Rusutsu Revisited

From Rusutsu Revisited

Last weekend we went back to Rusutsu and it is still awesome! Just looking at the pictures now, I'm blown away. Again the forecast was for light snow and this time it was true. We had a pretty nice "greybird day" (not quite bluebird but close). It wasn't the powder wonderland/nightmare we had first experienced but it was quite nice especially considering the warm weather we had been experiencing.

(On a side note, it has been snowing like crazy in Sapporo recently which bodes well for skiing this weekend, I think. And I love snow so let it snow!)

So, without the knee deep powder, how was Rusutsu? I'd say that it definitely stands out among all the resorts we've been to. It's probably in my top 3 along with Furano and Tomamu. I don't really have much to add that I didn't already say about it before- it's a big resort, nice long runs, great snow, and some steepness. I do have to add a little bit about the view though!

From Rusutsu Revisited

Rusutsu has it all- a view of Mt Yotei (considered Hokkaido's Fuji), Lake Toya AND the Pacific Ocean. Yotei was in full effect that day. It was so grand and majestic with its peak cutting right through the clouds. But even more breathtaking than that was seeing Lake Toya in the distance, shrouded in mist and mountains like a fairytale and just beyond it the flat serenity of the Pacific Ocean. Ah, it was spectacular!

From Rusutsu Revisited

From Rusutsu Revisited

We had a good day. Ryan was even able to realize his dream of being a "human sled," which was just as fun for me. I was also able to ride the carousel this time AND we had ice cream. Also, I think my skiing is much improved. But in case you're thinking I'm probably a pro skier now, think again. I was totally schooled by two little girls on an expert course. Hahaha. At first it looked like they were being forced by their dad, one of them was even sitting down at the trailhead in what I thought was defiance. A few seconds later, they had gained on me and were carving like racers right past me. I have a long ways to go before I can catch up to those 8 year-olds. Haha.

From Rusutsu Revisited

Here's the album:

Rusutsu Revisited

Kiroro

Kiroro's Mascot (Hokkaido fox)

Today was Sunday so we went skiing! We went to Kiroro ski resort today, about 90 minutes away from Sapporo by bus. It was Ryan's first time and my second time. I had gone with my school last year sometime in March and I wasn't that impressed. The snow wasn't so great. I think it was only the first or second week of March but it was much warmer and there was much less snow last year. But this year is much nicer!

We were lucky. This last week was pretty warm but the weekend cooled down quite a bit and we even got some fresh snow accumulation in Sapporo. So, it was a snowy, cold day at Kiroro. And I was really surprised by the snow accumulation at the resort!Look at all that snow!

Snow reaching past the windows up the stairs

Ryan is amused as always.
The snow is almost as tall as me!
And wow, I'm short!

Relative to other resorts we've been to, Kiroro's snow wasn't as dry and powdery. Actually, it was reminiscent to skiing in NY/NJ (but still better than NY/NJ!). Of course, I've become accustomed to powder conditions so I was not happy about this at first. But Kiroro grew on me a bit through the day. It's a little flat in some places but its intermediate runs were pretty nice and offered some steepness.

Over all, we both agreed it was nothing much to write home about (though I AM writing home about it now...just to be thorough!). It is much bigger than the resorts closer/in the city (Bankei, Moiwayama) and probably has better snow too. We think that it's probably better than Sapporo Kokusai too...so that puts it in the middle somewhere.

Two non-skiing highlights of the resort for me were the fresh melon bread and the super cute two-seater covered lifts! Seriously, people would wait on line for the fresh melon bread. They disappear faster than it takes to for them to bake! Truly worth the wait to eat them still warm though. And the covered double chairs were so cute...too bad I don't have a picture of them. So romantic! Haha.

おいしい！(Yummy!)

No album this time- I forgot my camera (a blessing for Ryan!). Actually I think Kiroro is supposed to have some spectacular views but today was not the day to see any of them. We had maybe 20 minutes of blue sky...and even then, it was just a patch! Oh well, I shouldn't complain- I want more snow!

Tomamu

I feel like whenever we go somewhere new to ski, I find my new favorite place to ski and Tomamu has not disappointed me!

Taking advantage of a three-day weekend, we planned a trip with two of our friends, Rob & Midori, to finally visit Tomamu, a highly recommended resort. Just like Rusutsu, Tomamu was built around the idea of a luxury resort. In fact, after we came back, Midori spoke to her sister about their respective weekends and since Rusutsu and Tomamu both have Tower hotels, they both thought that they had spent the weekend in the same place!

From Tomamu

Luckily, we were able to find an awesome pension to stay at with a really great package deal that included our room, breakfast and dinner, a ride to and from the train station, resort and pension AND our choice of full day lift ticket or a ticket to the spa for each day we stayed. AMAZING. Pension Ingu is a gorgeous 22 year old building with beautiful dark wood floors and two huge tree trunks serving as posts in the dining room and entrance. We booked a Japanese family style room, which was very comfortable for the four of us. And to top it all off, our pension hosts were so friendly and kind!

