Skiing Niseko

Every year, I try to get at least one ski trip into my dull life. But that didn't happen last year as I had much more important and interesting things to do…namely I was preoccupied with having a blast during my around-the-world adventure : ) I must've been somewhere in Latin America during the Northern hemisphere skiing season, meaning more tank tops, shorts, and bikinis, rather than down jackets, thermals, and gloves.

Since I just started working, taking a week off for a big ski trip was out of the question. No Canada, no US, no Europe. Which left me with local Japan.
Don't get me wrong…Japan has some great snow and mountains, but they tend to be much smaller in comparison to the resorts I usually go to. Thus, crowded (mostly with annoyingly young snowboarders) and short runs. The plus side, however, is that they're very convenient to get to with public transportation, have great food, and there's always a hot spring nearby!!!
This season, I decided to tag along with a family friend to Niseko, in central Hokkaido. Even though it was a long weekend (Monday off), I ended up treating it as if it were any other weekend because flights back to Tokyo on Monday were ridiculously expensive. Basically, leave Friday evening after work, and be back Sunday evening.
I know…this only leaves me with 1 full + 1 half day of skiing. Oh well, can't have everything, right?! Plus, I'm not a gung-ho skier.

So, Friday evening I took a flight from Haneda to Sapporo, where I had to wait about an hour for the shuttle bus to Niseko. I was surprised to see a bunch of Australians and New Zealanders at the airport, all headed to some ski place in Hokkaido. Even though Hokkaido has a lot of different resort options, I thought they were mostly for local Japanese…never thought about it attracting foreigners.

I didn't arrive at Niseko until close to midnight. When I walked into the hotel, something hit me….this all looked familiar!!!!!! I must've been here before!!! Well it so happens that indeed, I have stayed at this hotel before, almost 10 years ago. At that time, though, it wasn't a Hilton. Some Japanese hotel chain I can't remember. I guess Hilton bought up the place a few years ago and did some major renovations - the lobby area at least looked much nicer, modern, and attractive than I remembered. Once I got inside the room, though, it didn't seem like they spent much money on that. It was still tiny and cramped just like last time!!! And the hot spring area (yes, I took a bath around 1am instead of sleeping) hadn't changed either.

Rise and shine early next morning, had a huge buffet breakfast at the hotel, and hit the slopes!!! There was some snowfall last night, and the conditions were absolutely puuuuuuuurfect!

I haven't been on my skis for over 2 years, so I was a bit hesitant…and started on the green slopes. Which I managed to breeze through without any problems whatsoever. With my confidence built up, we hit the blues and some short, easier blacks one after the other.

But as I said earlier, I'm not a gung-ho skier. Very soon, I was at a lodge, taking a break, with coffee in hand. Then, back to the slopes, then lunch, then slopes, then break, then finish off at the slopes until the lifts stop running. I don't like night skiing.
My ski buddies turned out to be quite a bum themselves. It was great that we skied, rested, and ate at the same pace!!!

One of the best things about skiing in Japan is that every night the hotel serves decent Japanese food and that you can end the day with a dip in the wonderful hot springs to ease away all the aches and tiredness in the body. By the way, the one at Niseko Hilton smelled kelpy and the water was a bit slimy. LOVED IT!!!!!!
We had initially planned to go into the town itself to have some better food and explore other springs, but you know, after skiing….I honestly never really feel like going out. I just want to stop moving as much as possible.
Hence, we never left the hotel grounds until the shuttle came to pick us up for the airport on Sunday afternoon.

At the airport, I got really, really, really pissed off at the airline because they wouldn't let me take an earlier flight out, even though there were seats left! And I had pretty high status on the airline membership from all the flights I took around the world last year. Argh. Argh. Argh. Argh. Argh.
I will spare you readers from all the details here, but let me just say that even remembering the incident now still frustrates me. Argh. Argh. Argh. Argh. Argh.