International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) 2024 Niseko Trip Report - Planes, A Lot of Trains, and some Automobiles

[Even_Stevens]

Lessons Learned:

• In Japan, you can use a credit card for 80-90% of transactions. However cash still seems to be preferred.
• Bring your skis to Japan if at all possible. Ski rental in Niseko is really subpar compared to the current year model of premium/demo skis that one gets in the United States.
• There are hardly any trash cans in Japan in public. According to an Australian working in Niseko, any convenience store will have a trash can you can throw waste in. Unfortunately too many tourists in Niseko are lazy and just throw trash on the sidewalk.
• Checking bags on domestic flights in Japan? Show up early. I mean early. It took us an hour and a half in line to drop off our bags at New Chitose Airport the morning we flew out of Hokkaido.
• Shipping your ski bag from the airports in Tokyo to your accommodation is by far the easiest method of getting your skis through Japan. You can lug a ski bag on trains but it’s a total pain to do so. If you don’t want to take a train, fly into Sapporo (CTS) and take the Hokkaido Resort Liner bus to your destination (Niseko, Rusutsu, Furano, etc).
• Japan’s trains are amazing and should be experienced at least once.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 1: (2/9 - 2/10 allowing for time change)

We woke up around 4 am to our alarms at the Radisson airport hotel and took the airport shuttle over to Seatac. Bag drop was smooth with our 2 checked hardside bags plus our ski bag (which was a very smart decision…more on that later). TSA lines at checkpoint 2 weren’t bad with TSA Pre thanks to my Nexus card.

Our flight to San Francisco (SFO) departed out of the C gates which is normally the best terminal area in SeaTac for food but due to extensive renovations most shops were closed. Fortunately, one of us had a pass to the Alaska Airlines lounge which was a lifesaver; while we knew that food was needed, Bloody Caesars were also on the menu which helped start the trip off right.

Alaska Air had our group of four skiers initially booked on a 737 Max 9 but changed to a 737-900 a few days before our trip. We departed on time and had an uneventful flight into SFO, arriving a few minutes early. Since we’d be sitting for 11.5 hours on the SFO-Tokyo Haneda (HND) flight we opted to walk the ¾ mile distance to the International Terminal instead of taking the air train.

Check in with Japan Airlines (JAL) went smoothly, and while we initially were supposed to have lounge access with our Premium Economy tickets the SFO JAL lounge was closed. JAL gave each of us a $30 giftcard (nice!) as an apology for not being able to get us lounge access. We went to Gott’s Roadside for a pre flight lunch and beer. I left my water bottle at JAL check in and got a phonecall from the JAL desk agent that they had my water bottle and would bring it to the boarding gate. Very nice service, but just a day ending in Y for JAL as we soon found out.

JAL had us on a 777-300 that was in really good condition, no apparent wear and only seemed like it was a few years old. We had the 2 leftmost seats in rows 17 & 18 in premium economy on the left side of the plane in JAL’s 2-4-2 layout. Takeoff was quiet, smooth and fast thanks to GE90 power and the 777 quickly got up to cruising altitude. We tried to get a couple hours of sleep in early on during the flight to adjust to local time in Japan, and then ended up watching movies and enjoying two JAL meal services which were impeccable for airplane food. Even the JAL “pizza pocket” served with the second meal was quite good.

Fun feature of the JAL 777 was bidets in the restrooms.

We got into Haneda approximately on time and cleared immigration, and then went to bag claim before clearing customs. There was a minor bit of confusion when a Haneda airport agent told me that oversized bags would be coming out on the carousel, but oversized bags were really coming out of a separate conveyor belt. Over 90% of oversized bags were ski bags, which would turn out to be a good decision for anyone bringing their skis.

Clearing customs was incredibly smooth, and then I lugged the ski bag down to Yamato Transport’s location to drop off for shipment to Niseko. I had heard on forums that the shipping address in Japanese characters (kanji) was needed; the booking agent for the property we rented; Snow Crystal in Hirafu; said it wouldn’t be needed but gave me the shipping address for the Maples (Snow Crystal’s sister property). This turned out to be incredibly useful as the Yamato agents at the Haneda International terminal location spoke almost no English and the Yamato form was required to be filled out mostly in kanji. I gave them the shipping address and they filled out the forms for me, gave me a receipt and tracking number and advised that while normally our ski bag would arrive on Feb 12th - local time being 6 pm February 10th - our ski bag could be delayed until February 15th. I assured them this was fine and figured that they were under promising and planning to over deliver. Worst case, we’d rent skis since all our softgoods and boots were traveling in our regular luggage.

