Chasing the powder in Niseko

We completed the bulk of our journey from Sapporo to Niseko via two trains; one (relatively fast) limited express train to Otaru and one (pretty slow) single-carriage local train to Kutchan. It’s always concerning when your train isn’t listed on the departure board when you arrive at the station, but in the end we managed to catch another train and still made it to Kutchan in good time.

Our trains trundled through beautifully snowy landscape, and it was immediately clear that there was going to be a lot more snow this time than during our last attempt to ski in South Korea!

When we changed to a local bus at Kutchan for the final leg of our journey, the conditions looked better suited to skis than motor vehicles. I was very glad to be on a bus rather than driving myself, since the snow had completely covered the roads such that there wasn’t a shred of tarmac, kerb or road marking in sight.

After arriving in Niseko Grand Hirafu, we hot-footed it to collect our ski gear before the hire shop closed for the afternoon, and began the treacherous trudge to our hotel, each of us carrying two backpacks, a snowboard/skis and poles, boots, a helmet and ski clothes. We got so close to making it to our hotel’s front desk intact, until I slipped over on the ice and my belongings went in all directions, just like sonic losing his rings. Fortunately there was no lasting damage this early in the trip!


It didn’t take many runs down the mountain before we understood why Japan is so famous for its snow. Often referred to as powder, the snow in Japan has an almost fluffy texture, apparently the result of Siberian winds from the north. This creates snow that’s fun and forgiving for skiing, as well as beautifully soft to fall on (which I tested extensively). It snowed pretty much constantly during our four-day visit, which meant that we didn’t have to look hard to find virgin snow, even without going off-piste.

Niseko also introduced us to the concept of night skiing – for which a handful of lifts ran well beyond sunset and floodlights kept the pistes illuminated. I’d expected the lack of daylight to make skiing a bit trickier, but in fact the shadows cast by the floodlights provided more definition than the some of the flat light we’d experienced during the daytime. The slopes were also noticeably quieter after dark, which kept us going even when our legs were close to giving up!

And what better way to rest our aching muscles than a soak in yet another onsen? Sara was delighted to find that our hotel also had a hot bath, and I have to admit it felt very relaxing sitting there looking out the window at a gradually accumulating snow drift.

Niseko was noticeably more international than anywhere else we’d visited in Japan. English seemed to be spoken everywhere we went, and we heard plenty of American and Australian accents from our fellow skiers. We also noticed far fewer masks around the resort, which had been worn pretty much everywhere in Japan outside of people’s homes.

Niseko featured the highest proportion of snowboarders we’d seen anywhere in the world, with about a 50/50 split between skiers and snowboarders, so I felt right at home.

The lifts were particularly snowboard friendly too, with plenty of gondolas and not a single drag lift in sight. We even came across a chair lift that not only had a plastic hood to protect you from the icy wind, but also heated seats! What a luxury!

The United Niseko resort is made up of four distinct ski areas, which are each connected by high mountain passes. However, these passes often required a bit of a hike (while carrying equipment) as the highest runs were closed for most of our stay due to high winds, and sometimes the passes were closed altogether. As a result, we only skied three out of the four ski areas in the resort.

The sun came out in afternoon of our final day and the mountains immediately looked less menacing. Sara even found a bell to ring, much to her delight. This break in weather also gave us a rare of glimpse of Mount Yōtei across the valley as we headed back to our hotel.

As good as the snow was in Niseko, we couldn’t help but feel for the residents of Alpine resorts in Europe whose livelihoods depend on a healthy delivery of snow, but this year have been left with slopes of grass and mud. Hopefully this is a one-off and not a sign of things to come!


After an awesome four days skiing, our next destination was Hakodate – Hokkaido’s southernmost city and oldest port.

New Year in snowy Sapporo

After a great couple of days exploring Tokyo with George and Erin, they were on their way to Vietnam and we were ready to move onto our next destination. We’d read that many people travel to see family over the new year and that getting seat reservations could be extremely tricky, which was a little worrying due to our laissez-faire approach to booking ahead. We also had no idea where to go next! I had a vague idea that I fancied visiting Hokkaidō (the northernmost of the main islands), so we set off on an ambitious journey to travel almost the entire length of Japan on the busiest travel day of the year.

By booking around ten days in advance, we just about managed to secure seat reservations, but the downside was that our train departed at 6.30am on New Year’s Eve. After spending the previous evening sharing the joys of Korean BBQ and soju with George and Erin in Shin-Okubo, the Korean district of Tokyo, our 4.30am alarm was not exactly welcome!