From Tomamu

Pension Ingu's food was excellent. It was such a treat to come back to such a well presented and tasty 4 course meal. The specialty of the house was deer meat though I'm not really sure why. It seemed like a random choice but the host did mention something about some number of deer getting runover by trains in Hokkaido a year. Were we eating train-kill? Haha. The highlight of our meals was anything covered in blueberry sauce. Our desserts came slathered in it as well as our yogurt in the mornings. We should have asked what brand of blueberry sauce they used!

From Tomamu

From Tomamu

So what about the skiing?! Well, Tomamu was kind of a small mountain but it had plenty of wonderful, wonderful powder snow! We even had light flurries on both days. We basically skied everything on the first day and spent most of our time at the top skiing the advanced and expert courses. Yes, that's right! I was hitting those expert courses hard! We even did a little off-piste.

From Tomamu

There's one section of Tomamu that's called Powder Heaven that can only be reached by taking the highest lift up and then going on a 300m hike. To go to this area and any of the off piste areas you must register at the resort desk and wear a yellow bulls-eye vest and helmet. Unfortunately we didn't have any time to do this since on the first day we were just exploring the mountain and on the second day we had kind of poor visibility and were very tired from the previous day. We were also told that Powder Heaven wasn't really worth the trouble of hiking. I would love to go back to Tomamu for some all-day off piste adventures though.

From Tomamu

From Tomamu

Besides skiing, we also did some sledding at the pension. Because we found a pair of sleds in the drying shed we put our skis in we just HAD to take them out for a ride. Of course, there was plenty of snow all around the pension but no hills really. So we had to kind of build our own sledding hill. The pension host helped us out by using his little snow plow and even let me help him drive! In the end we had a nice sledding session and the pension host told us we were like little kids. Haha.

From Tomamu

The day that we left I had trouble finding one of my casual gloves and had decided that I would just have to buy a new pair but a few minutes after leaving us at the station, we saw our kind pension host parking his van again. We thought he probably had more customers to pick up but then he ran out of his van waving my missing glove! There was a moment of confusion when we couldn't decide how we would get to each other (we were on the other side of the tracks and would have to run the length of the platform and up and down lots of stairs AND our train was coming very soon). And then suddenly the pension host and Rob had gone down on to the tracks and were making the switch right there. I really felt like he went above and beyond his duty and I really want to go to Pension Ingu and Tomamu again soon.

From Tomamu

From Tomamu

Enjoy the album!

Tomamu

Rusutsu!!!

Let's get this out of the way right away: Rusutsu is awesome!

First of all we got a really good deal on RT bus fare plus lift ticket from the resort's very own shuttle bus. The bus ride was basically free! And guess what?! The bus was so comfortable that even Ryan was able to fall asleep! That's grounds enough for us to make day trips to Rusutsu a common thing!

Ryan had checked the weather before we left and it said we would have light snow and a high of -9 so we packed accordingly. Apparently they underestimated the snow! Even just on the bus ride there we had poor visibility. The evergreens in the distance looked like ancient giants in a sea of fluffy soft white.

From Rusutsu

I was feeling a little apprehensive about the weather since the last time we went skiing in something like this I had a pretty scary experience (Niseko) but can you believe I had a great time?! I credit Rusutsu's amazing powder snow for this. We had at least ankle-deep powder everywhere and in many places the snow was up to our knees!

Here's a video of us on the lift:

From Rusutsu

We stuck mainly to the intermediate runs which had hardly any steepness at all. In addition to the amount of snow we had to wade through, this made for slow-going on the courses. We hit a few ungroomed runs as well and I found that not being able to see the moguls made it easier to get through the course! Haha. The advanced runs we got to go through were a little steeper so we hope to go on those another time.

I was doubly blind in this weather since I was having problems with my glasses/goggles fogging over. There were a few times when I actually got dizzy and nauseous because I was so disoriented! The snow was flying in all directions, I could barely see the treeline, I couldn't see the terrain, I was trying to keep my speed up to keep Ryan in sight...it should have been a nightmare but I was having a good time. Ryan was a saint for staying close by and not reacting to my whining negatively.

This is a shot that's been cleaned up a bit...so imagine that there's less contrast in this photo and you'll get a good idea of what it was like.

From Rusutsu

Rusutsu is a pretty good contender for "best ski resort" in my book! It is large, seems to have a good variety of terrain, has awesome snow, and is not crowded. I'd love to visit it again when the weather's a little better. Even though I don't snowboard anymore, I think Rusutsu is great for snowboarders and I'm even considering snowboarding at Rusutsu at some point.

