The best powder in the world.

As though to make up for the off feeling of Christmas Day, New Year’s in Japan was one of the most fun I’ve ever experienced. But first things first: skiing in Niseko! As mentioned, Corin and I headed back to work on Monday and proceeded through three solid days of BOE/office nothing-ness. We then hopped the Limited-Express to Sapporo Station, changed to a local train headed for Otaru, swapped for a smaller train headed to Niseko and found ourselves in Kuchan around 4. Our amazing host, Ryo, picked us up from the station and took us over to his hostel, Niseko Lodge Tabitsumugi. 

There were only two other guests the two days we were there, a Kiwi named Jason and his eleven year old son. The two were eight days into their month long holiday, using every hour to explore the ski resorts around Niseko. Saying they were hardcore is an understatement. They hit the slopes as soon as the lifts opened and didn’t return until the resorts were shutting down the night skiing lights, every. single.day. Needless to say, we didn’t see much of them.

View from our hostel, the volcano Mt. Yotei.

We woke up fairly early the next morning and headed out to Grand Hirafu with plans to meet our friend Evan at some point that day. We had first met Evan at Denver’s Pre-Departure Orientation when he and Corin were roommates. After that, Tom, Corin, Evan and I spent the majority of our time at Tokyo Orientation together. However, he is placed in a beautiful city far down south and braved turbulant seas on a 20 hour ferry just to ski the powder of Hokkaido. However, finding him right away amongst the Japanese, Kiwis, and Aussies at Grand Hirafu was difficult so we started out skiing on our own.

Instead, Corin spent the morning coaxing me down the bunny hills and lovingly telling me to quit following behind the ski schools. It has only been a year since I last skied but when given the option to “pizza” or “french fry,” I’ll choose pizza every time. I passed one little girl at the top of the mountain crying her little eyes out, wailing that she was scared*. I felt her pain. I enjoy skiing, I really do, but the snow in your face, wind in your hair, powder rushing under your skis feeling of going any faster than a three-year-old on miniature skis in a hot pink snowsuit and monkey inspired backpack/leash combo brings me only mind-numbing fear. So Corin, as usual, was patient and encouraging and managed to get me back to a comfortable place in my skiing abilities, which usually meant calling up to me from a short distance asking if I was okay (I was, just talking myself through the descent like a paratrooper being dropped behind enemy lines during a sand storm/tsunami natural disaster combination of doom). After an expensive but tasty lunch and ensuring that I would be okay by myself, he headed off up the mountain to meet up with Evan and I stuck to the happy little slope I could navigate without fear. I ended up skiing four more runs before finally calling it “freezing” and heading in for some coffee. Corin followed soon after as a blizzard rolled over the mountain and made it just too hard to see and ski at the same time. Evan and his friend David were staying at a lodge on the mountain so Corin and I headed back into town by bus, warmed up in our little room and then found a tasty dinner, trying octopus for the first time and filling our stomachs with various flavors of yakitori (basically chicken meatballs on skewers).  

So much snow! This is total normal too...feet on feet.

The next morning we packed up and headed out, riding two hours back to Sapporo, the New Year nearly upon us. 

*I saw her later that day, possibly on the same run, still crying. This time she was simply saying "I don't want to ski anymore!" Let the poor girl go inside already!