Sapporo by night

We were pretty exhausted when we arrived, so we were secretly delighted to discover that there wasn’t a lot going on in the streets of Sapporo! New Year is a big deal in Japan, but unlike elsewhere in the world where it is synonymous with champagne and fireworks, here it is much more to do with having quiet time with family. So, we saw in 2023 from our hotel room with a glass of bubbly and J-pop on the TV. This was by far our lowest key New Year celebrations ever – we must be getting old!

We’d read that the thing to do on 1st January in Japan was to go on our first shrine or temple visit of the year – people begin visiting immediately after midnight but the first three or so days of the year are extremely busy. We joined the crowds around mid-morning to queue through a snowy park in the gorgeous sunshine, a proper winter wonderland. Sadly, we didn’t see anyone in traditional dress – apparently it is normal to get really dressed up, but only if the weather is good enough. Sure enough, five minutes later it was snowing so hard that we could barely see where we were going – a crash course in Hokkaidō weather!

When we entered the Hokkaidō Shrine, we were greeted with a festive atmosphere. People were milling around, taking photographs, queuing up to pray, and writing their wishes for the year on ema (small wooden plaques) and then hanging them on wooden frames in the temple grounds.

We joined in by buying omikuji, small strips of paper that tell your fortune, and then had great fun attempting (somewhat unsuccessfully) to decode what we had in store using Google Translate. Next, we tied our fortunes to a wooden frame, which represents a pine tree (without causing damage to an actual tree). Apparently, it’s normal to keep the paper if the fortune is good but tie it to the pine tree if the fortune is bad, because this means that it will wait at the tree rather than following you home. However, we also read that if it is a good fortune, tying it to the tree can mean that your good luck is magnified. Given that at this point we still weren’t quite sure what our omikuji foretold, it seemed the safest bet to leave our fortunes at the shrine!

Later on, Yuki (one of Oli’s friends) came to the rescue and translated his fortune for him – thanks, Yuki! She explained that there were individual fortunes for different areas of his life, including travel, business, study, stock options and love. Apparently he’s going to have good luck in travel and will find something that he has lost. But more worryingly, he will also find his dream partner! I’m not sure whether to be concerned by this – perhaps it just means he’ll be reunited with the love of his life, Thomas, later this year…

Gratuitous Thomas photo

Our next stop was the Sapporo Brewery, which had a highly rated (and free!) tour. Sadly, there appeared to be a full contingent of staff at the entrance gate solely there for the purpose of telling people that the museum was shut until 4th January. Honestly, with the amount of staff that were working I’m not sure why they couldn’t just open up and be done with it! Not to be defeated, Oli bought a couple of bottles for a taste test back at our hotel instead.

Sapporo Brewery

Sapporo is known for its miso ramen, which we’d already sampled the previous evening. However, we found that everywhere we went, there were incredibly long queues for food (at all restaurants, not just the good ones!) snaking along the cold and snowy streets. This wasn’t much fun when hungry, so we saved visiting one of the famous ‘ramen alleys’ until lunchtime the next day when things were a bit calmer.

What our lunchtime visit lacked in atmosphere it made up for in flavour, and my spicy miso ramen (below left) was definitely in my top three ramens of the trip so far (high praise as we’ve eaten it practically every day!). Hokkaidō is also known for its corn and dairy products, so Oli upped the calorie ante by ordering a butter sweetcorn ramen (below right), which was also delicious.

The final stop on our Sapporo itinerary was taking a ride on the ropeway up to the summit of Mount Moiwa, a small mountain to the south-west of the city. The visibility from the top wasn’t brilliant, so Sapporo looked like a very blocky video game spread out below us (which was actually pretty cool – although it didn’t photograph well).

We visited a small temple, fell over in the very deep snow, and found two more bells for me to ring.


Next, it was time to do something productive with all this perfectly powdery snow we were seeing in Hokkaidō – we were off skiing again!

Four together again in Tokyo

We arrived in Tokyo via another Shinkansen high-speed train, which zoomed the 498 km from Osaka in 2 hours and 54 minutes.

On our way we sped past Mount Fuji, its perfect cone capped with snow that appeared to run down the mountainside like rivers.

We were super excited to arrive in the most populated metropolis in the world because we’d planned to meet up with our good friends George and Erin. They were kicking off their honeymoon in Japan, which just so happened to match up with our itinerary. After spending the last 5 months talking over video calls, it felt so good to catch up at an Izakaya restaurant in the historic Omoide Yokocho alley, and put the world to rights over a few rounds of drinks and grilled skewers.


Fuelled by George and Erin’s excitement and adrenaline, we started the following day bright and early at Shinjuku Gyoen park and botanical gardens. The sky was beautifully clear and the temperature was mild (especially in the giant greenhouse!), in stark contrast with the rain and snow we’d encountered on Kyushu.

