Sapporo Snow Festival

Freezing in Niseko - day three

Ed was happy to get off the mountain.

Monday started early.  Me, Ed, Kim and Peter had signed up for a cheapo ski deal on Saturday.  Somehow the tourist information office the Sapporo station was selling a deal that gave us transport to Niseko, equipment hire and an all-day ski pass for Niseko-Hirafu all for only 4,500 yen.  We caught the express train there, and after a nice little nap we arrived in Kutchan and took the bus to the ski area.  We were ready to go by a bit after ten.  It was overcast and we stayed on the bottom slopes to start with.  I got in some practice while Ed kindly gave Kim and Peter some pointers on how to ski.  After that me and Ed headed up a bit higher.  Although the weather briefly threatened to open up and become nice, giving us a glimpse of the breathtaking view that the resort is famous for, the clouds closed in again.  And it got very cold.  The giant thermometer half-way up the mountain read -11C, but it felt colder with the blizzard blowing so strongly.  With visibility poor, we went for lunch, but even after waiting the conditions didn't improve.  We continued skiing on a couple of different slopes.  They were all good, but my goggles kept misting up and filling with snow, which made things less fun.  By about 3 we'd had enough of the struggle so we headed down the mountain to get coffee and find Kim and Peter.

Eamon gets into things in the Otaru Beer Hall.

After drying up a bit we got the bus back to Kutchan and went looking for some beer, but nowhere was selling it.  So we settled for brandy coffee in a little shop called Lilac that had some really weird-looking electronic mah-jong tables in it.  There was no express back to Sapporo at

Me with one of the interestingly-dressed waitresses.

that time so we boarded a mini one carriage train to Otaru, where I randomly met Katherine, Eamon, Arlene and some others in the station and went into town for a wander.  We went along the canal, which was lit up with ice-lanterns, and into the Otaru Beer Hall, which has to be one of the most fantastic places in Japan.  I'd been there in the summer and seen a woman sing so badly she made a small child run headlong into a table.  (I presumed that he just wanted to make it stop.)  All the staff there dress up like medieval Germans while I'm not quite sure what the decor is supposed to be.  Maybe it's in the style of a forest after the acid rain.  Anyway, one top of the entertaining surroundings, the beer is very nice.  After that we headed back to Sapporo for the night.