Відео

I'm assuming you are talking about the slide at 2:20 in the video. That is at Iwatake Mountain Resort. I believe they call that general play area Iwatake White Park now: iwatake-mountain-resort.com/winter/whitepark It's where Yoo Hoo Swing is as well with a nice mountain cafe as well, so it's both fun for adults and kids. Can easily be done as a day trip while you are at Hakuba. You'll love it. Let me know if you need any more information

@whereisant you are assuming very right and very helpful. Thanks a lot for the info I will definitely check that place out. Thanks a lot!

Glad you enjoyed it! Hope you get to experience Shiga Kogen for yourself.

That's great to hear! Shiga Kogen is worth it, you're going to love it.

Hello Kayden! Yes I remember you! How are you in Singapore?

@@whereisantgood

I'm glad you found it helpful. Have a great time in Hakuba!

Thanks for watching! Glad my video helped. You'll love Hakuba.

Sorry to hear that. Can't believe things still haven't changed :) I guess that's what is unique about Morocco!

Not mad about spending money at all given the surprisingly negotiable amounts. It's the time wasted, the stresses that you go through, the mental anguish etc. Not the sort of thing you want to deal with while on holidays.

Glad you found it helpful! 👍

We enjoyed tree skiing at Okushiga Kogen. Locals tell us that Yakebitai Yama (Prince Hotel) has good tree skiing too when snow is good. Hope that helps

I should have included that in the video. We had very good experience with Rhythm Hakuba. They are located closer to Happo One Ski resort. However, you can book online in advance, and they will pick you up from your accommodation and drive you the store to get your gear. AND you get to swap your gear if you're not happy with it half way through. Best of all, you can leave your ski gear at your accommodation at the end, and let them worry about picking it up after. The price is reasonable too.

Lol.. it's only the driving that was a pain in the butt for us. Travel itself.. apart from a bit of hassling from salespeople at the market, it was fine though. I'm sure they will get better over time!

I only drove around Fez / Chefchaouem, so I can't comment. I imagine you would still have plenty of cops around the road though. As long as you are prepared for that, driving is probably worth it if you are not on a tight timeline and want the freedom to explore freely.

Glad you found it helpful! I hope you have a great time in Hakuba.

Thanks. Appreciate you taking the time to provide this feedback.

Glad you found it helpful. Thanks for watching!

@eddie7171 So I assume you followed every sign and wasn't hassled by any police? My hats off to you if you manage to pull that off. Im glad my video helped somehow. Thank you for watching!

​@@whereisant Actually no, lol. At first, we got stopped approximately 6 times and came so close to getting fined once for going over the solid line. Until, this Moroccan we met after advised us to try and look as foreign as possible since according to him our Dominican features made us pass for Moroccan locals He also advised us to look out for the flashing lights from drivers on the opposite lane which meant there were cops ahead. So we took his advice and dressed up as touristy as we could and paid attention to the flashing lights. We must have passed maybe 20 checkpoints (I'm underestimating) going from Merzouga to Fez to Meknes to Rabat and ending in Casablanca and never got stopped once after that. We also booked a tour bus from Fes to Chefchaouen and back avoiding many more checkpoints. On top of that, when we did drive we made sure to do no more than the speed limit and to not go over any solid lines.

Wow.. you paid full price to the cop? I believe you should have just taken the ticket and paid the fine to the right department. I was lucky. When I was stopped at a roundabout.. the cop asked me to pay 400 dirham which I did. But he was generous enough to give me back 200 dirham so he kept the other 200 dirham. I guess it depends on which cop you get. Some are greedier than others :)

I showed my son this comment and he was genuinely impressed that someone actually knows what that dance is. 😂 Thank you!

@@whereisant I'm a 37 year old man. Your son has good taste in videogames. Some of my most cherished childhood memories are going on ski trips with my family. Wishing you and your fam all the best.

End of December, basically the Christmas Week. Right at the beginning of peak season.

@@whereisant going there on the 23rd of dece. cant wait!

We only drove at Shiga Kogen. It's a time saver for sure when you have a car. We had no issues getting around with winter tires on our rental car, even on days when it was snowing. We were probably lucky that we didn't have a day where it snowed so heavily we couldn't drive. I imagine it's even better with a car at Hakuba given how spread out the area is. You'll love it! I wished I had a car for Hakuba!

