NRT-MNL
2025-02-09
What am I going from?
I’ll start with an overall picture and will follow up with a breakdown.
We got what we came for and I couldn’t be more pleased. Japow delivered. The purpose of the trip was to snowboard and I got some of best conditions I could imagine.
How would I describe Japan and the Japanese people? A clean, quiet, polite society of high morale standards and a pride in their purpose, whatever it may be, that I’ve never seen anywhere in the world.
Things run on time in Japan. Train says it leaves at 16:45, it’s leaving at 16:45. It’s cool to see. The Tokyo train system is massive to a point it’s hard to put into context. There’s thousands of people at anytime passing through some of their stations, and those aren’t even the big ones.
The devotion to cleanliness throughout the country is infectious, by design. There’s no garbage cans around and no litter. Everyone puts it away, properly. If you have something to throw out you don’t simply put it down, you carry it until you find a proper recycling or garbage can. It’s socially unacceptable to litter or dispose of any rubbish in any manner other than to put it in a proper place. Admirable.
The food is fresh and meals are generally whole foods. It was rare I ate anything processed, with the exception of a 7-11 meal (it’s not weird, it’s a thing here).
I’ll be back. There’s so much to see and do in this country… I can’t wait to explore it more.
Ok… a breakdown of the trip.
Narita Airport.
I was NOT looking forward to hauling snowboard gear all over this place and thankfully I didn’t have to. Yamamoto / BlackCat to the rescue. They’ll move your luggage to basically anywhere for such a minimal fee it’s silly not to. People often use it to move their checked bag from the airport to their hotel since the transit system is often quite busy and there’s LOTS of stairs. They took my snowboard from the airport to my first snow destination and from that destination to my second destination without issue. Highly recommend.
Tokyo
This place is big. Takes a while to get places, even if you know the route. Google Maps is a godsend. They use a payment app called Suica (go into Apple Wallet and add it, reload from Apple Pay) and it’s accepted everywhere. I used this entirely to access the transit system and it worked flawlessly.
Night one was fun. Couldn’t find restaurants close to the hotel so we went for a walk and found ourselves in a place with basically no English. We ordered fresh sushi from pictures on a menu and got some interesting local dishes… it was quite the experience.
Day two consisted of a short morning exploration then I went off to help the Japan Lacrosse Association and Tokyo Box Lacrosse League by running a referee clinic then mentoring some officials during a series of games that evening. Of the three games that evening the most competitive and spirited match was the (first ever) all women’s box game. These ladies can ball!
My (mostly new) friends in the JLA took me out for Shabu Shabu that evening, great memories.
For the next few days we picked new locations and adventured out to them.. Tsukiji Fish Market, Rainbow Bridge, Shabuya Scramble Crossing. All the big hitters!
Friends, friends, more friends, and not the ones I showed up with! Spent an evening in Japan with a friend from Argentina who I met in Czech Republic. How wild is that? The Japanese lacrosse community has a motto, ‘lacrosse makes friends’, and isn’t that the truth! Also met up with friends from Tokyo who I met in Israel, Hong Kong, Hawaii, and some I met in Canada! Got to hangout with a friend from New Westminster who now lives in Tokyo. So grateful for these international friendships. I also made a bunch of new friends, thanks to lacrosse, and what I love most about that is I get to say ‘see you later’ and not ‘goodbye’. What a blessing.
Nozawa Onsen
I was on the oh nine thirty (0930) bullet train out of Tokyo… sounds like the opening to a book. All jokes aside, bullet trains are cool. They go fast, as expected. Nozawa Onsen is located in Nagano, where they held the Olympics in 1998 (I think). This small, boutique and charming town is built around a ski hill and 13 public onsens. An onsen is a hot spring, and they are all over in this country. Fun fact, if you have tattoos you’re not allowed in public onsens. In an attempt to eradicate their country of Yakuza (gangs) they’ve began restricting social activities.
We had a hotel basically to ourselves, and a shuttle bus that was basically our private shuttle. We were picked up from the train station, driven to the hotel, waited for to change into ski gear, driven to the hill, picked up from the hill, waited for to onsen and relax, driven to town for dinner, picked up from town, and driven to the train station in the morning. When you’re on you’re on! Took 3 onsens and didn’t see another soul. What a wonderful experience.
Oh, the skiing was great too. Light fluffy snow, not a lot of fresh stuff but a great warmup day.
Niseko
This country often measures their snowfall in meters, not centimetres and it did the same when I was there. It delivered a whopping 1.2m of snow in 24hours in a small town 70km from where I was.
We flew into Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido and took a transfer bus to our final destination, Niseko Village.
From the base of Niseko Village we travelled throughout the valley from Kutchan to Iwani, I had a view of the Sea of Japan while I snowboarded down boot deep fresh powder runs. A genuine dream come true.
The Niseko United region is filled with ski hills. Annapuri, Niseko Village, Hirafu, and Hanazono make up basically a single interconnected ski resorts with towns at the base of each. There wasn’t a lot to see or do in Nisek Village so we found ourselves on a shuttle bus to Hirafu twice and to Kutchan for a full team dinner (there was 6 of us in the group total).
I’m realizing now my stories are definitely better in person, but penning these will give me something to remember as I get older and my memory started to inevitably fail. If you’ve gotten this far feel free to reach it and ask questions or invite me for a drink and I’ll tell you all about them.
What am I going to?
The Palawan! Remote islands of the Philippines… the pictures on the internet look like paradise, can’t wait to see it in real life.
In 2024 I was in Australia finishing a lacrosse trip when my father was in Thailand finishing a golf trip, we flew towards each other and spent a week in Bali, Indonesia, for a week and had the best time. It was our first father / son travel since 2010 when we went to Everest Base Camp in Nepal so we decided to start travelling together more… this year, Palawan!
We’re island hoping. A flight to Coron, a ferry ride to the islands, and small boat transfers from there. We should end in El Nido 6 days later for a flight back to Manila.
Until next time!