Having read plenty about Tokyo’s overwhelming size (and knowing that we’d return in a couple of weeks), we were keen to focus on the area around where we were staying in Shinjuku. So, our next stop was the Meiji Jingu (shrine).

This shrine was set in a large forested park, and we might have struggled to find it if it weren’t for plenty of other folks heading in the same direction. While George made a wish at the shrine after making a donation and diligently completing the required series of claps and bows, it was the wall of Bourgogne wine barrels that caught Erin and Sara’s attention. These barrels had been offered by celebrated wineries in France, and a nearby sign explained how the wine represented the friendship between the two countries and wished for it to continue for many years to come. Who knew?

Later that day we paid a visit to Shibuya’s famous crossing; the world’s busiest pedestrian intersection. The crossing is an example of a pedestrian scramble, which means that all traffic is periodically stopped to allow pedestrians to cross the junction in every direction, including diagonally. The crossing connects a handful of shopping centres and offices with a busy transport hub, meaning that the foot traffic ebbs and flows with the arrival of trains and buses. We (unintentionally) crossed the intersection in pretty much every direction before finally managing to locate a bar overlooking the busy world below.

Much of the rest of the evening was spent trying to convince George into joining us for a karaoke session, which after a few drinks was forced by Erin’s ultimatum – either we did karaoke RIGHT NOW or we called it a night. We walked into the first karaoke venue upon exiting Shinjuku station, which happened to be an eight-storey building of private karaoke rooms. This session was much more successful than our disaster in Daegu in South Korea, and we happily butchered our way through too many pop classics to list here. I think Erin and Sara claimed the highest score for their heartfelt rendition of You’re Still The One, but the people’s choice award went to George for his energetic performance of Earth Song.

On the way back to our hotel we came across possibly the finest piece of public signage on the metro. The poster covers the very serious topic of assaulting police officers through two fighting cats. The text at the top translates as “I’m drunk and can’t remember”, while the drunk cat with a tie around its head is simply saying “meow!” after being stopped by the cat police.


We spent the next day forest bathing (i.e. hiking) in the Ōme Hills to the west of Tokyo. To get there, we left the city centre behind and headed out deep into the suburbs on a local train. As we exited the quiet little station of Ōme, it felt just like arriving in the suburbs of London to walk a section of the London LOOP (a long distance route around London through suburban parks) we’d been walking with George and Erin prior to this trip. Fortunately, the walk itself along a forested ridge was far more spectacular than some of the furniture superstore car parks we’ve found ourselves walking through on the LOOP.

It would have been a very relaxing way to spend a few hours together had it not been for the signs warning us of wild bear attacks. To make matters worse, most of our fellow hikers had bear bells (apparently bears also don’t enjoy surprise meetings) so we felt a little underprepared. Still, we did our best to chat away as we went, attempting to strike a balance between scaring off any unsuspecting bears while also not breaking the peace.

Prior to starting the hike, we spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to locate Ōme’s “cat alley”; a tiny pedestrian walkway that had been decorated with a bizarre collection of cat paraphernalia. Strangely though, we only spotted a single real-life cat in this seemingly cat-obsessed town.


With Japan’s cat count languishing depressingly low, we applied the same treatment as in Korea and visited a cat cafe. We weren’t the only ones missing a furry companion, since George and Erin had recently returned Gordon – the absolute unit of a cat they’d been looking after for a friend. As was the case at our previous cat cafe, our feline friends paid us relatively little attention until George took matters into his own hands and purchased some cat treats. It wasn’t long before he was absolutely mobbed by cats, but he diligently shared the treats out to ensure every cat felt valued.

Our final destination in Tokyo was Akihabara, a neighbourhood that has become a centre of various geek subcultures, specialising in everything from anime and manga to retro video and arcade games. Some buildings had up to eight floors of stores and arcades, ensuring that any niche interest could be represented here.

Honestly, some of the floors featured such a sensory overload of lights and sounds that we didn’t last long, although George and I did find time for a quick dance off. It turned out that we’re both too old for this kind of competition, and had to leave after two songs for some fresh air and a sit down. Believe it or not, the screens are feeding us both with the same instructions in the video below.


It was lovely to spend some time with such good friends so far from home. I’m not sure whether it was the good company or packed itinerary, but the three days absolutely flew by and we were sad to part ways so soon. Still, George and Erin had exciting plans to continue their honeymoon in south-east Asia, while Sara and I headed to Hokkaido; Japan’s wild and sparsely populated northern island.