Avoid Airfare.com (arrival in Japan)

The trip almost got off to a late start, when our flight booking agent, Airfare.com, decided to cancel Tom’s flight not just once, but twice, in the 24 hours before we flew out of Boston.

When Tom went to check in on Friday morning, he found that his flight had been cancelled. He called Airfare.com, who told him he had cancelled the flight two days after he had bought it. Except when he proved he hadn’t done so, they told him they had cancelled the flight but reimbursed him. Except that his bank account had no such reimbursement. On and on the argument went, with Dad and American Airlines getting involved as well, until American eventually rebooked Tom and myself on a flight through Dallas to Tokyo (instead of the original JFK layover in New York). And all was good. Until a few hours later, when Airfare.com decided to cancel that flight as well. More phone calls, more hassle, more arguments and just before Tom booked a flight on Air Canada through Toronto (he would have flown with Brian, in that case), he was placed back on the Dallas flight.

By the time I made the drive down from Vermont to Massachusetts, all was settled. Finally. Though Tom and I both made multiple checks of our flight status to make sure no more cancellations came down. They didn’t, and after a 3 a.m. wakeup, drive to Logan, four-hour flight to Dallas, a layover, a 13-plus hour flight to Tokyo, a wait for Brian at Narita Airport, a 45-minute train ride, a stressful walk carrying luggage through a Tokyo train station, a two-hour train to Nagano (where dinner was a beer, squid jerky and pocky), a missed bus followed by a cab ride, we finally arrived at Hakuba Powder Lodging, feeling just a bit tired. 

 Packed up and ready to leave Logan. 

 Last American meal for 5.5 weeks: McDonald's breakfast. 

 Brian, Tom and I settle into the train to Nagano. 

 The view from our room at Hakuba Powder Lodge. 

  

Monday was a rather low-key ski day. Between travel exhaustion and walking about 3.5 miles in ski boots (picking up a mid-week season pass to Happo One was a hassle, to say the least), our ski legs were not in tip top shape. Though we did manage to follow a few Japanese snowboarders on our last run to find a great slackcountry area, which would prove incredibly important for Tuesday.

Walking through Hakuba in ski boots to find enough cash to pay for a season's pass in generally not an enjoyable experience, but at least it provided us with a view of the Japanese Alps (Happo One on the left). 

Brian skis some Happo slackcountry. 

Après ski brought our first soak in an onsen (natural hot spring bathhouses) and a Japanese dinner, followed but pure exhaustion and 9:30 p.m. bedtimes.

Other highlights of the day: heated toilet seats, learning how to use bidets, 7/11 breakfast and discovering vending machines that sell hot coffee in cans.