Rusutsu is one of those mountains that was basically built around the idea of being a resort rather than a mountain that became a resort area. Because of this, there isn't much variety in accommodation. The big hotel is practically your only choice. And what a choice it is! It houses a variety of restaurants and shops and even has a carousel inside. It seems to have been built around an "olde Europe" theme, which I find is very popular in Japan. I believe that this resort also has its own wave pool. Rusutsu also has its own amusement park and golf course- both of which are strictly summer activities of course!

Please check out the album for more pictures:



(trying out the slideshow...click on a picture to go to the album.)

Snow Cruise Onze

We are slowly but surely going down the list of popular Hokkaido ski resorts and visiting them. This weekend we decided to take a quick trip to a nearby ski resort called snow cruise onze. It's located in Zenibako which is a little town on the Sea of Japan coast.
It was pretty nice! The mountain is very small- only has 2 lifts and maybe 7 courses and a halfpipe and a small terrain park. The snow was a little wet because we had a bit of a warm weekend but it was soft and felt great under-ski. But maybe the nicest part was the unique view that Onze had to offer: the ocean for as far as the eye can see!

It was cloudy on Sunday so the view wasn't optimal but it was still awesome to behold. We got flurries in the late afternoon which added to the beauty of the mountain.
As for the skiing, it's a pretty easy mountain. The only challenging run was the mogul-y one but this one was very short. In fact all of the runs were pretty short. Great place to learn or practice though. I'd say 90% of the people on the mountain were learning to ski or snowboard.
I took very few pictures but here's an album anyway:

Onze

2010 Christmas Ski Trip And End of the Year Recap

Hello, readers! Jane here. It is an unusual weekday night for us- we decided to stay in and relax instead of going to BJJ. Winter is in full force now- it has been snowing everyday for the last 10 days and the forecast is for more snow every day for the next 5 days. And after that? Probably more snow.

We definitely didn't get this much snow in such a short period of time last year. We are running out of places to put the snow! The snow in front of our apartment building has reached the first floor balconies and the building is occasionally shaken by accumulated snow falling off the roof. The school next door already has quite a sizable ski hill for the kids to practice on. The sidewalks and the streets are now separated by 5 foot walls of snow and pedestrians are side stepping each other on the narrow pathways. It is a true winter wonderland! I only hope that this keeps up because it is tons of fun for me and bodes well for an awesome ski season.

So how much skiing have we done so far? Well, admittedly not as much as we should be doing. But we'll be remedying that soon! Actually, the season was delayed by about two weeks at most resorts and if they did open, courses were limited.

The best time for us to go on an extended ski trip was for the Christmas/New Year week. We visited our favorite ski resort, Furano and tried out a new place for us, Kamui Ski Links. Both resorts had basically opened around the week before we came and conditions were less than stellar- certainly not up to par with last year's conditions. Still, it was great to be back skiing at our favorite ski town (even though our favorite runs were closed still!). One shouldn't really complain when there's good hard pack on the ground, no lines at the lifts and good weather.

After skiing three days in Furano, we transferred over to Asahikawa city. This is the second largest city in Hokkaido, boasts a fine ramen and is home to the northernmost zoo in Japan, which is the first place we visited after we checked our luggage into our hotel. (And beyond those three things, Asahikawa offered little else.)

Asahiyama Zoo is an extremely popular zoo. I even read that it is often competing only with Ueno Zoo in Tokyo in annual number of visitors. They even have a special zoo train that runs between Sapporo and Asahikawa, complete with cars named after animals and animal shaped chairs. Have you ever seen a giraffe in the snow? How about a lioness in the snow? Maybe this happens in zoos in America but we never thought about it?

In the winter, the zoo's most famous attraction is, of course, the penguin walk. It is actually as awesome as it sounds. Twice a day, they open the penguin exhibit and march the penguins around. The penguins walk right past you. Watch the video- I am not zoomed in at all. Those penguins are IN MY FACE. (You might have to click the picture and have another window open up to watch the video.)

From Christmas Ski Trip 2010

Two other features I really liked was the vertical tube that the seals would swim through and the underwater view of the penguin exhibit.

From Christmas Ski Trip 2010

From Christmas Ski Trip 2010

We spent the the next three days skiing at Kamui Ski Links. The conditions were similar to Furano. The resort is bit small- could have spent one day exploring it but it was pretty fun and relaxing. I especially liked the link run between peaks. It was a slightly narrow, ungroomed run that caused me a lot of anxiety but was also a lot of fun. We watched some guys practicing some competitive mogul skiing and pulling some awesome tricks. Kamui was also full of racers of all ages. Overall, a pretty nice mountain and is probably great when the conditions are better.

