Nearly Neutral Travel

Another Shinkansen bullet train brought us back to the island of Honshu, where we’d picked Sendai as a base for the next three nights. This was as much for its convenience for a couple of day trips as it was for its exciting food scene.

Day trip 1: Matsushima

On our first day out we took a local train along the coast to Matsushima. The coastal town is famous throughout Japan for its beautiful collection of pine-covered islands dotted across its bay.

Matsushima is also home to Zuigan-ji, a Buddhist temple constructed in 1606. After a short walk through the grounds we kicked off our shoes to explore the temple’s dark wood interior, which was beautifully decorated with golden painted screens. The temple was built by Date Masamune, a regional ruler and founder of modern day Sendai, to serve as the family temple. However, we were saddened to learn that when he died, 15 of his samurai committed junshi, also known as “suicide by fidelity”.

When our stomachs started to rumble, we picked up some local delicacies from a seafront cafe. Sara went for kiritanpo (kneaded rice on a bamboo stick), which she barbecued over charcoal until it puffed up and the outside turned golden and crispy. I’m not entirely sure what I got, but it was softer in consistency and fortunately they barbecued it for me. While both skewers had quite a subtle flavour, the kiritanpo had a very satisfying texture, and their warmth was very welcome given the cold outside.

The real highlight of the day trip was a walk around Fukuura-jima, a small island connected to the mainland by a vibrant red pedestrian bridge. The island has a circular perimeter path, affording stunning views across the bay in the late afternoon sun, which had already begun to cast a golden glow across the sea.

That evening we returned to Sendai to try another local delicacy for dinner – beef tongue. For this, we sought out a restaurant called Tanya Zenjirou, located on the third floor of a covered arcade not far from Sendai’s main train station. Between us we tried tongue three ways; sliced in half (pictured below), thinly sliced and in sausage form. Honestly, the taste was great, primarily because it had been expertly barbecued to ensure it was smokey and charred on the outside while still rare on the inside. I don’t think either of us had expected this dish to be a winner, but I’d happily eat it again!

Day trip 2: Ganiba Onsen

The next day, we travelled 226 km by Shinkansen to Tazawako, followed by a local bus up the snowy mountain to Ganiba Onsen. Once again, I was very happy to be a passenger on the bus as it trundled its way through snowy forests and past ski areas to finally reach our onsen at the end of the line.

While this onsen had typical indoor baths, it also had an outside mixed bath located at the end of a very snowy path. Fortunately, the onsen owners had ploughed a path through the snow (which came up to my shoulders!) as otherwise there’s no way we would have found it.

The outdoor onsen itself was absolutely stunning. It required a bit of a leap of faith to leave our clothes in the changing rooms and emerge into the sub-zero temperatures, but we left any anxiety behind us as soon as we plunged into the lovely warm waters. The water was so warm in fact that we ended up using some of the surrounding snow to cool ourselves down! It was so relaxing soaking in the steaming water, watching piles of snow periodically fall from the heavily laden tree branches surrounding the pool.

On the bus back to the station we decided to hop off at the shore of Lake Tazawa. Legend has it that a local woman drank so much water that she turned into a dragon, and was soon followed by a local prince, and it’s their antics that prevent the lake from freezing over during winter to this day. Alighting the bus here was the sort of plan where we both agreed in advance that it was absolutely mad thing to be doing, and yet that didn’t stop us. The snow was so deep that even retracing our steps in our walking boots was a real challenge!

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After an exciting few days on the move, it was now time to return to Tokyo to stay put for a few nights. Once again we wouldn’t be alone, as Katie (Sara’s sister) was joining us for the next nine days. We were delighted to have more company, and also keen to explore a different side of the world’s largest metropolis.

*Or more like Ha-koh-da-tuh, but that didn’t work with our new favourite catchphrase (coined in response to a slightly abusive drunk man who told Oli his pronunciation was “so bad!”)

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From Niseko, we caught a single-carriage train to Oshamambe, where we had a long wait. Everything in the station was closed up for the night and the town outside was eerily quiet, so our main entertainment was reading the ‘wanted’ posters in the waiting room (not at all alarming) and watching a growing crowd assist a woman who was stranded having missed the last train of the evening to her destination. There was only one person actually helping her (who appeared to be the local English-speaker and had been called from his home to assist); the rest of the crowd were just unashamedly watching it all unfold! I suppose we were doing the same, but hopefully with a bit more subtlety…

Eventually, we boarded our ‘limited express’ train to Hakodate at around 9pm. We looked up why they were called limited express, but it turns out no one really knows! In any case, the express part was just wishful thinking, as our train halted for two hours because the one in front had apparently hit a deer 😔The train conductor came down the carriage handing out emergency rations, which was very nice until I realised halfway through munching on a biscuit that it was nearly 12 YEARS past its expiry! I guess this was a sign of just how rare these kinds of delays were – in any case, I lived to tell the tale (evidently).

We arrived in Hakodate just before 1am and were very pleased that we’d booked a room in an unexpectedly slick JR (Japan Railways) hotel just above the station, so it couldn’t have been a shorter walk to bed.

Oli was even more delighted the next morning when he realised that we had a view over the station and tracks and that the hotel had provided a laminated guide as to what was what in the station – they certainly knew their market!

We mainly picked Hakodate as it was a convenient point to rejoin the Shinkansen network ready to head south again, but actually it was a delightful small city. We had one full day and it was a gorgeously sunny one, so we spent it exploring the Motomachi district, which was full of photogenic historic hillside buildings and red brick warehouses on the waterfront.

Hakodate was one of the first ports in Japan to open up to international trade in 1859, and in stark contrast to elsewhere in Japan, there was a strong outside influence on the architecture. The town even housed the British consulate until 1934. Some of the buildings in the old town really reminded us of New England, which was a surprising sight in northern Japan!

In the late afternoon, we took the ropeway up Mount Hakodate to see one of the top night views of Japan, a view over the peninsula backed by mountains and surrounded by the waters of the Tsugaru Strait.

Although it was pretty at night, we also loved it before the sun set, as we had a better view of the snowy mountains and could even see the Shinkansen line (complete with a handy sign showing the timetable to make it easier to spot the trains!)

The next morning, we headed straight to Hakodate’s famous Morning Market to check out the seafood on offer. We shared a squid cracker that was made by squashing a whole squid in a heavy press along with rice batter. The end result was pretty striking!

After a beautifully snowy eight days on Hokkaidō, we boarded a bullet train and headed back into the 54 km tunnel under the sea to explore Tōhoku, a prefecture in the north of Japan’s main island.

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!

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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!

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