Merry Christmas!!

Although it doesn't really feel like Christmas this year, it just feels like another week and very busy week at the ski school.

It's been a pretty busy month trying to get the ski school running smooth. I think it's finally coming together, hoping for little breathing space in January. With The Vale opening next door there has been an abundance of extra walk ins. The latter half of Xmas week the schedule board for the instructors was covered in red meaning mostly privates have been booked. With the big spenders, I've been seeing a fair few black AMEX cards. How elite.

Right at the start of the season, I passed the entry level APSI ski instructors course. Was an intense four days skiing round the mountain, but I think I've improved my technique and have learnt a few things about teaching children to ski.

Had my first lesson last week. I don't think three year olds should be in a group lesson for three hours and I also think that the parents of these three year olds should be no where near them during the class. Out of my class of eight I ended up with two five year olds, I was confident that we could go up the lift, of the two, one started to cry at the top and would not stop the whole way down, had to have her in-between my legs for the run while the other little boy was doing so well and having fun which is the whole point at this age.

When I have had a chance to leave work, I've been mainly eating. Tried some raw oysters in a new restraunt open this season, Ezo Seafood.

Christmas day I was at work, everyone got to leave early. First part of Christmas dinner dining was with Aliesha at Senshou, a seafood restaurant. Part II, a family style feast at Gavin and Chook's house with a few people from work. I ate so much that I was suitably full to what is expected on Christmas day.

Spend boxing day in Sapporo, getting out of the village and seeing the shops.

Roll on 2010.

December 09 in Hirafu

Tokyo Mini Break

For a pre-season mini break, I went to Tokyo to watch the final of the Bledisloe Cup – a tournament between New Zealand and Australia. The final was held in Tokyo to promote rugby and build hype for the rugby world cup that will be held in Japan 2011.

Although not really any kind of sports fan, I do enjoy live sport matches and the Bledisloe cup was no exception. A nearly full stadium of a mixture of Japanese and gai-jins. One of the guys I was with, John, managed to rally up enough support to begin a Mexican wave around the stadium. To be fair, the first attempt wasn’t that good, but it got better, with one making it’s way all around the stadium.

Outside the stadium all five of us purchased what was probably fake rugby strips for a very reasonable price. I did buy a Kiwi shirt for the practicality of use after the game. A black polo shirt I can use while I work out, a bright yellow one isn’t so useable outside of Australian events.

After the game we all headed to Shinjuku for an izakaiya dinner and more drinking, to carry on the Kiwi theme, I discovered a kiwi sour with real kiwi’s in the drink – yummy.

Rest of the Tokyo trip was really fun, shopping, Cold Stone, high tea at The Peninsula and a seven story, women’s only Uni Qlo.

Returning to Hirafu on Tuesday I was greeted to a very white landscape. While I was away it snowed for basically the whole weekend. It has since melted in the warm weather we’ve had this week. A great semi start to the season none the less.

Tokyo Halloween 09

Oz and Sinagpore

Recent family news took me to Oz for the first time in over ten years. It was a strange yet familiar trip. I got to meet three new family members and say good bye to one.

Customs in Oz is always so serious, I was directed towards the long line of people opening out their suitcases and showing the customs officers food and other items. The list of questions on the customs card can also be ambiguous. One was something about being near a lake in the last seven days and another about having soil on your shoes. At the counter I did take of my shoes to show the customs officer, all was well and they let me into the country.

One thing that did strike me about Sydney is all the traffic, each side three lanes wide and there always seemed to be a jam. Dropping my cousin off at the airport, a car was flashing his lights and beeping at me to move. If the car behind had looked a little further than his own bonnet he would have seen a taxi in front of me whose driver was getting the luggage out of the boot. Not much I could do when the car behind me had blocked me in so there was no where for me to go.

On leaving Sydney I went with my family to spend a few days in Singapore and also apply for my Japanese visa. As a Brit, there are different rules to extending and changing a visa in Japan which I and SkiJapan have learnt in the last few weeks.

We ate, shopped, ate and walked around in the humidity. Orchard road is going though some re-development with a lot of luxury brands lining the street and new shopping malls that feel like a whole new shopping experience that I don’t currently have the money or need, to indulge in.

We did have money to indulge in the food courts around the hotel, in China town and little India. I have since learnt that dim sum is known as yum cha and roti chani is known as prata. The lime juice, chrysanthemum tea and iced milo is a good as it was, as is the fresh fruit, roti chani and all the other good food that remind me of the family holiday’s spent in Malaysia when I was much younger.

Oz and Singapore

Leaves in the Mountains

Autumn as arrived in Hokkaido, Aleisha and I went to Daisetsu-zan national park to view some of the autumn leaves near and at the top of Kuro Dake san.

It was a long drive out to the national park, not taking the freeway and going though the towns there were traffic lights every hundred meters or so. On the way out we stopped by Shikotsu Lake, the second deepest lake in Japan with very clear water in Shikotsu-Toya National Park.

While on the way to the lake, I was pulled over by a motorbike policeman. All my encounters with police have been in Japan. Third time’s a charm. I was doing 80 on a 50 KM/H road. Once I had shown him all my documents, the International drivers licence, gai-jin card and passport, I think he realised that to actually book me for speeding would be a large effort on his part. Aleisha came out to help and he said ‘be careful as it’s the weekend on a national holiday.’ And he let me off with a warning, phew.

Just after check-in, in the early evening, a couple of tour buses pulled in to the hotel and streamed into the hotel. It’s one thing that I would like to experience while in Japan, a ‘follow the flag’ tour.

The hotel wasn’t very exciting, dinner looked very pretty on the tray. There were tables and tables of identical dinner trays for the bus loads from the tour buses so it was Japanese fine dinning on a mass production scale. 

The hotel onsen had a peculiar rancid type smell to it, but it was still nice to soak in the hot water after a whole day of being in the car.

Early start in the morning, to use the rotenburo, outside onsen, before cleaning time. Buffet breakfast then up the cable car and chair lift, strange using a chair lift with no board or skis attached to my feet, to climb the last section of the Kuro Dake peak at an elevation of 1984 meters. The climb was relatively short in comparison to Youtei or the trail run I had done previously. At the top I could see snow already on some of the distance peaks, there was also a couple of cute looking squirrels scampering around the visitors.

After coming down the mountain back to the car, it was the the long, uneventful, six hour drive home with the exception of a McD’s stop. 

Kuro Dake

Silver Week

A big week in the village, with two public holidays in a weeks lots of people have chosen to come up to Niseko to enjoy the beginnings of Autumn in what is called Silver week. A nice alternate name for the holiday to Golden week which is in May. Silver week only comes round every few years or so due to the calendar and where the public holidays land in the week.

At the weekend I competed in my last physical challenge for the summer, a 3.5km Niseko Town run. I came 39th out of seventy two people. At least I didn't come last. As I don't have a car, I biked to and from the start of the run, another nine kilometers each way, coming home was tough. The downhills which I was expecting to be my welcome relief to pedaling up the hill didn't quite happen as the wind was so strong I still had to pedal.

There was a very 'sports day' feel to the event area, food stalls, tents set up, fun for all the family. This is one of the things I like about sports in Japan, it's not all about being pro. They may look the part with all the gear, but doesn't mean they have the goods. Which means anyone can take part, I always felt like run meets or any other sporting meets are taken too seriously in the UK. As in you and your family has to live and breath the sport to enter the event.

I was given an array of freebies though-out the day. Just because I entered the run race I was entitled to a bag of potatoes, a towel, carton of milk, mini bottle of water. After the race Aleisha and I took part in what was called 'Potato Ban Ba' which is a race for teams of five where your team has to put crates of potatoes on to a wooden sledge, one of the team sits on the crates to stop them moving and the other four have to pull the whole thing along for 60 metres, 30 meters one way, round a pole and back to the start. The team has to get the sledge completely over the finish line. There were different categories, kids - 40 kg of potatoes, women - 60 kg of potatoes and men 80 kg of potatoes. 

We came first in the women category out of three teams and won 2000 yen each, score. And also, just for entering a can of tomato juice and some left over boiled corns from lunch. Monday was distinctively colder, autumn is here and winter is well on the way.

Niseko Marathon

Kagami Numa

From the summer gondola there are various hiking routes one can take. This weekend I went on the route to see Kagami Numa, named 'mirror marsh/lake'. This weekend was also the end of Niseko Cycle Week, there was a closing bbq, wasn't the greatest bbq, chicken was a bit under done. Have been running again, since recovering from climbing Youtei, training for the NAC trail run next weekend. I was at the North bar again on Saturday night for rugby from the Tri Nations, Australia won the match against South Africa.

Kagami Numa, 鏡沼

Staff Trip to Shakotan

As summer is swifty coming to an end, SkiJapan was nice enough to organise a little staff trip to Shakotan and a beach bbq. Some of the guys went into the ocean to collect fresh mussels, abalone and uni from the rocks. Monday was the end of uni (sea urchin) season. I, myself am not a fan of the uni, abalone I had never tried, but was pleasantly surprised, the mussels were enormous and a little gritty. Lucky for our group the sun was out and it was lovely basking in the sun, why can't every Monday be like this?

After all the food had been eaten, we piled everything back in the shiny new SkiJapan van and went to the Shakotan view point. I had been here a few weeks previously and with my legs still aching from the Youtei climb I was quite happy to enjoy the view from the lookout point.