@whereisant mate, thank you so much for the reply ! This time I am training it to Nagano, then driving from Nagano to Hakuba... Fingers crossed weather isn't too hectic. Love your vids btw !

This is a tough one. Hakuba has a lot of ski resorts to explore and much livelier night scene along with shops/restaurants to choose from. Shiga Kogen focuses a lot more on all in one resort. Skiing is good whichever one you go. My son enjoyed both. Shiga Kogen, we didn't explore as much but did meet a lot of other skiers/kids because we spend more time at the hotel/resort. At Hakuba, we just explored a lot of places (eg. Iwatake for non-skiing related activities). You can't go wrong with either of them

@whereisant thanks for your input. Hakuba seems more fun for first timers, we decided to try out Hakuba first and save Shigakogen for another trip purely for skiing. Your videos have been very helpful, keep exploring and sharing good stuffs!

Well.. my top 3 is Happo One, Goryu and Tsugaike for beginners. Which of these top 3 will depend on what else you want to do there. If you like to experience the central Hakuba village where there's a ton of restaurants/shops.. I would say Happo One where it's the closest. There's also a good international ski school at Happo One (near Rhythm Snow Sports Hakuba). Goryu is a bit further out, but also have ski school with English speaking instructors. Not as happening but great if you want a bit less crowd, this is the one to go. Tsugaike is also a bit further out from town, and popular with first timers. They probably have the most beginner friendly runs. So if your focus is skiing itself and want to progress fast.. come here. I don't have experience with the ski instructors here, but I hear they do not have English speaking instructors. You can't go wrong with any of them. Comes down to what is your priority.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Really appreciate it!

Thank you for watching my video! Really appreciate your kind comments. 本当にありがとう！

The car rental company probably would have done that if I could speak French. Language barrier unfortunately.

@whereisant I was in Agadir and everyone I met spoke English but alot of Irish and english people go there

That's interesting. Maybe it's just Fez then. The hotels, car rental people I was dealing with wasn't too comfortable speaking English at all

We had the same dilemma as well when we planned our trip there. So we did both. Half our stay there was with a car, while the other half was without a car. What I can say is that if you are ultra organized, you probably don't need a car. Assuming you do want to explore the whole resort, the biggest hassle is ensuring you don't miss the scheduled buses that shuttle you around the resort. It's not as frequent as I think it should be given the resort size. So we had instances where we were done with one ski area but had to wait for ages to go to the next one. This is where having a car helps quite a bit, because shuttling around will be that much quicker and maximizes your skiing time. Having said that, if you intend to ski one way from one end to another end.. you'll still need to rely on a bus to come back anyway. So get familiar with the bus schedule ASAP :) Having a car does have its positives in that on our rest days, we could drive 20-30 mins out of Shiga Kogen to town to see snow monkeys, try different restaurants, onsen baths@yudanaka or just go shopping etc. of course.. this is assuming the snow isn't too heavy that day and you are comfortable driving in all sorts of snow conditions. We could even explore the town after skiing the day just for the evening. Still.. even on our days without a car, we were happy without it as well. This was the case when we were staying in the "above average" hotel. We just spent more time talking to fellow tourists and more quality time together etc.... we didn't feel the need to have a car. Either way will work depending on your priorities. Having a car is definitely a nice to have but not essential.

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply! Really appreciate it❤ It sounds really stressful to catch the bus 😅 May I know if you rented at Nagano station or Yudanaka area or anywhere else? Also, you mentioned that you went there last Christmas, any areas we should avoid in case of late opening or lack of snow? e.g. Okushiga? Thank you for your time in answering all our questions in the comments!!!

We rented our car from Toyota car rental @ Nagano station (can be pre-booked in advance in English). I'm sure you can rent from Yudanaka Onsen too, but there's a lot more options at Nagano station. It was just convenient to rent @ Nagano for us because we came to Nagano by bullet train. As for your 2nd question, we were there early (around 19th Dec) at Okushiga Kogen last year when the slope wasn't open yet, which just meant a bus trip / hotel shuttle to the central area for a few days. Central area and Kumanoyu/Yokoteyama seems to be open more consistently if you're talking about early season. Having said that, we had the best skiing days at Okushiga when it finally dumped, and no one was around to enjoy the snow except a handful of us on the slope with nobody else!

