Winter Vacation Trip Part 1: Ikenodaira Seminar House

We did a two-part trip inside Japan for this winter's end-of-year break. For the first half, we went to the school's seminar house in Niigata province. This facility is primarily used for team-building activities and the like - KIT classes rotate through and I think nearly all students end up spending a few days there at some point, but faculty and staff can stay there for reasonable rates, and since it is located literally across the street from a ski area, the school also has a couple of ski trips per year that stay there. It was our luck that a faculty-association trip was already going right when we were planning to, so we happily joined that and got massive discounts on the travel and food - only cost about $250 for both of us to get the bus ride there, our own room for three nights, breakfasts, dinners, and drinks. The skiing cost a lot less than skiing in New England too, probably because they don't have to make snow. It snowed every day we were there.

For the pictures associated with this post, go here.

As mentioned, the faculty association ski trip went north by bus, we had to walk with our luggage and gear the mile to school in the rain (started a few minutes after we started walking, should have known better than to leave umbrellas) and when we got there we discovered that more than half of the faculty members going on the trip were gaijin, which was a pleasant surprise and guaranteed much faster and more fluid dinner conversation. Niigata is several hours' drive north of Ishikawa and we drove we passed through places where precipitation was falling as rain into places where it had been and currently was falling as snow. We didn't notice it because it was gradual, but the trip also took us from about sea level to something like 3,000 feet up at the base of the mountain. This being a Japanes bus trip, they stopped the bus twice in the roughly three and a half hour trip so we could buy food and use the bathroom, despite the fact the bus had a bathroom on board. They were going to stop a third time before canceling it due to the fact that nobody wanted to.

The top is much higher than you can see, the big peak was almost always behind clouds.

The house itself proved to be much larger, more professional, and more institutional than we expected. Filled to normal operating capacity it would probably sleep 60 people, but maybe half that number was on the ski trip so everybody who wanted could have a room to themselves. I found it humorous that the building was so reminiscent of the rest of KIT despite this one being hundreds of miles away and in the mountains.

They even put the mascot on skis on the window.

This is a full view of the front of the building.

They have a separate entryway for people going out to ski or coming back from the slopes. The room has racks for skis and boots and the like. I neglected to take pictures of that room, but it was pretty cool to have an interior storage and staging area like that - keeps the gear safe and out of the weather without having to drag snow-covered items into your own room.

Outsides shoes storage - slippers only inside as usual, the ski entry is down the hall

Lobby of Ikenodaira Seminar House

The building also has a straight-up classroom

View from inside after a snowstorm

The rooms have their own toilets but everyone uses the onsen of their respective gender for bathing. There would be no time of day one could appropriately take a camera into one of the big onsen like the ones at the end-of-the-year bonenkai hotel but for a small facility like this, opportunities could be had to document it for those of you following along at home without issue, so I did.

Blue flag scares away women

Take off your clothes and put them and your towel in the bin. Big onsen tend to have "modesty towels" which provide enough coverage if held correctly that everyone can pretend not to be naked, but such were not employed here - guess we're all too friendly to need them, or something.

Sinks and primping area - generally for after everything else

Grab a stool from the stack and head over to the showers - not getting super clean before getting in is rude, though I've seen it done. If all you want is a shower, you're set.

Otherwise, the onsen itself is usually about two feet deep, with no seats. A major onsen complex might have several pools at different temperatures, both inside and outside of the building, but Ikenodaira has just the one per gender.