Sunday Feb 14 - Monday Feb 15
We took the 1pm Japan Air flight from Vancouver to Tokyo arriving the following day at 4:30pm. We stayed overnight at the Narita Hilton - third time here and hopefully the last.
Tuesday Feb 16
We left the Hilton at 6:30am (earlier than required but due to jet-lag we were wide awake) - we caught the 9am Jetstar flight to Sapporo (Chitose airport - CTS) arriving at 10:45am. We then had to dag around with all our luggage waiting for our 12:30pm bus to Niseko. The bus ride took nearly 3 hours - along 2-lane country snow covered roads. It snowed on and off for the entire trip and by the time we got to Niseko it was almost blizzard conditions. The bus dropped us at the Niseko Visitor’s Center where our hotel, the Ki Niseko met us and transported us the very short distance to the hotel. By now it was 3:30pm - we checked in quickly to our 1-bedroom “luxury” apartment. We had planned to take the hotel’s 4pm shuttle to Kuchan some 20 minutes drive away. Kuchan has a large grocery store - the only store(s) in Niseko are convenience stores with very limited supplied. I vetoed the shuttle to Kuchan as it only runs every 2 hours so our grocery trip would have meant hanging around for 1+ hours waiting for the next shuttle. We settled in and went into the main village by (another hotel shuttle) to one of the convenience stores - we bought enough to get us through until the following day - 1 banana, 2 yoghurts, milk, chips, wine and beer. We had dinner at the hotel - salmon for both us us - pretty good but like everything in Japan quite expensive.
Wednesday Feb 17
The snow had continued all night - it was still snowing in the morning and reportedly quite cold (-4C on the bottom, -10C on trip). We headed over the the gondola station only 2 minutes walk away and hired powder skis for 2 days - with the option to extend. This was after our meagre breakfast of 1/2 a banana with cereal (brought from Whistler) and yoghurt.
We headed up the gondola and skied several hours in powder conditions - heavily used runs were quite packed in the middle but still lots of powder on the sides. The powder was quite heavy - not quite “Champagne powder” but then the upper runs were closed due to avalanche danger.
We quit at 1pm and had lunch in our hotel bar (a shared hamburger) - quite good, then took the 2pm shuttle to Kuchan to do some grocery shopping at Lucky’s - a newly opened large supermarket. It was quite good with “lots" of selection and even English signs. We managed to get some French cheese, Italian prosciutto, Japanese bread as well as mushrooms etc for pasta and more breakfast stuff. After shopping we had to wait an hour for the return shuttle - Lucky’s has a small cafe where we could wait in comfort. We finally got back to our hotel at 6:30pm - totally exhausted (mainly due to jet-lag) so it was showers, cold cuts for dinner then off to bed before 9pm.
Thursday Feb 18
Another snowy day - we skied over to Hanazono (another connected area to Hirafu) but found the skiing to be quite boring - many long flats so we headed back to Hirafu. On arriving on the top chair which connects back to the gondola it was blowing and snowing so hard you could not see much at all. We skied down and had a few more runs on the gondola before calling it a day. Dieter returned his rental skis and I extended mine. The skiing was now heavy snow - all traces of real powder gone (except maybe off piste). We had lunch in the hotel bar then rested until our 8:30pm dinner reservation at Le Cochon - which was crazy - there was only one other table occupied yet we were advised on booking (a couple of months ago) that we could not get an earlier reservation. The dinner was most disappointing - $300+ for an ordinary bistro meal.
Friday Feb 19
The snow seemed to ease then rolled back in. We were both very tired due to a poor night’s sleep but we headed out and returned after a couple of runs as the visibility due to snow and fog was absolutely ZERO - quite dangerous conditions in our opinion. We had a long lunch at Vale (another luxury hotel/condo complex) - a very trendy bistro. Later in the afternoon we tried the private onsen in our hotel - not really our thing. We stayed home for sambos again - quite put off by the previous evening’s experience. We also cancelled our 2 other restaurant bookings made by our hotel concierge - seems these places charge a cancellation fee if you cancel less than 24 hours (or in one case even 48 hours in advance) - so far we have not been advised of a fee.
Saturday Feb 20
It was probably the day of the season - sun with only some very high haze/cloud - lots of pretty fresh snow but alas no champagne powder. We headed out early expecting long lines but there really were’t any - we took the gondola up then the Swinging Monkey chair which gets you to the higher open slopes which are served by a network of single chairs. We had a few runs on top - black ungroomed very steep with lots of deep snow - somehow we did allright - we gradually made our way over to Niseko village (where the Hilton is located) - we stopped for a quick drink at one of the Hilton pubs (whose prices made our hotel look cheap) then worked our way back to the Hirafu area for a few more runs on top - black runs but groomed then headed back to our hotel for a very late lunch. We stayed home for dinner of mushroom pasta and hit the sack very early - quite were both pooped from our BDO (Big Day Out) - we are also both fighting a bit of a cold.
Sunday Feb 21
The forecast was for major overnight snow was pretty mild - some new snow but not heaps - it was overcast with high cloud - so visibility seemed pretty good at the start of the day. Had a good day of skiing. We had dinner at Niseko Pizza - excellent pizza and very ordinary salad and atmosphere a bit on the daggy side - our reserved table for 2 was sitting side-by-side at the bar.
Monday Feb 22
At last another clear and cold day (-10C) on top - we skied on Jumbo (off the Swinging Monkey) which has been groomed to packed powder and was surprisingly empty - upper mountain was somewhat foggy. We quit for a late lunch as Dieter was cold and his back was giving him some grief. We had lunch at our hotel - good as usual. We spent some time packing up as we had a very early start in the morning. We went to Vale for dinner - food was just OK but ambiance and price were spot on.
Tuesday Feb 23
Ah - not what we had been looking forward to - the very long trek home. We left the hotel just after 7am in a snow storm to catch the 7:20am bus to Sapporo (the Citose Airport - CTS) - we arrived around 10am - making pretty good time considering heavy snow fell for most of the trip. Our Jetstar (J*) flight was scheduled for 1:30pm - we tried to get on the 11:20am flight as we were still in time for that but alas the $150 change fee put us off so we dagged around the very lack lustre CTS until our flight departed at 1:30pm. Fight was full but we had pre-booked and paid for exit row seats so it was OK - we arrived in NRT around 3:00PM - we collected our luggage and made the long trek to Terminal 3 (budget airline terminal) to Terminal 2 (650 meters). We checked in for our JL flight to Sydney and headed to the crummy JL business class lounge to wait the 2.5 hours for our 7:30pm flight to Sydney. We had pretty much not eaten all day (aside from a shared banana and some left over chips in CTS) - the food offerings in the JL lounge were not very appealing at all so we bought a couple of take-away sandwiches and ate them in the lounge. Flight home was fine - flat beds thank goodness and the usual JL slop for food - at least the Champagne was cold. We arrived home Wednesday morning just past the rush hour peak - it still took our taxi 1 hour (and $75 + tip) to get to Walsh Bay.
