Hokkaido - revisted

Having only been back in Japan for not even a week, I had planned to jet off to Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. I went last winter in February to see the Snow festival - which was fantastic. But this time, I was going up to see a friend who used to live in Yamagata last year. He works at a popular ski resort called Niseko, so we spent the first long weekend of 2009....snowboarding in Niseko!

LOTS OF SNOW

I guess I was a quite nervous, considering I'd only snowboarded about twice beforehand...and wasn't very good. The idea of shooting down a busy big mountain was a little daunting but when we got up there it was fantastic! The snow was great - lovely and powdering (meaning when you fell it was fairly soft...!) and because we snowboarded for a good deal of two consecutive days, I got a lot better!

This is me. Most likely after just having fallen down. Isn't my orange hat awesome?!

And here are Rebecca and Al, having just fallen down.

We happy four.

The first day I mostly spent grumbling (as good Englishmen do) about falling over and trying to get up again. But the second day was a lot more fun and I could eventually start 'carving' (sounds fancy, and maybe it is, gliding down the slope in a nice 'S' shape).

HIYA!

In Japan, you never tip. It's for the most part frowned upon - as it suggests you're actually trying to give more money so that they try and do a better job next time. But in 'foreign bubble land' it seems the Japanese had got wise to foreign customs! I was so shocked to see this little 'tip' jar in the Japanese cafe on the mountain!

In Japan, every place needs a mascot - and naturally, the first suitable-mascot you might think of, when you think of skiing, is....a potato. Yes, Niseko's mascot is actually a skiing potato called 'Ku-chan'...and apparently he has a girlfriend somewhere but I never saw her.

KUTCHAN! A potato.....only Japan could think of a skiing potato.

The other slightly strange thing about Niseko was that there were loads of foreigners about the place. Mainly Australians and a few Americans too. Not that Australian's are strange or anything! It's just...in the whole of Japan it felt like there were more foreigners in that place than there are even in Tokyo. Because it's Australia's summer - about 5 years ago Niseko started to become the new hot place for ski and snowboard-lovers to escape to. Foreigners work at the hotels, at the restaurants, at the winter sports shops - all over! This of course meant that there was a good variety of foreign-influenced food which was a novelty for us.

Al also managed to get some work in a small little Izakaya which we relaxed in after the first day snowboarding. I'm so jealous that Al gets to legitimate shout 'IRASHAIMASE' (welcome!) to customers as they enter the place!

On the day we left, the day was lovely and clear and we got to see all these lovely mountains around us.

Silly Japan! Potato's and Corn aren't supposed to be made into Kit-Kats! Who on earth could possibly find these flavours delicious?!