We arrived back in Sapporo on New Year's Day, after an uneventful New Year's Eve. (We watched Dynamite MMA on TV until we got sleepy and dozed off as some drumming and cheering floated into our room from outside.) New Year's Day in Sapporo was hectic. I don't think I've ever seen the station so lively. There were huge sales in all the stores and fukubukuro (lucky bags) aplenty. Basically you buy a fukubukuro at a set price (usually somewhere between 5000 Yen and 10000 Yen for bigger stores) and you can't see what's inside until after you buy it. You might end up with something you already own or something you wouldn't ever wear but you'll have gotten it at a killer bargain price!

Christmas takes a backseat to New Year celebrations here in Japan. Oshogatsu (the beginning of the year) is a time for visiting with friends and family, going to the temple, eating symbolic food and drinking lots of sake. On January 2nd, we were invited to eat and drink with the family of one of the teachers Ryan works with. I ate whale soup and salmon jerky. Ryan drank lots of "demon killer" sake and was even able to meet a maiko (apprentice geisha).

From Oshogatsu Celebrations

And to round out my oshogatsu, I visited the Hokkaido Shrine with a friend of mine and paid my respects to the kami (spirits/natural forces/gods).

It was a whirlwind trip and a whirlwind new year...and it didn't end there for me- I went to Hawaii less than a week after coming back. But that's for another post.

Please enjoy our new layout! The background is Ryan in Furano, patiently waiting for me to stop taking pictures and start skiing! Some of the new pages are still under construction but it'll all be done this week. Thanks for reading! And please view the rest of the pictures at the links below:

Christmas Ski Trip 2010

Oshogatsu Celebrations

Skiing on Olympic ground and Day 0: Natto Experiment

We had a nice relaxing weekend here in Sapporo. On Saturday we skied Teine Highland aka site of the 1972 Olympics! Met up with some of the teachers from Ryan's office. They are AWESOME skiers...but what else can we expect from people who've grown up in Hokkaido?!


I tried the "Expert Only" course. It only took me 30 minutes to go down 1500m!! Hahaha. It was an ungroomed course through the trees and full of moguls. Next year I want to cut my time down a bit. Haha. But despite how difficult it was for me (not being able to jump turn or sometimes just get over my fear and go) I rather enjoyed that trail and hope to visit it again soon!

We ended the day with our favorite soup curry from Voyage. (More on that another time!) Skiing and soup curry on a Saturday! What more could one want?

Today, we were able to sleep in (until 10!!) and just cleaned/had a lazy day.

And tomorrow will be my first* day eating natto for breakfast!! Natto is a traditional Japanese food- everyone here always asks if we like natto. The answer is always "no." Why? Natto is fermented soy beans- which means it has a very distinct scent. Frankly, it smells like compost and tastes like it too. (Well, it tastes like how I imagine compost to taste like...) It is super sticky and extremely slimey. Read the wiki that I linked to at the beginning of the paragraph.


*My first actual day eating natto was over the summer at our hotel in Noboribetsu. However for the purposes of my experiment, tomorrow will be Day 1.

Then why am I eating natto tomorrow? Because I think I should give it a chance (again). So many people LOVE it here (even the children!) and it's SO healthy for you. I have bought a pack of 4-20g containers of natto and I will consume one pack a day with my morning rice. I wanted to take a video but mornings are a little busy in this household so I think pictures will have to do.

Well...better go to sleep so I can wake up and eat my natto! Oyasumi nasai!

"Blessed with Snow" Part Ni: Furano Ski-jo

aka ふらの は すばらしい でした!!! ("Furano wa subarashii deshita!!!" = Furano was awesome!)

Furano is known for three main things: lavender fields, the television drama きたのくにから (Kita No Kuni Kara = From the North Country; I think that's what it translates to), and Furano Ski Resort. Well, the lavender fields are buried in snow and I don't know a thing about that television drama...so I guess all I have to talk about it is the skiing! Of course!

Furano is 142km east of Sapporo. It's smack-dab in the middle of Hokkaido- which is why it's sometimes called the へそ ("heso" = belly button) of Hokkaido. They even hold a へそまつり ("heso matsuri" = belly button festival), which is during the summer and will not be talked about here- though you should do a google image search of the festival because it's pretty funny. (ohkay, i made you guys a link...just click google image search.) This city (8th largest in Hokkaido!) is surrounded by the biggest mountains in Hokkaido- Mt. Tokachi-dake of the Taisetsu Mountain Range, also known as the "roof of Hokkaido," and Mt. Ashibetsu-dake of the Yubari Mountain Chain.

Furano ski resort has two zones: Furano Zone and Kitanomine Zone. In the Furano Zone, they have a super high speed ropeway; it takes 101 passengers something like 2,330 meters in less than 5 minutes. I think we only rode it once the entire time we were there though. Haha. Just like Niseko, Furano is blessed with snow from the Sea of Japan and Siberia except that its powder is even drier than Niseko's. What?! So it basically sounds like THE place to ski, doesn't it?!