Thanks for all the useful tips! And thanks to your video, we managed to book Shirakabasou for this xmas before it's too late 😊 I think we are safe with no cars while staying there. We will definitely hit Okushiga when it's open. Can't wait!!!

If your question is whether diving mask is necessary as oppose to just swimming goggle, the answer is no. For low tide snorkelling where you are just walking around the shallow reefs you can stick your head in to see the corals with swimming goggle But if your question is whether diving mask is provided free of charge, then the answer is it depends on your hotel. Serendipity and Zodiac Seesun (both hotel we went to) do provide snorkel sets for free. But I'm not sure if other hotels provide them. So best to check with them. Hope that helps.

Yes I agree all of those are legit traffic violations. However, what's perhaps not clear from the video is that a lot of these traffic rules/signs would not make sense in USA. For example, you would not have speed changes multiples times in very short spans, like every few 100m (not exaggerating). Nor would you have solid line on dead straight roads for many kilometres on end, or would at least have reasonable room for agricultural vehicles to travel out of main road's way as to not hold up all traffic and expect no one to overtake it. So yes, if you absolutely follow every rule, I agree that I wouldn't be in trouble. But I can assure you that it's a lot harder to do in practise in Morocco.

Yeah.. I can see how others may judge this hotel (Zodiac Seesun) as "not worth it" because of the not so well maintained cabin rooms. The cabins isn't their selling point. For the price.. it's location and the beach more than makes up for it.

It sounds like you had an amazing time! It’s so heartwarming to see your experience captured in this way. Totally agree with Jeju Island bring a hidden gem! I would go back there some time for sure

Glad it was helpful! You're welcome!

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

That's great to hear! Enjoy the snow!

Good to know it's not just Fez / Chefchaouen. It's the same everywhere in Morocco!

Thanks for watching!

I admire you for being able to even soak in that warm bath at all, let alone sleep in it! 😉

Thank you!

You're absolutely right. When I was stopped by the police.. I had to line up to pay. I noticed there were a lot more locals than foreigners! :)

Thank you! Will do!

Will depend on how much time you have. If you are only here for a day trip, I would probably head straight to Iwatake Ski resort which has a lot of non-ski related activities. If you have a few days, I would probably stay at Hakuba town centre near the main bus stop. The town centre has many shops, restaurants, onsen with plenty of atmosphere. Because it's Hakuba central, you can still take a free shuttle to any of the ski resorts to play with snow or just checkout some views. Hope that helps.

@@whereisant Thanks a lot!

I haven't personally gone skiing in April so can't say for sure. There will be snow, just not the fluffy snow that Japan is famous for. I imagine only the bigger ones will remain open (like Happo One and Goryu). As you are already aware, free shuttle bus stopped already, so you're probably better off renting a car or make sure you stay in one that's walking distance to the ski resort. I'm sure it's fun too, with little to no crowd in April

It's definitely more challenging with season already coming to a close. It's doable if you don't mind a bit of hassle The snow quality will likely be a bit slushy at the foot hills, and getting around is a little harder. The resorts at lower elevation will likely be closed, so safer to stick to the bigger ones at the top like Ichinose or Okushiga Kogen. The snow is fine for beginners, although it's a bit harder to learn and progress quickly if the snow is slushy. Personally, I would drive a car to make sure I can drive to another resort if one is closed for the day. Or perhaps stay right next to the bigger resorts like Ichinose. If you can't drive, check with accommodations if they offer dropoff / pickup service to the other ski areas.

It's a video that I shot personally. Which "photos" are fake? And what is "jo Koh Lipe"? Would appreciate it if you can expand and clarify what you mean

We went back in 2021 when this cruise was operated by Dream Cruises. Ownership have since changed to RWS (Resort World Sentosa) as far as I know. Back then, it was SGD $3800 for the 3 of us (2 adults, 1 child) for a 3 nights cruise. Would have no idea how much this cruise would be in the same room today. Hopefully that gives you an idea though.