On November 15th we took a family trip to Karuizawa to stay at the Prince Hotel Karuizawa West and ski in the nearby area.

Sunday

It is about an hour and a half trip from Tokyo on the Hokuriku Shinkansen on the fastest train – either the Kagayaki or Asama. We took the Asama, which only goes as far as Nagano, while the Kagayaki goes the full run to the Hokuriku Shinkansen line. We reserved an 8am train, so to make sure we had plenty of time, we left our house a bit after 6am to take the train to Tokyo station (Rinkai line to Osaki, transfer there to the Yamanote to Tokyo). The kids were champs when we got them up early and hustled out the house.

We picked up some snacks at Tokyo station, and then boarded our train. Since it is Momo’s birthday next month, this is the last time that we will be able to get away with reserving 3 seats for our family of four – from here on out we will have to get four seats. Momo’s still small enough that the four of us squeeze into a three seat row ok, but that will definitely become a problem in not too long.

The trip on the Shinkansen is very nice – the ease of getting on a train compared to an airplane just can’t be overstated. We got off at Karuizawa station, and then it is just a short walk to the Karuizawa Prince Shopping Plaza. The Prince group runs a free shuttlebus that goes around the Shopping Plaza and the Hotels they run, so it really is super easy to get to the hotel with your luggage.

We went to our hotel and dropped off our luggage – sans the one suitcase that had all our skiwear – and headed out to the ski slope. The hotel group runs a ski resort, and has free shuttle busses running there (they also loop around to the shopping plaza, so it is all one route).

We changed at the resort, and then instead of skiing, since we had eaten up most of the morning with travel, went to the kids play area. Most places have something like that – you pay a fee, and there are sleds and inner tubes with courses for both. Momo and Alan enjoyed that, then we went to lunch, and afterwards checked into the hotel.

Since this is a ski resort hotel in Japan, there is an attached Onsen. So that was the next order of business. Afterwards, we caught the bus to the Shopping Plaza, and had a really nice Chinese dinner with soup dumplings.

Monday

The next day we got started on Skiing. The kids went to ski lessons, and Lisa and I got our tickets. The group ski lessons are reasonably priced. Both kids have had ski lessons before, but since we only go skiing like once a year, they started out at conservative levels.

Up at the top of the mountain, you had a nice view of the area. While I have been skiing very infrequently since high school, the last time I went skiing I really noticed that I had trouble with my knees, and I just was not confident in parallel ski turning any more. I did make sure to get tighter boots this time to address one of the problems, but I definitely did not have confidence in my skiing. I tried one or two parallel turns, and just didn’t feel like I could confidently do them. So I went down the slope in a slow V formation.

I could definitely have gone for another trip down the slope, but I was nervous the entire time, I had muscles that were getting sore, I wasn’t confident about my knees, and I was just worried. I didn’t think that more of that would get me to a point where I was having fun, and at this age, I’m happy to make a decision to stop doing something if I don’t see a reason to continue.

Luckily, everyone else is much better at these things than me, and continued to ski for the day.

For dinner, we reserved a nice Sukiyaki restaurant in the East hotel. It was Alan’s 13th birthday, and he likes Sukiyaki, so that is what we did.

As with all nice restaurants in Japan, we had a very nice course menu laid out for us, starting with some Sashimi and small dishes.

The main course was Sukiyaki. Very good.

After that very nice dinner, we went back to the hotel, and had some time to go to the Onsen again.

Tuesday

In the morning, Alan and I went to the slope where I set him up with his last Ski lesson. Lisa and Momo stayed at the hotel to go to the Onsen after their full day of skiing yesterday. They caught up with us at the slopes and went to the play area, while after his Ski lesson Alan went on his own for a few more hours until his lift ticket ran out.

We left at about 2pm to get lunch at the Shopping plaza, and had enough time to get some Omiyage (regional snacks for people at work / home) before catching our 4pm Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

It was a nice trip! I always enjoy the Onsen at Japanese Ski resorts, and it is nice to get away from the day to day routine.