AT&T international service was not working for me until we got to the JR East railroad office where we picked up our tickets for the Shinkansen & local trains in Hokkaido. I was able to get onto AT&T’s website via JR East’s free wifi (which was the first free wifi I encountered in the Haneda international terminal that actually worked!) and set up international roaming. Oddly international roaming worked seamlessly on my wife’s AT&T phone on our shared plan without any setup required.

After getting tickets, we headed for the Tokyo Monorail with our roller bags & backpacks and headed through the fare gates (why can’t Seattle just figure those out?) and went to the platform. Signage in English was easy to read and when I stood around looking apparently confused, a well dressed local in his 50s came up and asked if we needed directions. He advised that we take the express monorail with no stops to the Hammatsucho station and avoid local trains.

We boarded the express monorail and had no issues getting our roller bags on board; even though all seats were taken. No ski bags were seen, and one could have been lugged on but probably would have resulted in a lot of side eye from local riders.

Getting out of Hammatsucho station was pretty straightforward and my Apple watch pointed us to the Bay Hotel at Hammatsucho where we’d be staying the night: https://www.bay-hotel.jp/hamamatsucho/eng/

Check in was easy thanks to English speaking staff (who were probably Eastern European but also spoke fluent Japanese). Bay Hotel was a typical mid-priced Tokyo hotel with rooms that cost about $130/night each for a double room and a room with 2 twin beds (that were only separated by a couple inches!!). Square footage was maybe around 150 square feet for each room. In order to repack luggage, my wideand I had to alternate being in the room to have enough space to work with.

We looked at Google Maps for dining options (Denny’s was quickly shot down as a choice) and went to Kandaya for izakaya dining and beers: https://www.teng.co.jp/kandaya/ This was our first introduction to the cheapness & quality of dining in Japan outside of Hirafu. For $53 we got 4 beers and enough shared plates to make four very tired travelers ready for bed.

JAL premium economy is nice - thank you Alaska Airlines mile redemptions:



Hammamatsucho, Tokyo

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 2: (2/11)

We were up relatively early after fitful jetlagged sleeps for a couple of us and checked out of the Bay, then headed back to Hammatsucho Station and got on the Yamanote subway line for Tokyo Station which was just a few stops away.

The Sunday morning Yamanote train was a little crowded but doable with our backpacks and spinner bags that we checked on our flights over. No ski bags were seen on this train; however when we arrived at Tokyo Station we immediately started seeing ski bags. Once we got off the train we found a restaurant (there were tons to choose from) that sold ramen and beer which was less than $10 per person. This is how you do breakfast!

After breakfast, since we had Gran Class tickets for the Hokkaido Shinkansen train, we were able to go to the Japan Railways East (JR East) lounge which was outside the ticket turnstiles - slightly inconvenient but we had 20 minutes of relaxation before having to leave, go back through the station and get to our train’s Shinkansen platform. Signage in Tokyo Station was easy enough to follow and there were plenty of English speaking station agents if one had any questions.

We got to the Shinkansen platform for our train and after taking the requisite pictures of that green and silver beauty, boarded the train as soon as we possibly could to ensure that we could store our spinner bags at the rear of the car for easy access. One note about Gran Class is that any ski bags would have to either be stored behind the last row of seats in the Gran Class car or in the car behind Gran Class, which has an overflow baggage area. Unlike standard or Green Class trains, the Gran Class has overhead bins much like an airliner instead of exposed luggage racks.

The Shinkansen journey up the island of Honshu to the terminus of the line in Hakodate was smooth, quick and extremely comfortable in Gran Class. I would highly recommend that upgrade. We were served a meal (either Japanese or Western choices) with complimentary alcoholic and NA beverages. The fun part of the trip from Tokyo to Hakodate is that you go 750 feet under the strait between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. Japan’s version of the Chunnel, just much deeper.

