Japan Ski Trip 1st week
Everything going really well after one week awayI chose this picture of Kate and Annette skiing the trees in Strawberry Fields: Hanazono-Niseko as it shows how good the skiing has been so far.
Here is a day to day photo essay:
Here I am eating my first meal at Narita Airport, Sushi and Soup, on Thursday evening. We flew from Sydney to Narita (Tokyo) via the Gold Coast on Thursday 15th with Jet Star. We had used frequent flyer points and so the flight over was only about $250 for both of us so the inconvenience was well worth it. We stayed at the Narita Airport and flew to Chitose (Sapporo Airport) on Friday morning.
This is our hotel room in Sapporo at The Weekly 2000 Hotel. Things did not start perfectly at Chitose as the van we had hired was not waiting for us and the guy we had hired it from arrived over an hour later with a Toyota Corolla station wagon. I had hoped to ski on Friday afternoon so we drove out to a ski field about 45 minutes North of Sapporo (Sapporo-Teine) but it was about 4pm when we arrived and I had one run from the top car park down and we headed back to find our hotel.
Great skiing… As good as it gets at Sapporo-Teine out the "side-country" gate to the skiers left
By the time we finished skiing about 4:30 the car was pretty covered so you can see why the skiing was so good. However it was a slow trip and by the time we stopped for groceries it was 8:30pm when we finally got back to our hotel in Sapporo.
Sunday we were again at Sapporo-Teine and it was nearly as good as Saturday though being so close to the coast the snow was marginally heavier, yes that is a view from near the top overlooking the ocean to the North.
Monday (19th Jan) our main job was to pick Kate, Toby and Andrew up from the airport about an hours drive from Sapporo. The problem was fitting everything and everyone in the Corolla. Luckily along the way to the airport we found some unused sign support posts (this was difficult as everything was buried in over a metre of snow) and we bought some rope. At the airport I tied the skis, stroller and our bags on the roof and amazingly everything fitted. Toby was really happy and we drove the 2 1/2 hours to Niseko.
Here is the car loaded as we arrived at our lodge which is the yellow building called Niseko Lodge or "Ru Ru". Of course Andrew and I were keen to ski and as night skiing goes until 8:30pm we rushed and got out about 4:30pm for 2 1/2 hours skiing which Andrew called the Prologue.
Here you can see Andrew enjoying the night time powder under the Ace 2 chair.
Tuesday it had snowed all night and we were on the slopes by 9am with Andrew taking first turn caring for Toby. The snow was amazingly good and we had a ball in Strawberry Fields.
Toby was having a great time and has been happy and enjoying all the new experiences, except he does not like socks and shoes are a definite no go.
Wednesday it was Andrew's turn in the morning and the weather had cleared so we headed to the top of the lifts. This is the top lift: King 4, a singe chair and Andrew and Annette. We didn't hike to the peak although hundreds of people were. Instead we just exited via gate 4 to the "side-country" for some great reasonable fresh tracks.
We swapped around a few times and were still out skiing at night.
Here are 2 late additional photos of me having fun on our fist day in Niseko:
Here is a day to day photo essay:
Here I am eating my first meal at Narita Airport, Sushi and Soup, on Thursday evening. We flew from Sydney to Narita (Tokyo) via the Gold Coast on Thursday 15th with Jet Star. We had used frequent flyer points and so the flight over was only about $250 for both of us so the inconvenience was well worth it. We stayed at the Narita Airport and flew to Chitose (Sapporo Airport) on Friday morning. 
This is our hotel room in Sapporo at The Weekly 2000 Hotel. Things did not start perfectly at Chitose as the van we had hired was not waiting for us and the guy we had hired it from arrived over an hour later with a Toyota Corolla station wagon. I had hoped to ski on Friday afternoon so we drove out to a ski field about 45 minutes North of Sapporo (Sapporo-Teine) but it was about 4pm when we arrived and I had one run from the top car park down and we headed back to find our hotel.
Great skiing… As good as it gets at Sapporo-Teine out the "side-country" gate to the skiers left
By the time we finished skiing about 4:30 the car was pretty covered so you can see why the skiing was so good. However it was a slow trip and by the time we stopped for groceries it was 8:30pm when we finally got back to our hotel in Sapporo.
Sunday we were again at Sapporo-Teine and it was nearly as good as Saturday though being so close to the coast the snow was marginally heavier, yes that is a view from near the top overlooking the ocean to the North.
Monday (19th Jan) our main job was to pick Kate, Toby and Andrew up from the airport about an hours drive from Sapporo. The problem was fitting everything and everyone in the Corolla. Luckily along the way to the airport we found some unused sign support posts (this was difficult as everything was buried in over a metre of snow) and we bought some rope. At the airport I tied the skis, stroller and our bags on the roof and amazingly everything fitted. Toby was really happy and we drove the 2 1/2 hours to Niseko.
Here is the car loaded as we arrived at our lodge which is the yellow building called Niseko Lodge or "Ru Ru". Of course Andrew and I were keen to ski and as night skiing goes until 8:30pm we rushed and got out about 4:30pm for 2 1/2 hours skiing which Andrew called the Prologue.
Here you can see Andrew enjoying the night time powder under the Ace 2 chair.
Tuesday it had snowed all night and we were on the slopes by 9am with Andrew taking first turn caring for Toby. The snow was amazingly good and we had a ball in Strawberry Fields.
Toby was having a great time and has been happy and enjoying all the new experiences, except he does not like socks and shoes are a definite no go.
Wednesday it was Andrew's turn in the morning and the weather had cleared so we headed to the top of the lifts. This is the top lift: King 4, a singe chair and Andrew and Annette. We didn't hike to the peak although hundreds of people were. Instead we just exited via gate 4 to the "side-country" for some great reasonable fresh tracks. 
We swapped around a few times and were still out skiing at night.Here are 2 late additional photos of me having fun on our fist day in Niseko:
