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