After a little over 4 hours on the Shinkansen it was hard to leave the extremely comfortable Gran Class cabin at Shin-Hakodate station. We had about an hour’s wait time at the very spartan station which functions as a connecting station for passengers getting off the Shinkansen; and then transferred to a Hokuto Regional Express train for the 15 minute ride into Hakodate, which consisted of self-propelled rail cars that seemed to have a small diesel engine in each car. Upon returning from bathroom, my wife commented “No bidet in the toilet? We really aren’t in Gran Class anymore!”

Getting to our hotel from the main Hakodate station platform where our train ended was extremely easy as we had booked the JR East Hakodate hotel which was attached to the Hakodate station. Check in was seamless and we went to our 4 person room (4 twin beds dorm style) but not before checking out the hotel’s pillow bar, where guests could get pillows and take them to their rooms. We gave my father in law just a little bit of grief for selecting an oddly phallic looking pillow, complete with “veins

For dinner, we went to the front desk and asked the staff for recommendations of an excellent sushi place. They directed us to go to Nemuro Hanamaru in the basement of the Kiralis Hakodate mall, which is a conveyor belt sushi restaurant but unlike back home in Seattle exceptionally good and fresh. We arrived and found a 30 minute line out the front door but took a reservation ticket and had a beer with a meat and cheese plate at the restaurant next door.

Sushi and beer there came to about $25 per person and we ate a LOT of plates there, which ranged from $1.50 to $4 per plate. We headed back to our hotel and went up to the onsen, where we enjoyed our first onsen experience facilitated by the hotel’s very decent onsen with an outdoor section on the top floor of the hotel.

This is how to do breakfast!



Our ride out of Tokyo:



Gran Class is nice:




JR Hakodate hotel view:

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 3: (2/12)

The JR East Hakodate hotel had very decent beds and pillows, which made our second night in Japan pretty comfortable although we were all up around 445 am. We went to the local Lawson store for coffee and snacks then headed down to the Hakodate Morning Market, which ostensibly opened at 6 am but most stalls opened at 630-7 am. Fun fact there is that you can get live seafood and have a restaurant in the market cook it for you.

We went to Ajino Ichiban for breakfast which is a standalone restaurant next to the Morning Market that serves excellent ramen and rice dishes. I ended up getting soy sauce ramen with pork + a rice bowl with salmon topped with salmon roe for just under $15.

After getting some bento and snacks at the food court in the Hakodate station before the turnstiles, we went through them and got on the Hokuto Regional Express train, which was essentially the same train we had taken into Hakodate the night before. Other passengers placed ski bags in the overhead luggage racks on this train, which wound its way up Hokkaido Island mostly on the coastline to Oshamambe, where we transferred to our last train that would get us to Kutchan Station - the closest station to Hirafu Village where we’d stay from 2/12 to 2/18.

The train to Kutchan was really one self-propelled railcar that showed up 20 minutes before it was scheduled to depart, and boarding as early as possible was the smartest option as we were able to get our roller bags in the designated luggage area. The overhead luggage racks quickly filled up with plenty of ski bags and other luggage and once this happened, ski bags and suitcase were dumped in the aisle. If I had to guess, I’d say this railcar was 75% skiers going to Niseko and other nearby resorts and 25% locals who wondered exactly what they had gotten themselves into.

The little railcar took us on a winding journey through rural Hokkaido and incredibly beautiful and untouched snowy fields. It was crowded and incredibly warm; anyone who had layers they could easily remove was making a smart decision.

We pulled into Kutchan station and got our luggage off the train, and went for the taxi ranks instead of trying to hail one on the Go taxi app which added a a 900 yen surcharge onto our fare. While the first cab driver we met didn’t speak any English he pulled out a map showing all the major hotels and condos in Hirafu and had us point to our rented condo. Getting the 4 of us plus our ski bags from Kutchan Station to the Snow Crystal condo complex was just under $20 US.

We had an AirTag in our ski bag and saw that it was ¼ mile away at the Maples (Snow Crystal’s sister property) and called the front desk and asked for it to be delivered. Then we went for a walk up to Rhythm Sports near the Hirafu welcome center where the two people who elected not to bring their skis had their ski and boot rentals reserved. We also got slip on spikes as the sidewalks in Hirafu were extremely treacherous. Once we got back from Rhythm our ski bag had been delivered to our condo unit.