Well, it is!! Furano is hands-down my favorite place right now. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping this entry organized because I just want to rave about Furano...Let me just give you a short recap:

Ryan and I ended up getting ourselves a 4 day weekend last week (Ryan actually got 5 days off!!) so I booked us a bus to Furano and pension accommodations by the gondola in Kitanomine Zone. It took about 3 hours to get to Furano and it was a half km walk from the gondola to our pension, Pension Ressha House. The pension was nice but we didn't get a room with ensuite bathroom so it really was more like the Japanese ryokan we stayed in in Hamamasu. The bathrooms were dorm-style and the shower/bath was gender separated Japanese style. I never actually had to share the shower/bath with anyone so it was like having a huge shower room all to myself and my own pool to soak in afterwards. I have to say that although it was a really nice place, I never felt rested there. Maybe because I was too tired or starting to get sick (I've got a pretty bad cold right now) or it was too hot...or maybe it was the weird elevator music that was constantly playing. That REALLY bugged me. They did turn it off at a certain time at night but still. Anyway, like I said before, the pension was 0.5 km from the gondola and unlike Niseko, Furano doesn't have its own free shuttle bus service for the resort area. It wasn't a terrible hike though.

What the walk looks like from our pension to gondola

So the first day we decided to take the bus into downtown Furano for some おみやげ ("omiyage" = souvenir) shopping and dinner. I happened to see that there was Geo in town (Geo is a multimedia store that sells lots of used video game stuff) so of course, we had to stop in there so Ryan could get his video game fix. The best places to find rare items are in small towns in the middle of nowhere and Ryan really lucked out because Geo was having an insane sale.

After buying the souvenirs and some games, we had dinner at Teppenyaki Masaya where we ordered the Furano Omu Curry and their super fluffy おこのみやき(okonomiyaki), which I can't remember the name of anymore. You can translate okonomiyaki to "whatever you want cooked" and that's basically what it is- a pancake type dish with whatever ingredients you want. In most okonomiyaki restaurants you actually cook the pancakes yourself and have a choice of toppings and sauces. In other places the chef makes the okonomiyaki on a grill in front of you. The specific okonomiyaki we had at Masaya was different in that it was extremely fluffy. It was actually the first okonomiyaki I've had so I have nothing to compare it to. It looks very light and fluffy but since it is made with potato it is also pretty filling.

Masaya of Teppenyaki Masaya making our food!

Our Okonomiyaki

The Furano Omu Curry is Furano's signature dish. First of all, Omu Curry is just rice wrapped in an omelette with curry on top and can be found pretty much anywhere. To be a Furano Omu Curry you must follow these rules:
1. Use Furano-raised rice, vegetables, and eggs.
2. Must be served with a glass bottle of Furano Milk.
3. Must be under 1000yen.
If it follows these rules, only then can you plant a little "welcome to Furano" flag in the rice before serving. It is very tasty and the milk was really good too!

Furano Omu Curry

So we had a good restful first day. The next day we had breakfast at our pension and then made the hike up to the gondola (which, not gonna lie, was not the best part of my day). I soon found that even though I had to climb uphill in my boots with my skis and poles, it was totally worth it. Furano powder is awesome and plentiful! I was scared at first because there was a sign that read "Attention Beginners!! There are NO beginner courses at the top of Kitanomine gondola!!! Take the lift instead!" But boy, do I feel sorry for those beginners who stay away from the top...the view is amazing!! (Also, it would have been another uphill climb to the lifts from the gondola station.) And as I would soon find out, there is almost no course in Furano that I CAN'T ski. I have to say it's a combination of the amazing snow and the fact that the courses really aren't that hard as compared to Niseko. I think that first day we skiied pretty much everything except for the three expert courses and the mogul run.

That night we ate at Panier. We had chosen the restaurant because it advertised homemade pizza but when we arrived we decided that we weren't in the mood for pizza and it didn't really look like a pizzeria anyway. The restaurant was really cute- pretty big but also just felt like we were sitting in someone's home. I suspect many of the places around the ski resort are like that especially in the Kitanomine zone, which is known to be an area full of pensions and small hotels. That's part of the charm of Furano- it doesn't feel touristy; it's just a small town with a really big mountain. We ordered mushroom black curry and pumpkin gratin. The black curry was apparently their specialty so we had to order it. It was a pretty mild curry, very dark and thick. I was surprised by the serving size- it was almost as much rice as our rice cookers puts out- and we have a 3 cup rice cooker. Luckily, I have Ryan. The pumpkin gratin was really good too. We ended the meal with chocolate banana cake a la mode! Yum! The vanilla ice cream had a delicious blueberry sauce on it. It was Ryan's favorite part.

