Diamond Shiga ダイヤモンド志賀
We stepped off the bus onto the icy night streets of Shiga. This town has way more “I’m a ski town tourist trap” vibe already, even in the quiet. Below the stately facade of the hotel was a nigh-impassable icy ramp that used to be stairs. Slipped up those and dragged our snow gear suitcase up more stairs to the front desk. The hotel owner was able to properly communicate that the onsens would be off-limits to our tattoos, and check-in was easy. The old couple running the place seem to have owned it for a while, and are The smell was a bit troublesome. The cooks cleaned the restaurant flattop, and apparently didn’t have proper ventilation—reminiscent of the Matsushima Tourist Association Oyster Grill smell.
There’s a poster in the lobby proclaiming: “Proud Hosts of the 1998 Winter Olympics!” We got such good reviews, we figured it was perfect, and shouldn’t change a thing. For 28 years.1
Down a few creepy, dimly lit hallways with motion-activated floor-outlet lamps, we found our room. A new olfactory adventure: sour mildew from wood and tatami mats. Futon beds (floor cushions, not the western kind), and furnishings unchanged since 2005. The first time booking.com has failed me! Thought I booked a room with western beds. Ah well, at least it’s pretty close to the lifts. I had tried to rent gear from SnowCan Ichinose (across the street from Diamond), but their site—which appeared to be html + php circa 2005—had a disclaimer about “our email doesn’t work with gmail filters. please use a different email”. None of the three attempts I made resulted in a confirmation email. Well, hope that there’s some boards and boots to go around in the morning.
Ichinose & Higashidateyama 東館山
2026-02-14
Waiting outside the SnowCan shop & rental, encountered some loud and very tall Seattleites. Dad and three sons “ah we’re so tall and man Niseko was nice everything was all new and they had all sizes blah blah”.
I know I was just complaining about the state of the hotel, but I was being realistic about the possible unavailability of rentals for six-foot-plus humans in a mostly local ski town in a country where the average height is 5-foot-seven… I guess looking in the mirror can be uncomfortable. ANYWAY, real glad we got there so early in the AM, because they had gear for us. Very broken-in and seasoned gear, but hey. That means it’s been tried and tested, right? Hopped on the lift and started our exploration. First day we made it all the way up to the mountain house at the top of Mt. Higashidate. Great view of the sprawling valley. I think Shiga’s a national park because of the snow monkeys? Nikki had a bad fall going down one of the greens (a track, really), and we had to take it a little easy the rest of the day.
Dinner options were limited in this town. Most of the hotels had buffet-style meals a-la the 1970s-80s—or maybe 2005—which is charming. We were hoping for some non-brown fried food, but that was because we’d been on a steady diet of Lawson and 7-11, and ski-town food. But, that was being beggars, choosers, and hoity-toity United Statesians. So, maybe in future they’ll open up some fancy, healthy-food places on the mountain, but we settled on the izakaya downstairs in our hotel run by ski bum kids.
Staying in a traditional Japanese room was not something I had planned on for this trip. This was “technically” a ryokan, but even with adding many extra futon beds on top of one another we couldn’t quite get comfortable on the ground. Making tea and eating at ground level still feels like it should be a more natural way than dining room table legs and forks, but I’d have to live that for a lot longer to make it normal.
Tannenomori Okojo (タンネの森 オコジョスキー場) と Nishidateyama (西館山スキー場)
Our day today was low-energy. The travel was starting to get to me, I know. And Nikki was trying to take it easy bc of a bad fall the day before. She hung out in the Tannenomori area with trees and open, short runs. I went up and did a couple reds. Riding the gondolas was fun today though—two really long ones with nice views. Shiga covers a huge area, and is definitely a touring ski mountain. There were still about an equal number of boarders and skiers on this mountain, but I don’t know why. We were probably just in the wrong areas, but I think without ski poles it’s real hard to enjoy yourself on all the traverses and cat tracks. The amount of unstrapping we had to do left us pretty exhausted at times, to be honest.
After returning our gear, we once again attempted to use Google Maps to find a place “Open Now” that fell under the category of cafe, restaurant, anything. Tabelog and LINE seem to be the apps of choice for food-related and service businesses in Japan. Lo and behold, there was a little spot selling sake called Yuki Usagi (ゆきうさぎ) or “Snow Bunny” is how I’d interpret it. The owner had studied abroad and spoke english, so we chatted with him a bit while getting our buzz on with some local sake and gin. I also couldn’t resist chatting up a big bearded Aussie in the shop. Totally out of character for me, really. Nikki ordered a Japanese crepe filled with whipped cream and fruit for a healthy snack. Spent the rest of the daylight wandering the area, checking out the Snow Cats grooming the slopes (Nikki LOVES snow cats), and generally killing time since we were pretty ready to sit on a train and get to our next destination.
We did catch another traveler we had met on the bus ride up to Shiga waiting at the stop to head to Hakuba. Hopefully we catch him when he travels to Denver!
The next morning the sweet sound of our room key dropping into the return box on the front desk (relief). We slipped and slid our way up a small rise to the bus stop early-beyond-punctual we were so eager to be on the way off this mountain. The frozen morning gave way to inert farmland, and some locals hopped on and off the bus, going about their daily business. School kids, matriarchs with a shopping list, and travelers like us headed to the JR station. The road stopped winding and the buildings pressed in on us. We disembarked at the JR station, knowing we had a long ride ahead: Nagano thru Tsuruga on to Osaka. Shinkansen makes the long travel a lot more bearable, however, because as I mentioned before: they rule.
Some other things of note:
- Saw a medical emergency happen in the Nagano train station, very efficient and the EMTs didn’t have to be gruff and angry to help the person. Quiet and polite.
- Met a young-30s Aussie who was visiting with his Japanese partner. He was trying to break 110 kph on a downhill run. Talking to him, seems the housing prices and economic situation is the very same in AUS as everywhere else.
またね!
My barbs about the hotel are snarky because the travel fatigue was starting to set in and I was testy. To have gone from YuiLocalZao (one of the better places we’ve ever stayed, and the biggest room), to (in my memory) the worst in such quick succession was also a little jarring. I had been talking with Nikki’s friend who we were to visit later in Miyazaki for a few months prior (and while on this trip) about his impressions of and experiences with Japanese culture; he noted that many rural, smaller towns are in economic decline. The birthrate is down, and all the growth that is happening is centered around the large cities like Osaka and Tokyo. This place may get an influx of cash because of the IKON pass adding it as a partner resort, but the local ski bums and aging owners don’t probably have enough capital between them to refurbish the infrastructure. Apart from a big player like Alterra Mtn. Co buying up properties and either razing and building new or refitting, feels like Shiga may be doomed to “ski-shack” status. ↩︎