Ski Rental Notes:

My FIL and his brother rented Rhythm's premium ski option and my FIL who skis Volkl Mantra 102s at home asked for a similar ski and was given a pair of M5 Mantras that had definitely seen better days but were alright. Where Rhythm failed at their service was with adjusting bindings. They adjusted one of my FIL’s demo bindings with the wrong boot sole length so that he could barely click in and after 1 run we skied to the Hirafu base and set the binding so his boot would actually release if he fell. This was definitely not bunk as my FIL is a lifelong skier with 60 years on the hill and former PSIA instructor who has plenty of experience with ski tuning and adjusting.
His beotjwrwho skis Mantras at home as well was given a pair of extremely beat up Volkl 90Eights, but at least with the bindings adjusted properly. Again, this is Rhythm's premium ski rental, and they're the highly ranked independent ski rental shop of Niseko. Premium ski rentals at Stevens Pass or Crystal Mountain mean current or prior year demo ski models that are in pretty good shape.

We walked to the Hirafu Seicomart and managed to get dinner and snacks despite being packed to the gills with Australian shoppers. If there’s anything we learned it’s that Niseko doesn’t have enough restaurants OR grocery stores for the population of tourists in Hirafu. The food trucks are an under appreciated gem though, and more people should look into going there. More on this later.

Could really get used to Japanese breakfast:



Living room view from our condo:

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 4: 2/13

First ski day! After breakfast we pulled our skis out of the Snow Crystal’s downstairs ski locker and walked about 500 feet to the base terminal of the Ace Family Quad, which is a relatively slow beginner lift. We took the lift up and skied down to the Hirafu base lodge which had some tuning tools so we could fix my FIL’s bindings. Once that was done we took the Ace Quad chair up the mountain.

This old detachable quad was built in 1985 and looks worse for wear than Big Chief at Stevens Pass did in its final season. From there we took the Ace Pair #3 lift up. All the top chairs were on wind hold so we lapped the Ace Pair lift a couple times, taking advantage of some glades to skiers right of the lift and then hit the glades off the King Hooded Quad lift.

We decided to head in for lunch and went to the King Bell Hut on-mountain lodge which was fairly crowded at noon but we found seating and ordered lunch - mostly ramen and Sapporo beer; which came in the Sapporo Original variety that is much tastier than the export stuff we get at home.

After lunch we decided to see more of the Niseko ski areas than just Hirafu so we took the Swinging Monkey double lift up and crossed over to the Hanazono ski area.

Hanazono was probably the least impressive of all the Niseko United ski areas for us. Without fresh powder, we did not even bother trying Strawberry Fields and the Legend of Shinya turned into a steep bump run that hardly anyone was doing. We went down to the Hanazono base, took the very new and luxe Hanazono gondola up to the top where it accessed some very mild red runs, and took the 3 Hanazono quads up to the top, including the 6 person Hanazono bubble quad up which supposedly has heated seats. Skied back to Hirafu, took the Hirafu gondola up a couple times and a mix of green and black runs down and then called it a day.

One consistent thing we noticed about Niseko is the dining situation. There are not nearly enough sit down restaurants for the demand of the Niseko tourist population; and restaurants either book out for reservations well in advance or have insanely long lines for walk ins. Seicomart apparently gets some of the spillover. However the food trucks are under appreciated and we went there for dinner.

We headed back to our rented condo, watched Weak Layers which just dropped as a streaming option and then called it a night.

The chair we could walk to from our condo:

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 4: (2/14)

Woke up to a bluebird day above freezing at base and no wind holds on the top lifts. We took the Ace series of lifts all the way to the top, traversed over to the main boot pack route to the summit and 3 of us hiked up to scatter a family member’s ashes at the peak of Mount Annupuri. I was up for joining them but I have limited boot packing experience and no backpack with ski straps and given the gusty winds and 30-35 degree pitch of the boot pack to the summit it didn’t seem like a great idea. I bailed and skied down the steep piste to the King Bell Hut, where I made the call to ski down to the base, put my M-Free 108s away as conditions up top were getting wind swept and icier and walked over to Village Sports and took out some very well used Volkl Kendo 92s. I wasn’t sure how the Kendos would feel as older Kendos were reputedly unforgiving skis, but went up to the top, met up with the boot packers and skied down to the Green Leaf hotel at Niseko Village for lunch on mostly red and black runs.

