On New Years day we make a transit to Myoko Kogen which is about an hour away. The resort is even more primitive than Nozawa, but I’m promised good snow and runs and I’m not disappointed.

The lodge was pretty basic and seemed almost industrial except for the rooms. Food was again a wide array of dishes, but most of the gaijins were not that impressed, more due to the repetitiveness. I however was amazed with the spread

Breakfast was an experience to say the least. My first introduction to Nato. A fermented soya bean dish that is mixed with soya sauce and rice. One of the gaijin warn me, but as most of you will know I’m a pretty adventurous eater and brush the comments to the side. I’ve eaten plenty of fermented dishes in my time and loved them all. Not so much with this bad boy. Slimy, stringy and the stick of rotten flesh is the best way I can describe it. I ate it, but it wasn’t something I’d rush back for if I’m honest. Ben however hoovered it in 10 seconds flat. I’d put the slowness down to the time of day rather than anything else.

The first day riding was pretty much constantly snowing which doesn’t help much on the visibility but was amazing for the slope conditions. There are no piste bashers in Myoko so the pistes ride like off piste runs. I’m told that when conditions are extremely heavy they just have to close the runs because there is too much snow.

There is a pretty large group of us and its a great day’s riding with the sun coming out toward the end of the day. There is a huge queue for the top lift which only opens at 11. We hit some amazing knee deep powder on what is ordinarily a mogul field which we only determine after hundreds of people have flattened out the fresh snow by the afternoon. Ben and I get stuck in powder a number of times and its a fair work out to get out again. I soon get to grips with the ‘bum shuffle’, ‘backward rollie pollie’ and ‘roll lots till I build up enough momentum to stand up’ techniques. Combined with the dig like a gopher they work out to be pretty effective techniques. However managing body temperatures in what are probably -10c and digging for England to get free, turns out to be more a challenge. Next objective – don’t fall over in the powder so much!

The next day we hit a neighbouring resort which is supposed to be a 15 minute bus ride away. Hope the 3 amigos that morning managed to get off a stop too early. We only realised when we tried to redeem our lift passes to which we were clearly told we were in the wrong place. We proceed to wait 40 minutes for the next bus to arrive but were met with the most amazing blue sky back drop

Shane takes Hans and I through some drop off the top lift which is basically follows the chair down.

We meet Zuma for another couple of runs. A great challenging number of run down, but a bout of flu has got the better of me so I stop for a ramen lunch in the hope it will sort me out. I decide to call it day and head to the cafe at the bottom and wait for the others to finish to get the coach back. Mainly because I had no clue which one to get and didn’t want a repeat of this morning.

I spend the next couple of days trying to recover and work my way through my entire paracetamol supply to only discover its quite hard to get anything in this pretty remote and basic resort. I do discover that pot ramen here is amazing though. It’s pretty tough staying in whilst seeing the copious amounts of snow falling outside.

Various people make their own way back over the next couple of days due to scare stories of previous 8 hour delays due to snow storms. We make our way back on the chartered bus which after all that noise takes just shy of 3 hours. Ben and I then navigate our way back to his apartment on the JR train network and head out to an izakaya (Japanese bar) where small dishes are served. An incredible experience. Firstly because the draft beer here are incredibly smooth, more so with the Yebisu Premium which I discover like all beers here are always served perfectly chilled and like our continental counterparts with a hefty head. It was a thing of beauty. We accompanied that with some grilled tongue (cow I think), asparagus   and some beef brisket. An amazing end to a great ski trip.