these runs were also quite long, and you could navigate the mountain really, really well.
My family would spend all day on the slopes, if they could – and the fact you can fit so many runs into the one day, and without those lines and crowds, just makes it brilliant. However, the area doesn’t have the après-skiing of places like New Banff in Canada; the concept of nightlife after skiing is probably not as developed, but I understand the resort is working on ideas.
Club Wyndham Shirakabaso Shiga Kogen exceeded expectations. The property itself was a great location – only a few minutes' walk in two different directions to various ski lifts. So very, very easy. The on-site ski hire made the whole setup perfect. By the time we checked in, in the afternoon, we already had our ski gear all set, ready to go to be able to hit the slopes first thing in the morning.
Our family had one of the traditional Japanese rooms, and also a Western style room – so we were able to see the benefits of both, which was great. We particularly liked the Western room, which had a king size bed, bathroom, and a familiar feeling to it. We could see the charm in the traditional bedding in the Japanese rooms, though, and expect those will be popular with plenty of owners.
The great part about staying at our property is that it has all you need. You can get your ski gear and get out easily, then there's breakfast and dinner each day as part of the meal plan – with good Japanese and Western options. Up on the mountains every day, there are various options like ramen noodle bars, burgers and sandwiches. Back at our property at night, you have a fantastic pizza bar downstairs. There’s a great opportunity to sit down, meet up with fellow skiers, have a beer and some pizza.
And we've also just opened a speakeasy at the property downstairs as well. Over the week that I was there, the word had got out amongst the locals – and so the winter property was actually the place to be. We were getting a lot of visitors from the other hotels coming and checking out the nightlife at the property.
We will definitely be back for skiing, but it’s a country we are keen to explore at other times as well. It's got great culture, lots to see, and I think our holiday really opened our mind to the different choices and options that we'd like to go back and revisit. We are really confident about the idea of exploring more regional locations, particularly where we have Club Wyndham Sundance properties. We are already planning our next holiday – we’re looking to stay near Mount Fiji, and we would definitely like to go and check out some of the more coastal locations as well.
It's quite easy to get around on the public transport – certainly in the cities – and using the bullet trains. They're reliable, and once you understand how they work, it's really easy to travel. Before we left, we did some Google research and looked at timetables, and then we went ahead and pre-booked those bullet trains for the dates that we knew we were checking in and the times that were going to work. A few days in, though, we were fairly confident that we could have turned up and just booked it on the day. At least that pre-planning helped us feel secure that we were going to get where we needed to go.
The trip from Tokyo to Shiga Kogen is actually quite seamless: one bullet train from Tokyo Station to Nagano, off the bullet train, down the stairs and on a bus that takes you up the mountain. The bus stops about two minutes’ walk from the property – so very easy.
In terms of travelling as an English-speaker, some areas and some locations are easier than others. I think if you learn some basic hellos, thank yous and goodbyes, the people are more than willing to help. We used a lot of Google Translate, and so did people trying to help us! So I think if you make a little effort, Australian and New Zealand travellers will find it easy. In terms of things like public transport, I think all the signs were both in Japanese and in English, so we were never really in a space where we didn't know how we were going to get where we wanted to go.
Do your research, make a plan for your big points, and be prepared to go with the flow a little bit. See where the adventures take you. There’s so much to uncover, so our family will definitely be back!
Want to read more about travelling in Japan? Check out our Japan Essentials blog.
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