🇯🇵 2023 Winter Tokyo suburb - GALA Yuzawa & Karuizawa

One of the main activities my sister and I wanted to do during this trip is snowboarding. We picked the skiing resort GALA Kuzawa, which is close to Tokyo and easy to reach. This was our first time snowboarding, so we decided to do a proper lesson. Our coaches are two Taiwanese boys working at the Giant Ski School. They are very professional and we had such a great time.

We woke up early on the day to go to Marunouchi for our shinkansen to Yuzawa. I've never been to Tokyo in late December and I swore that I will never do it again after this experience. Because it was almost New Year, most Japanese were heading back to their hometown. This means the train station was just like Wembley station after a football game. The Japanese are really good at queuing, but the system was so confusing for us. We didn't get assigned seats for the trip to Yuzawa because the train was fully booked. Thankfully, there were seats for our train back to Tokyo, or else I would cry if I needed to stand for an hour after snowboarding for a whole afternoon.

We got on the train and were ready for our first snowboarding experience.

On the left-hand side of the Yuzawa train station, there are shuttle buses to different skiing resorts. There is actually a direct train from Tokyo to GALA Yuzawa, but we woke up too late and didn't catch that train.

Snowboarding lesson went smoothly and we both had lots of fun. My sister learned skateboarding when she was young, so she picked it up really fast. At the end of the half-day lesson, she was already doing the falling leaf and I was satisfied enough that I could slide down the hill.

The resort was about to close when we finished our lesson, so lots of people left at the same time and our coach said that "It was just like the Lunar New Year preparation market!" We bought some snacks and got on our train back to Tokyo. On the train, I told my sister that I wanted to have Afuri Ramen for dinner. She quickly found the branch closest to our hotel, which was located at the food court of a department store. We queued for around an hour and finally, I had the yuzu ramen with yuzu beer – a nice treat after snowboarding.

I saw a vending machine on the way back to the hotel and bought my favourite sweetcorn soup. I love it, but also hate it because there are always one to two sweetcorns that are stuck in the can. Please can someone update the design on the can?

Second day in Tokyo, we headed toward Karuizawa and the main goal was to go shopping in the outlet!

We took the shinkansen from Ueno, it was still very crowded. My advice – don't come to Tokyo in late December. From Karuizawa station, we took the Seibu bus to Hoshinoya and walked alongside the river to Harunire Terrace. If you like hot springs, this Hoshinoya will be the place to enjoy it. Harunire Terrace is like an artsy market with lots of independent art shops, cafes and traditional Japanese dessert stores.

After lunch at Harunire Terrace, we walked to two famous churches in Karuizawa – Kogen Church and Stone Church. Kogen Church is a cute little church built with wood, very suitable for weddings! From the outside, Stone Church looks different from your usual church and it has a very special interior design as well. There is an exhibition about a Japanese architect, Uchimura Kanzo, in the basement of the Stone Church. I'm writing this blog a year and a half after this trip, and I still remember the beauty of the Stone Church, the shafts of light and the contrast of the plants and the stone wall inside the church. And of course, Stone Church is suitable for weddings as well!

Woods with a lamp and signage on the left

Kogen church

Stone church

We went back to Karuizawa station and headed toward the outlet. We managed to shop until they were closing. Back in Tokyo, we had a discussion of what to do for New Year's Eve and decided to go to Meji Jingu for the first visit to the temple of the year. The queue in Meji Jingu was very long, we joined the queue, but didn't really know what we were queuing for. After a while, I announced that I wanted to give up and go somewhere else that looked more party themed. Little did I know, the Japanese don't really do street parties for New Year's Eve, the streets were so quiet and barely anyone was out and about. We gave up and called an Uber to head back to the hotel. My sister was quite upset and said, "I don't want to spend my New Year's Eve in an Uber." I told her, "Don't worry, we'll be celebrating New Year's Eve on the street because we still have five minutes to wait for the Uber."

"Happy New Year!"

We were so upset at each other, but thankfully, we were good after we got back to the hotel.