Mushroom Black Curry

Pumpkin Gratin

Third day we were there was a bluebird day. I forgot until now to mention the weather. Furano was really cold but not as cold as we were expecting. Maybe around -8 celsius? Not sure, maybe it was colder. Anyway, it wasn't as windy as Niseko but it did snow a lot while we were there. So the third day, we skiied everything except maybe one of the expert courses in Furano Zone...but it's hard to tell sometimes which course you're on or where exactly you are. So who knows. I was so happy to be able to experience Furano during some snowfall and some sunlight. I have to say in either situation, the view is breathtaking. I especially loved the views from Furano Zone's highest lift- aptly named "Downhill Romance."

Don't actually think this is from Downhill Romance...
But it's a pretty good representation of what pretty much all of Furano looks like.

The mountain was full of students that day- I think a high school school was having a field trip. It was pretty funny to see all the students dressed all in the same ski outfits- from their matching hats and goggles to their ski/snowboard boots. We're not sure if they were dressed like that so it would be easy to spot them or keep them in a group or if it was just for solidarity. Probably a little bit of both. It's a pretty interesting sight to see from the lifts- the whiteness of the slopes dotted with groups of people all dressed alike. There were also men dressed in green camouflage or solid olive green snow suits using really old-school looking cross country skis. We decided that they were members of the self-defense force's mountain unit. Wish we had pictures of all these...

In Kitanomine Zone there is an expert course called Furikowaza which slopes downward off the edge of an easier course and is ungroomed. When we approached it that day we found a group of high school boys laughing like crazy and having a ball basically falling their way down the course. So, of course, we joined them! I got a lot of encouragement from imagining that their ski instructor at the bottom was yelling "がんばって" ("Ganbatte" = Try your best!) to me as well as to the boys. I wish I could have skiied with them all day! Haha.

At the end of the third night, we decided to go back to Panier because we just liked it there so much. A different man served us at first and brought us a Japanese menu but the previous waiter saw us and was so excited to see us. Both of them were very impressed with our Japanese. This time we ordered the potato gratin and a mushroom doria. とてもおいしい!! ("totemo oishii!" = very delicious!) And of course we ended dinner with cheesecake a la mode, just so that we could have more of that delicious blueberry sauce.

That night we also went to Ningle Terrace, a string of 15 cottages where artisans create and sell their products. It's advertised as a "fairy tale arts and crafts village" "lit up with thousands of fairy lights" and has "well dressed snowmen and huge snow mushrooms on every log cabin." It's behind the New Furano Prince Hotel, which is huge and has its own onsen and is probably really expensive to stay in. Anyway, it was a really cute "forest boardwalk" but we were freezing and didn't want to miss the bus back to Kitanomine. I did get to buy an awesome kaleidoscope made out of a tree branch and we tasted the やき ミルク ("yaki miruku"= a baked milk drink) at Chu Chu Cafe. We were really surprised when I ordered it because the cashier just brought it out from under the counter. I really liked it though. It had a really tasty kind of caramelized skin on top. I think it would have tasted better hot though.

Yaki Milk!! So Good!

Ryan and the ferociously cute snowbear!

Should have borrowed their scarves...SO COLD!

On our fourth and last day, our bus wasn't leaving for Sapporo until 5PM so we decided to check out of our room in the morning, store our bag at the pension and ski for a few hours. It was another beautiful day. On this last day, I pretty much got all the falling I didn't do the other two days out of the way. I figured it was a good day to fall a lot since I probably wasn't skiing the next day. My best fall was when I decided to ski into the ungroomed powder on one side of a course and face planted into it instead. Hahaha. I guess I underestimated how fast I was going and how deep the powder was. My skis basically just sunk in and I tripped over them. It was the first time my skis popped off though and I had quite a time trying to get my skis back on on a slope. It was a lot of fun though!

So...that's basically everything that happened in Furano. I just want to get this posted so ASAP since I've been working on it like all week and I'm getting sick of it...more later...

I'm going to ski off the horizon!!!

Please click the link below for the full album!
(Unfortunately we're not the busiest shutterbugs...but it's better than nothing!)

Furano

"Blessed with Snow": Skiing around Sapporo and Niseko!

So, it's already February?! Gomenasai (ごめんなさい), dear readers...Sorry for the long break between posts! This year really hit the ground running for us. Hope 2010 has been as good to you as it's been to us so far. There's so much to update about.

Right now, we are in the midst of the 61st Sapporo Snow Festival (さっぽろゆきまつり- Sapporo Yuki Matsuri) and boy, is the weather really celebrating it. At first it seemed to be warming up in Sapporo but by the time the festival started, the temperatures dropped and so did the powder! The festival is really a wonder...I hope I can put it into words- in another post!

