New Year's day

The weather has come in - and apparently on the world ski field listing - Niseko is ranked number one for the most snow fall this season. We aren't surprised. It is completely white out there at the moment.
New Year's eve started with dinner at Raku for Paddy, Tom  and me - and then Tom got the call to go partying with cam. They seemed to go to a lot of very crowded bars - and came back here to see the fireworks and the torch bearers.

Torch bearers making the 14! and then skiing down the mountain

we missed out on being part of the torch parade - we could have been but i imagine hat would have been one long cold night

The fireworks were great - took these right out our window 

 I had then read something that you could go up the gondola at 6.30am to see the sun come up - a very Japanese tradition. I got up in pitch black and walked up the mountain - only to discover that it wasn't the Hirauf Gondola it was the Niseko Gondola - and i had no way of getting there. It was lovely anyway and I got some nice photos of morning arriving in Niseko ...

tom had a sleep in. Paddy and i did a few runs - but it was a bit windy - and it was cold - i skied til lunch and did a run or two afterwards. paddy took a shorter day. An early night i assume for all tonight.

what a day .....

day started really well - i had to wake the boys extra early. In fact I only needed to wake Tom as Paddy was on the excited side and was up as soon as I was. All due to the fact that Tom and Paddy had a 2 hour powder lesson with Katsu from NAC - who was way cool.

http://www.skiline.cc/skiing_day/tamutj7i53

that is the link to what the boys skied today - 24 lifts, 6880vertical metres or vm as we call it and 34 kms - being 412 minutes of fun!

they started on the powder run off the gondola - where you hike up and go through the powder all the way to holiday. They also did some way cool powder off swinging monkey and generally had a great day. the wind was low and the snow kept falling and it just got better and better out there ....

I on the other hand had a day off from skiing - but not from the snow. I went snow shoeing on a photo tour with Yusa and an Aussie fellow called Darren as guides, and a lovely couple from thailand. After getting the boys out of the apartment - I had a coffee, mucked around, managed to get some cash (this was credit card no 6 to make work!) then had a very nice hot chocolate in Odin - Lucy will remember we had afternoon tea and then hot wine there I recall. Yum.

W snow shoe'd around Half Moon lake at the base of Mt Yotei - and I think the photos will speak for themselves. It was fun - a bit of hard work but worth it.

Cool - hey?

yoi o toshi o (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

phew - what a day - windy, sunny, cold, hot, snowy, clear - "ah that is niseko weather" says cam ...

So we got up early - goodness I am enjoying waking Tom and Paddy up  - and out we went. Hit the Gondola early - and not much else was open - though we did do the double that links to the quad and to the top - to keep an eye on what might have opened. It is hilarious how conservative the snow forecast websites are - if they say 2 cm of snow - you know it is 20. Seriously our balcony and the whole complex was covered this am - so much that they had a dozer digging out the road - but acc to the website it was like 10 cm. Well it was heaps - but it was also windy ....but anyway off we went - a few runs. Then Swinging monkey opened - and there was a queue - but we hot footed it to hanazono.

The snow was awesome. We actually did this great tree run between Crystal Garden and Shinya - and no-one was in there but is - and everytime we found fresh tracks. 

This was me coming off  Swinging Monkey - and just so lovely doing fresh tracks through this

We skied most of the day - the weather got windier and colder and by 3 we were ready to come in. Tom has upgraded to fat skis and Tom and Paddy have a lesson with Katsu from NAC tomorrow. Should be a good day for them. I am doing a snow shoe photography course around some lake at the base of Mt Yotei - so i am looking forward to that. 

We also saw cam tonight in the centre near the gondola - one of his little kids got hit by a snow boarder tonight - and he had to get her into the centre and then did a hospital trip with the Japanese guys from nac. Poor little thing broke her wrist.

We then had dinner at Raku - this great little bar/BBQ place that has great local Shochu and sake and wine and all local food. So Paddy again had Deer - that i have to say was completely delicious - and e also had hot lemonade - which he said made him thirsty

Paddy was the chef for this one - his new Christmas watch was used to time how long we had to cook the meat for etc.

The local brews ...

Dont think we had anything for Y420 - maybe the corn?

How lovely is this - the Kimono and the tshirt

Map of the local Shoshu

Anyway - hoping tomorrow is going to be fabulous all round ..

Meg

Guest blogger: young grasshopper ....

Friday night was the first night skiing experience of the trip.  We meet up with Cam after 6 hours of lessons and enjoyed a two hour night skiing session which existed of numerous races.  As we were alone on the beautiful mountain we carved up the remainder of the as what Cam would call the "pow" that fell that day

A fresh 28 cm of snow was waiting for us today as we rose out of your beds early.  Due to windy conditions and slightly heavy snowfall some of the mountain wasn't open early on.  Swinging monkey only opened at 10 AM and there existed a massive queue even by perisher standards.  Hanazono was our destination.  We set of to find powder and found it at Strawberry Gate, The legend of Shinja and Crystal Garden.  The line through the trees was where the most powder and fun was found smashing through waist deep powder often. Tom had two particular stacks at Strawberry Gate with his face covered in powder when he fell over.
swinging "monky" as it reads on the sign ...




After our days skiing we went of to the truck markets were Paddy bought speakers with water jets and だるまおとし.  Then we had a excellent meal filled with exotic and sublime Japanese food.(editor: unnecessary crawling - not v exotic at all)

Yours Truly
The Guest Blogger

Editor: we are about to watch Star Wars 6 - for those who know my story of my 50th in Shanghai - you will know i am partial to the star wars theme - esp if used as a substitute for happy birthday ...
lucy and Liv - i also had an onsen at the Alpen - my preferred onsen though is the Prince ...

 

Night skiing with Cam ....

Last night the boys went night skiing - from 5 - 7. I cooked. They had a wild time apparently

little nook in Yama Shizen where we are staying

weird cloud formation over the mountain

28th

Niseko can be a range of weather in one day, one hour, etc

So Niseko 360 said there was 17.5cms of snow overnight - sounded and felt like more than that - first big blizzard apparently. But this morning it was very sunny - and check out swinging monkey - i had to ski down - not sure my carve turns were as perfect as these ...

we then headed down to hanazono and Luke and Paddy did strawberry fields - again. I did a bit of everything and then had to scoot back on holiday to get Tom from the Welcome centre

Heading down Holiday

Waiting at the Welcome Centre i had a very good coffee and spotted this tree ...... 

By the time Tom and i dumped his bag at the apartment, got skis, found the others on the mountain etc - I was hungry - and in memory of Charlie and Jeremy I had a curry bun and it was FANTASTIC. got it from the Hana 1 van - delicious ....

and then to show how the weather can change - we headed in as the weather came in and you can see how much it snowed ...

as a PS - what is the below ordered by Paddy at Raku? (scene of 8 people sitting around a 1 person table last year)