Where have Kendos been all my life?! These are wonderful skis that hold an edge well on icy groomers, are quick edge to edge and make one feel like a better skier for being on them. They also felt wonderful on the springlike snow closer to the base where the big Dynastars just felt grabby. To be frank they felt better than my Elan Ripsticks for the conditions.

The Green Leaf at Niseko Village is a gem. Their main restaurant serves an amazing traditional Hokkaido ramen that was less than $20 and may have been the best ramen I enjoyed during my trip to Japan. Even though we arrived at noon they were less than half full.

After lunch we took the Niseko Village gondola up - which is a very funky gondola where the front and rear covers open clamshell style; skied down to the Wonderland “pizza box” chair and went over to Annupuri. Did a run down to Annupuri and then traversed over to Hirafu and skied down.

We had initially planned to go to the food trucks for dinner but my FIL walked into a relatively full sushi restaurant and scored a table for 4. We had an amazing sushi & izakaya dinner which while pricey by Japanese standards wasn’t out of line for what we’d have paid in Seattle. After that we watched GNAR…the movie. “I am way sicker than you”: https://unofficialnetworks.com/gnar-the-movie/

 

[crosscountry]

If you don’t want to take a train, fly into Sapporo (CTS) and take the Hokkaido Resort Liner bus to your destination (Niseko, Rusutsu, Furano, etc).

That goes without saying. If you're skiing Hokkaido, fly into Hokkaido! It's like why fly into New York when you're planning to ski in Colorado!

But as your group wanted to experience the bullet train, well... you've got to take the bullet train!

Unfortunately too many tourists in Niseko are lazy and just throw trash on the sidewalk.

probably some isolated situation? I didn't remember seeing much trash on the sidewalk

 

[Even_Stevens]

That goes without saying. If you're skiing Hokkaido, fly into Hokkaido! It's like why fly into New York when you're planning to ski in Colorado!

But as your group wanted to experience the bullet train, well... you've got to take the bullet train!


probably some isolated situation? I didn't remember seeing much trash on the sidewalk

After experiencing domestic air travel and the Resort Liner on the return leg of the trip, bullet train (and even regional trains) > domestic airlines in Japan. Unless you have a really tight timetable. But show up way early for bag drop off.

Shipping our ski bag on Yamato made train travel really easy and straightforward. For less than $20 it was worth it for majorly reducing the PITA factor.

Unfortunately it wasn’t isolated. Beer cans and food wrappers tossed all over the place was a pretty common occurrence.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 5 (2/15):

Temperatures dropped below freezing at all mountain elevations. That nice spring snow at the lower part of the mountain yesterday froze and gave us an East Coast powder day (unfortunately not a Far East Japow day). We skied the upper lifts of Hirafu for a half day before my wife called it quits as skiing icy conditions on 112mm width skis was not fun, and I went down with her. The rental Kendos were perfect for the conditions and would just knock death cookies out of the way. Video of the conditions, hardpack & ice balls.


After heading to the very nice onsen across the street from our rented condo at the Vale Niseko, we went out to the Eat Street food truck pod for dinner and got gyozas and wagyu beef bowls.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 6 (2/16):

We had booked a day of cat skiing at Chisenupuri, which is a former ski resort that shut down about a decade ago and is now used exclusively for cat skiing. Fresh snow finally fell and while we only got a couple inches at the Hirafu base, Chisenupuri had 6 fresh inches over hard crust.

We were picked up in a Toyota minivan at 815 am and were taken over to Chisenupuri, which consists of a ski lodge at the base of the old ski lift which still has cables attached to the lift towers but no chairs. After a briefing, our group and a couple other groups (total of 12 guests) were shuttled up the hill in the snow cat. Although ostentiably an unguided cat skiing trip, Chisenupuri had 3 guides who went up the mountain with us, gave suggestions on what lines to hit and ensured that no one was left on the mountain.

Video of my wife getting some turns in. You can hear the crust and death cookies under the powder!


