Myoko Tokyo 2015 2016

I've booked this snow trip way ahead in august when Vietnam airlines had a promotional price of $515, which is a pretty good deal for year end travel.

This year the snow came late because of El Nino, so only one or two slopes were open when we arrived but luckily there was a snow dump that night we arrived and it snowed heavily for the entire night and day. It was super cold but worth it.

Fel and friends joined us so first day we boarded at Akakura Kanko.

Second day she left and we boarded at Akakura Onsen and third day at Suginohara. Oh I realised my ski attire is too big for me so I change to an entirely new one.

Suginohara is one of the best slopes I've been. It's long and broad, beautiful scenery  and took em about 25 mins for my firstt run. The cable car took about 15 minutes to go up and I think I did about -8 times until my legs were super sore. I'd love to go back there to board again but I'll get bored. Heh.

Then we went to Nagano for some trekking which was a little tough, then I headed to Tokyo.

So I had a few aims for this Japan Trip.
1. to snowboard
2. to buy the watch that I have been eyeing for 1 year
3. to buy Japanese alcohol and snacks and shopping stuff

I went to Kichijoji to find the watch shop and it was epic-ly closed for 7 days for the New Year. Oh wells. At least I found some good food there, like this thing over here.

 I went to the cafe at Harajuku for this famous Pablo cheese tart

Countdown at Senoji temple again, but this time I went around 11.51 and the queue was so long that the police had to close all the roads leading to the temple. At least the crowd was fast, I only queued for an hour before I completed my tasks at the temple. I've got a good fortune too.

 First day of the New Year, Hatsumode as usual. We went to this shine with tori gates.

Thanks to my cousin's ex-boss, we found a really cheap business hotel just beside a JR train station and saved up quite a fair bit, which led to me over buying too much Japanese snacks and liquor and those wu eh bo eh stuff. It was an okay trip I guess, it would have been better if I could share most of my food with somebody less picky, and spend more quality shopping time at Shinjuku (which I am still super lost). I'd get a better Japan trip again this year probably.

I'm also not sure if I would return to snowboard this year-end due to budget constrain but right now I'm having snow withdrawals now. I also came back with a bad flu, with MC for the first two days of work and still having blocked nose now. Let's see my mood and budget mid-year.