Next stop, Misaki-Yu, Cape Onsen, a really nice salty water onsen that looks out over the coast line. We only had about half hour here as we had dinner reservations at a sushi restaurant. Since being in Hokkadio I have consistently been disappointed with the sushi I've eaten here. They just don't compare to the Umai Sushi Ya in Haramahi/Sendai. I've had the fish frozen and way too big for the rice. I haven't really enjoyed my sushi experiences in Hokkadio, until this restaurant. The maguro, tuna, is available from September and was delicious. I also ordered a salmon sushi that had a clear something on top, not sure what it was, it didn't taste like it added or took away from the flavour. There was a lot of uni on the menu but not something I wanted to try again.

Staff Trip to Shakotan

Climbing Youtei San, 羊蹄山, 1898m.

It had been raining pretty much non stop since Thursday, I went to bed to the sound of rain, and I awoke to the same sound. Friday night it was clear and looked like it would stay clear for Saturday - the day Aleisha and I had decided to climb Youtei San, the local mountain right in our back garden, also known as Ezo Fuji because it's reminiscent of Fuji San.

As I had to work in the evening, an early start of 6.45am was required. We were on the track up the mountain just after 7.00. There were a few cars in a car park and people heading up to the mountain also, so we began going straight up on the Hangetsu-ko side of the mountain. This is the most direct route and therefore the steepest. There were 9 stations to the summit, each fairly nicely spaced out. The path was muddy, full of boulders and gravel. The path was pretty sheltered by all the shrubbery and trees. 

At the top was a different story, server winds that felt like they would blow us off the track, from about the eighth station the cloud cover started to come down. I couldn't see anything at the top, there were piles of rocks that looked like the top, top. In Japan there is usually a marked sign with the height and name of the mountain you've just climbed. In the end we found one that looked like the one, took our picture and headed back for the shelter of the undergrowth.

Going down was a hard and took as long as going up. My knees were in agony for most of the four hours down. But there was no other option, down was the only option. The muddier sections were a challenge, I was grabbing on to the roots and plants, anything that would help me balance as I negotiated my way down.

We got down about 3 o'clock, our total hike time was eight hours, we didn't take proper breaks, just little ones at each station. It cleared up in the afternoon and the lower part of the mountain was actually a pleasure to walk in the sunshine. The climb was comparable to the Fuji and Bandai San climbs I've done in Japan.

I was now in desperate need of an onsen, we took the taxi up the hill to J-First, and into the blissful warm water of the onsen that over looks the mountain I had just climbed. Having climbed it, I now have a new perceptive of the mountain I see everyday.

Click on the photo to see the whole album.

Climbing Youtei San, 羊蹄山, 1898m.

Summer in Hokkaido

I arrived back in Japan in mid July some time. The ski resort is dead quiet and very green. The plants have grown like crazy and it's quite jungle-esk in the village. Seikomart is still open, Abucha has moved up the hill, the SkiJapan building is still red and I still live in Echo. Summer is fairly short up in Hokkaido. Just this week, I have felt a change in the wind when I leave work, there is slight bite to it that just wasn't there about a month ago. According to Ryoko, summer is over after Obon. So that's it, summer is over. It has been very wet, cool, rather like a British summer. There has been the odd day or two that has been glorious. Like my birthday weekend, I hiked across to the Hilton, hired free bikes and ate some very yummy ice cream at a dairy farm with not a cow in sight. The farm did have a token tracker and bale of hay to pose on as well as a couple of horses to plod you up and down a dirt track. The Hilton was a great place to stay, we managed to organise a free birthday cake, glass of champagne and discount on a really good buffet dinner. I also went in a ten minute helicopter ride, that took us right into the crater of Mt.Youtei. Pretty cool experience, felt a little like an extended theme park ride. At the beginning of August, Kutchan hosted the annual Jaga Matsuri (potato festival). The town logo is a potato on skis and Hokkaido is famous for potatoes. I was slightly disappointed in the lack of potatoes on offer to eat. There was the usual festival foods available, yaki tori, yaki soba, etc but no potato specific foods that one might expect from a potato festival. There were these fried chicken and potatoes on skewers that were pretty oishii yo! After the sun set there was a mini Nebuta parade though the town. As I've never been to the real one in Aomori, I can't really compare, but I quite enjoyed the Kutchan one. As the summer is so short, everyone is very active in Hokkaido. Aleisha and I got into the spirit of the outdoors and hiked up Mt. Annpuri, the mountain that I hiked up in the winter and boarded down. We also hired bikes and went out to Hangetsu-ko (half moon lake), the lake we snowshoed across in the winter. Continuing on from there we went past a fantastic vegetable market. There are no rice fields up here. There are just fields and fields of vegetables and as a result they are so cheap and available here at the moment and they taste so good. There are honesty veggie stands, 100yen for various bits and pieces. My personal favourites at the moment would have to include sweetcorn, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes. Click on the photo below to see the full album.

Summer 09