We got 9 runs in and skied mostly untouched powder. While the occasional slam into the hard crust was unexpected and threw one’s skiing off a bit, overall these were the best conditions we’d ski in Japan during this trip and absolutely perfect for the powder skis we’d lugged from the USA. The cat made a couple more runs at the end of the day, but our group made the call to go to the onsen after skiing; which frankly wasn’t a super nice onsen at all being dirty, worn and unlike other onsens we went to during the trip pretty unwelcoming to Westerners. Should have done a couple more cat skiing runs.

After we got back to Hirafu we decided to do a couple night runs which were missable as the slopes were very icy, and was made worse by being full of a lot of beginner skiers and snowboarders who wore animal themed toques in lieu of helmets and were completely out of control. One rabbit-hat wearing snowboarder went across the tails of my skis at damn near 40 mph and proceeded to eat it right behind me, and her companion almost heel edged into my wife. We called it and went to Bar Blo Blo, where my FIL and his brother were having beers with a rambunctious Australian family who were at Niseko taking a break from the heat of Perth (110 degrees!).

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 7 (2/17):

We were definitely feeling our skiing muscles despite repeated onsen soaks, but we decided to make our last full day at Niseko a ski day. Went to the top of Hirafu and skied the Niseko Village runs, had lunch at the mountain hut near the top of the Village gondola “follow the sound of the worst rap music ever to food” - father in law; and then skied Annupuri until we decided to call it a day and ski back to our lodging.

We tried to find a bar to have a drink in but they were all full at 4 pm (again, the Niseko dining scene is bonkers with not enough establishments). We ended up going to a food truck pod next to a place called the après Bar, which was the local Niseko gay bar but had open seats, got us beers and let us eat food truck food inside. This bar was not 100% LGBT clientele by any means but was only half full when everything around it was slammed…very interesting. We’d go back again.

After some packing we headed to bed and enjoyed the comfortable mattress and pillows of our Niseko accommodations for one last night.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 8: (2/18)

Had a quick breakfast and checked out of our accommodations, which booked us a shuttle van to the Hirafu Welcome Center where we caught the Hokkaido Resort Liner bus to New Chitose Airport. Road conditions were fine and the bus made a quick stop at a roadside restaurant and convenience store halfway through the trip, and dropped us off at the domestic terminal of the airport, which was a quick walk to the Air Terminal Hotel where we’d booked a couple of rooms for the night. Dropped our bags there and took the AirPort Express train into Sapporo, which is a beautiful city that is clearly much newer than Tokyo or Hakodate, whose street grids show that they were designed in the pre automobile era.

We wandered down to Sapporo’s shopping arcade and ended up at a lamb BBQ restaurant the likes of which we don’t find stateside. Like Korean BBQ but without the overpowering sauces & spices. Afterwards we played tourist and bought souvenirs at a couple shopping malls then took the train back to the airport and our hotel.

Sapporo has the most electic collection of automobiles I’ve seen in Japan. Multiple Citroens, a Peugeot, a US market Toyota Tundra with left hand drive and a Volvo 740 from the late 1980s all made an appearance.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Day 9 (2/19):

We got up early and went to the airport onsen, which was the nicest onsen we went to in Japan. After that we got in line to drop off our bags - which took 1.5 hours as Japan Airlines only had a few counters open - and then made a quick stop in the JAL lounge before our flight to Tokyo Haneda. You don’t have to deal with all the airport BS while taking a train, and there were regrets that we hadn’t just retraced our train journey back down to Tokyo.

Flying to Tokyo Haneda was relatively uneventful once we got through the bag check BS, and the nearly new Airbus A350 was a very quiet and comfortable ride. It makes the 777s we took across the pond seem a little dated and noisy, and they lack the external camera views that the A350’s passengers enjoy.

We got through Haneda and went to the JAL lounge there which had a decent spread of food, then boarded our flight for an uneventful trip home across the Pacific, where we all tried to get sleep on the plane. Departure was delayed an hour, which made the connection in SFO very tight back to Seattle. Once on the 737 back to Seattle - we all commented “Well we’re not in Gran Class anymore!”

Alaska Airlines got our spinner suitcases on board but our ski bag didn’t make it onto the flight. As of press time it’s at the SeaTac airport and it should be delivered today.

