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