POWDER HEAVEN IN JAPAN: HOKKAIDO
It’s been a while since I properly snowboarded last. So, together with Steffen, Lydia and I decided to go to what’s touted as one of the best snowboarding areas in the world with amazing and plenty of light powder snow and spectacular back-country options.
After a couple of days ‘acclimatizing’ to delicious Japanese food in Tokyo, we took a plane to Hokkaido and from there had a bus driving us all the way to Niseko. It took a few hours, but as usual, Japanese buses are comfortable and relaxing. The bus stopped very close to our lodge, and the remaining few meters we walked.
Given insanely expensive hotel prices in Niseko (to be fair, we should have booked more in advance than just a couple weeks, oops!), we decided to stay at a hostel. A first for Lydia, and something I haven’t done in a while. The hostel looked amazing, though, and turned out to be great!
The Moiwa lodge presented itself as a rustic and comfy home, wooden throughout, with quite a mix of people from mostly Europe and Australia. The hostel also has private rooms (if one books well in advance), but the best part besides the price is the direct access to the lift. Moiwa lodge is situated at the Moiwa lift — which offers awesome slopes and backcountry, as well as access to the other lifts — and, when we were there, it was practically always empty! The longest we had to wait was maybe 2–3 people in front of us, that’s it. Really amazing!
While Lydia was trying out skiing, I thoroughly enjoyed getting thoroughly lost in the backcountry. The abundance of fresh powder snow was simply too good to pass…
After the rewarding but exhausting days in the snow, there’s only really one option of what to do: Onsen! Japanese natural hot springs offer a great way to relax and soak away the aches and pains accumulated during the day.
After hard work some sightseeing
After 4 days Niseko we boarded the train to Otaru, a pretty little port city in Hokkaido, and on the way to Sapporo. We could leave our luggage in one of the ubiquitous luggage lockers at the train station and were strolling around the town. To my dismay it started with the fresh fish market (not a fan of shellfish…) — pretty much Lydia’s heaven! We all found good food to eat though, and then kept going to find the local sweet shops with tons of free samples. Their trick (surprisingly?) worked and we all bought quite a bit of sweets (my heaven!).
After the sweet shops we arrived at the beautiful canal, with a number of shops and restaurants alongside, and a wonderfully clear blue sky that made the cold much more bearable.
Finally, in the late afternoon we went back to the train station and onwards to Sapporo. Sapporo is a pretty large city and we decided we’d stay one night, primarily to see the Snow Festival before we all go back again to Tokyo.
The Snow Festival was quite interesting — displaying intricate craftsmanship of sculpting snow and ice. However, for my taste the whole thing was a bit too commercialised which made it less enjoyable. Still, most of the sculptures were great. I’d recommend to go see it if you combine it with more of Hokkaido, like we did, otherwise it’s probably not worth it.
Originally published on our blog DENNIS x LYDIA http://www.dennislydia.com/powder-heaven-in-japan-hokkaido/