 

[BC.]

Sounds like u had a heck of a trip….thank you for your honest report. I’m assuming you don’t work in advertising or the travel industry….cuz after reading about your trip/ and the highlight being the bidet in the bathroom, I am now totally re-thinking a Japan trip anytime soon. I know it’s just one report on the internet, but man, that sounded awful…lol.

Thanks…hope you guys recover from all the travel.

 

[Even_Stevens]

Sounds like u had a heck of a trip….thank you for your honest report. I’m assuming you don’t work in advertising or the travel industry….cuz after reading about your trip/ and the highlight being the bidet in the bathroom, I am now totally re-thinking a Japan trip anytime soon. I know it’s just one report on the internet, but man, that sounded awful…lol.

Thanks…hope you guys recover from all the travel.

Nope! I work in the energy sector.

The snow conditions frankly sucked on a couple days and weren’t anything special overall; far from the amazing Japow experience that Japanese skiing prides itself on. The one powder day was pretty decent and I’m glad it matched up with the day we went cat skiing.

But we got to ski in Japan which was awesome and instead of a $20 hot dog or a $25 burger and fries for on mountain lunches, we were getting amazing Japanese food for half the price.

I'd go back and do the same trip again, crappy snow conditions and all but ideally our next Japan trip will be to ski Furano or Nozawa Onsen, which reportedly feel a little more Japanese and less Australian than Niseko.

Overall it was a fun trip. I’d say in an El Niño year and with climate change, Japow is not guaranteed. Prepare to ski something more like the Pacific Northwest in a good year.

 

[Mattadvproject]

That's too bad that your first experience in Japan was during a really poor season. I've been going to Japan since 2016 and this season has been tough, probably the worst conditions I've experienced but we still skied powder most days, just not as deep as it normally is. If you can find the quieter places, there will be less competition for powder and with more than 400 ski areas in Japan, there's plenty of places to try. Niseko can be a decent first trip but as you experienced, it's very Westernized and there's a lot of competition for the powder. Other resorts will be quieter with far fewer Westerners and you can have a more authentic Japanese experience. Hopefully you can try again and have an even more rewarding experience. Thanks for sharing your experiences here.

 

[Even_Stevens]

That's too bad that your first experience in Japan was during a really poor season. I've been going to Japan since 2016 and this season has been tough, probably the worst conditions I've experienced but we still skied powder most days, just not as deep as it normally is. If you can find the quieter places, there will be less competition for powder and with more than 400 ski areas in Japan, there's plenty of places to try. Niseko can be a decent first trip but as you experienced, it's very Westernized and there's a lot of competition for the powder. Other resorts will be quieter with far fewer Westerners and you can have a more authentic Japanese experience. Hopefully you can try again and have an even more rewarding experience. Thanks for sharing your experiences here.

Appreciate your feedback and your answers to some of my travel questions posed pre-trip!

We went back and forth between Niseko and Furano and eventually went with Niseko because 3 of the 4 of us had never been to Japan and it seemed like the easier option.

 

[crosscountry]

You flew all the way to Japan to ski only 4 days?

I understand the snow condition wasn't great this year anyway. Still, that's not that much skiing for the long flight ( >15 hr fly time?).

 

[Even_Stevens]

You flew all the way to Japan to ski only 4 days?

I understand the snow condition wasn't great this year anyway. Still, that's not that much skiing for the long flight ( >15 hr fly time?).

See posts above…skied 5 days total. 4 days of resort skiing, 1 day of snow cat skiing. Booked the trip over the summer before snow conditions were known. Don’t most people do this?

 

[crosscountry]

See posts above…skied 5 days total. 4 days of resort skiing, 1 day of snow cat skiing.

Still, a long way to go for only 5 days of skiing. Hope your flight is cheap? ( or free? )

Booked the trip over the summer before snow conditions were known. Don’t most people do this?

I wouldn't be surprise people book ahead on long trips, probably for economical reason.

But as much as Japan is known for it dry powder, it's not known to have snow fall every day. The chance of snow fall can fluctuate over a short period of time, which is a matter of nature. 5 day is a very short window to hope to hit storms.

I mean, you were a bit unlucky to hit a bad stretch. But you didn't give yourself enough of a fair chance either.