So "Blessed with Snow" seems to be the slogan for Sapporo (click on Sapporo to see it on the website), but I think it applies to pretty much all of Hokkaido and to us because we live here. We've been skiing a lot and still have the rest of the season. Lately we've stuck close to home- Bankei ski resort is only a short subway ride and an even shorter shuttle bus away! It's in Chuo-ku which means it's in Central Sapporo. It's close, it's cheap, and it's a pretty nice little mountain! (Bankei from the bus stop)

But I know you all want to know about Niseko!! (Those of you who know we went...)

I guess a quick geography and background lesson is in order here so we're all up to date on the what and where: (though most of this can actually be read at Niseko's Wikipedia)


So Niseko is about 2.5-3 hours west of Sapporo through a beautiful mountain landscape all dressed up in snow. Niseko is actually the name of a town, the municipal area but is commonly used to refer to the ski resorts that encompass Mt. Yotei and the Annupuri range. There are 6 of them: Grand Hirafu, Higashiyama aka Niseko Village, Annupuri, Hanazono, Mt. Moiwa and Mt. Weiss. The first four are called Niseko United- can be skied in between at the top and has free shuttle service at the base with your Niseko United lift pass. In 2007, Niseko was number 2 in Top 20 Snowiest Ski Resorts in the World in Forbes' Traveler with an average of 595 inches.


Ohkay...so WHY so much snow? Niseko is fed by the weather fronts coming from Siberia and the Sea of Japan which creates a very consistent and powdery snowfall. Apparently though Niseko powder is not as dry as other parts of Hokkaido! Does this mean it gets better than Niseko?!

We left for Niseko on January 3rd after celebrating the new year very quietly with lots of soba noodles, of course! We took the Niseko Bus from Sapporo Station- our bus fare came with complimentary lift tickets.The ride there was pretty awesome- just took in the snow-laden landscape. There were really great views of Mt. Yotei from the bus. Mt. Yotei is also known as Ezo-Fuji (which means Fuji of Hokkaido) because it is supposed to look like Mt. Fuji. What do you think?
Our lodge was in the Grand Hirafu area of Niseko, which is where most hotels and restaurants are. Our particular accomodation would be called a "pension," which is taken from the French word for boarding house. Basically it's the westernized version of a Japanese ryokan. It's a very economical alternative to a resort hotel or business hotel, which are very expensive.

Alpine Central: Our home in Niseko

Alpine Central has a great traditional hinoki bath (Japanese cypress) available to all guests. This was the second best part of a good day of skiing- the best part being the skiing. It wasn't ski-in/ski-out but the free shuttle bus was right outside and only took at most 5 minutes. If we really wanted to, we could have walked up to the lifts- but hey, this is still a vacation, right?

Our first meal in Niseko was pizza, of course! It didn't really live up to our expectations. I guess coming from New York, we have a very discerning palate. Hehe. We thought that since Niseko was known to be more "international" that maybe the pizza would taste less...Japanese. But I guess ingredients are the same everywhere. The search for good pizza continues!

I would like to coin the term "Little Oz" as a new name for Niseko because this whole resort was basically made up of Australian owned businesses and full of Australian people- working or vacationing there. It didn't feel like we were in Japan anymore. It was pretty surreal.

So I guess I should get to the skiing part right?!

Our first day was pretty nice- we tackled Hanazono, a little bit of Grand Hirafu and Higashiyama. The snow was awesome! One of the employees at the lodge warned me that it was a bit of a shock to see your skis disappear in the powder but that I would get used to it quickly- or at least I'd have to. IT WAS CRAZY and exciting! The trails were awesome and wide but every now and then I would get brave enough to go into the trees where the best snow can be found!

We ended the night as we would for the rest of the trip- a nice long soak in the hinoki bath and dinner at a place we carefully chose from the guidebook. Our first night we ate soup curry at Tsubara Tsubara- which was just down the street from our lodge. For our second night (first day skiing), we got take-out from a sandwich shop called Graubunden. Ryan got a mushroom omelette sandwich and I got an avocado, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. And for dessert we got some crazy fruity roll cake slice that cost as much as a sandwich! Worth it though.

The second day was much more intense. We got up early, partook in our lodge's breakfast buffet, and got to the mountain early. We took the lifts straight to the top of Grand Hirafu, crossed Higashiyama, and took one last lift up to the peak to ski down into Annupuri. This last lift was called Wonderland Chair lift. It was a single person chair lift and that morning it felt as if the chair was transporting me directly into a blizzard. This was a white-out the likes of which I have never seen! (OK, I'm a new skier but still this was extreme...) I could barely see Ryan in the chair in front of me. I was holding onto the chair for dear life!

Coming off the lift and turning onto the run, I worked hard to ski down and keep the terror from taking over. The peak was windblown and hard-packed and I was shaking from cold and fear. Another skier joined Ryan and I in trying to find our way to Annupuri but we both lost Ryan and then I lost the other skier. It seemed like the wind was coming in all directions and snow was swirling all around me. Whenever I stopped (which was always a bad idea!), I would get dizzy- the snow was moving in such a way that I couldn't tell which was up, down, left or right. The worst part was when I got knocked down by the wind. This set off a chain of events that went something like this: 1. Wrench your knee. 2. Punch yourself in the face with your pole. 3. Face plant and eat snow. 4. Continue sliding towards the backcountry boundary with no clue as to how you're going to stop. Luckily, I had enough sense left in me to dig my poles in, get my skis situated (guessing at which way was actually down), and stand up. From there I finally found Ryan, who was probably turning into an icicle waiting for me. We skied on into Annupuri, which turned into a peaceful winter wonderland once we got lower down the mountain. It really felt like such a treat after the ordeal at the top. The courses were wide and gentle and quiet. Once we got all the way down and got back on the lift, I nearly cried from sheer joy.

From Niseko

(Not a picture of my after Annupuri but still a good picture of me being happy.)

I can't remember if we took the shuttle bus back to Grand Hirafu that day. We must have because later that day (probably right after I got off that death chair!) all of the lifts to the top were shut down.

In my opinion, Annupuri was the most Japanese of all the resorts. I don't really know how to explain this...I guess the most obvious explanation is that there are more Japanese/less foreigners skiing in Annupuri as compared to Grand Hirafu or Niseko Village. Also it's the least developed (not counting Hanazono which to me was more like an extension of Grand Hirafu than a resort in and of itself)- Annupuri only has a handful of pensions and youth hostels and very little apres-ski. The rest house had the cheapest food of all the resorts and the fare was much less western as well. Also I feel like Annupuri is just much more peaceful and zen-like than the other resorts. But maybe my opinion is just distorted because I was just so happy to have survived the conditions at the peak.

That night we ate at a Nepalese curry place that I can't remember the name of- Bhozan, maybe? I actually can't remember what we ate. Nothing really to write home about...

The third day and our last day of skiing was spent mostly in Grand Hirafu and Hanazono. I haven't asked Ryan but I'm pretty sure that we both agree on the best run: Stairway to Heaven in Hanazono. At first I was a little intimidated by it because I considered it steep but by the end of the day I couldn't get enough of it! When Hanazono closed, we moved on to Grand Hirafu for night skiing. I conquered my fear of skiing off the lip of a trail! It wasn't a big deal at all...children were zooming past me while I whimpered and whined about how scary it was. Haha. Well, I DID IT! So, hooray for me!

Our last dinner in Niseko was at Taj Mahal for Indian buffet. When we first entered we didn't realize it was only buffet. We had to ask the waiter if there were any vegetarian dishes and if it was worth it for us to pay so much for buffet. The waiter was so excited that we were vegetarian that he urged us to stay and that there were two vegetarian dishes at the buffet but the kitchen would make two more all vegetarian dishes just for us. The entire staff seemed to be beaming at us. I didn't have the heart to explain that I was only asking because Ryan is a pescetarian and that I would actually eat meat if I thought it looked good/there weren't that many vegetarian choices. So while we were at Taj Mahal, we "pure vegetarian" as the waiter kept calling us. Apparently in all his years in the restaurant business in Japan, he had hardly ever met "pure vegetarians" and he was so happy to have met us. Ryan considered telling him the story of why he became a vegetarian but I think that would have brought everyone to tears. They served us okra curry and samosas- fresh out of the kitchen just for us. Actually the waiter nearly begged me to eat. He had dropped the samosas off at our table and was coming back with the okra curry when he noticed I hadn't touched my samosa yet. (I still had a whole plate of other food!) "Please, m'am, eat the samosa! It is very good!" And then as if he didn't think I would eat the okra curry, he shoveled it onto my plate for me and seemed to stand there waiting for me to eat. So I indulged him and ate a little bit of both while he stood there. おいしい!! (oishii = delicious) It wasn't as uncomfortable as it sounds. It was pretty awesome and fun. And the food was really good- best Indian food we've eaten in Japan.

So the next day we went back to Sapporo. And the day after I left for the Philippines. And tomorrow morning we are heading to Furano!! So...I have to cut this short here and publish this now so you guys have something to read while we're away!

Also here's the album but I don't think I'm done adding pictures...

Niseko

(I just realized while writing this post that there wasn't even a blip on the radar about New Year...Not much to report. I made New Year postcards as is tradition here. Wish I could have scanned one in for the blog...next time! OH, Ryan recontracted and my job is pretty secure so we'll be here another year! Also please excuse any weird grammar errors, formatting or anything like that...I did this post as quickly as possible!)