TR: Hokkaido Japan in April
Another cross post. No action shots, as I was riding alone.
Life really is an awesome adventure. It seems to get even better as I allow it to happen. With an open mind I accepted a service call in Hokkaido Japan. Tom Maintenance Company had installed a handful of gate operators at the Northern Hokkaido Horse Park, and they were not functioning properly.
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I flew from SeaTac to Tokyo Narita Airport. At about 10 ½ hours the flight actually didn’t seem that bad. Arrival in Tokyo was a breeze. Everything was very organized and clean. All though most everything was in Japanese it was pretty easy to understand what was going on. I liked that luggage pick up was done in a secure area, so you don’t have to worry about your bags being stolen.
I was flying out of Tokyo Haneda Airport the next morning to Hokkaido. My client had reserved a room for me at the Hotel inside of the Airport. All I had to do was make it from Narita to Haneda. I withdrew a bunch of Yen from the ATM and purchased a bus ticket to Haneda.
I had to wait over an hour for the Bus and while I was waiting the police quizzed me and took a copy of my passport etc… They are not used to seeing people sitting down on the sidewalk. Japan is such an orderly society, that I stuck out like a beacon.
The hotel was actually in the terminal. This was great since my plane left at 7 the next morning. The room was small but very comfortable and quite clean.
I had a window seat on the flight to Hokkaido. Surprisingly JAL uses a 747-600 for this run. This plane was huge. It was a double decker, and there were only about 100 people on board. The cloud cover didn’t break until we were towards the northern part of the island of Honshu. The mountains and beaches were spectacular.
When I got off of the airplane my contacts were waiting for me with a sign with my name on it. Cool.
I about died laughing when I saw Tom’s car. He had American flags wrapped around the front headrests and confederate flags wrapped around the back headrests. I wondered if he had any idea what the confederate flag actually symbolized.
The translator showed up after an hour or so of pure comedy. Tom and his group spoke no English. I of course don’t speak any Japanese. After repairing a couple of the gates at the Horse Park we went for lunch at the Northern Horse Park restaurant. I had one of the best steaks I have had. It was almost raw, but just delicious.
After lunch I fixed the other gate problems and was off to Sapporo. I stayed at a Hotel in downtown Sapporo. I was too exhausted from the travel and work to really enjoy Sapporo much. My clients took me to dinner at a very nice traditional Japanese restaurant. I was of course the only white person there and was fully checked out by all.
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I am not a big seafood lover and have never really enjoyed sushi very much. I was done for. It is still hard for me to believe that I actually ate the food that I did. I now know that I could do Fear Factor. I know I could handle the food challenge now. I had raw squid intestines, which I swear were covered in coagulated blood. The texture was almost unbearable. The salmon roe roll was actually not that bad, although I still almost vomited. I had tried a single egg and it was OK. Then I was told to eat the whole roll in one bite. I shrugged and threw it in my mouth. 75 salmon eggs exploding in to the fresh seaweed wrap was almost too much. That made eating the fish head with eyeballs still attached seem not quite so bad. The sea urchin was just horrible though. Luckily we also had some pot stickers so I was able to eat something without cringing. The spider crab was really good as well. Getting to the meat was an unwelcome and somewhat painful challenge though. At one point I was out of water and on the verge of vomiting so I had to take a swig of beer. Sapporo is delicious, but I stuck with my water.
We had a great time at dinner. Luckily Jungko spoke some English so we were able to communicate some. On the walk back to the Hotel there was a light snow falling and I was getting excited about getting some snowboarding in.
The next morning I had a business meeting in Sapporo before I was able to head out to Niseko. After the meeting Jungko took me to the train station and helped me purchase the correct tickets and wrote an itinerary for me in English. After she left I felt more alone than I ever have. There were a couple thousand people at the train station and I was the only white person there. Nobody spoke English and nothing was written in English. Thankfully I had the itinerary that Jungko had written for me and I was able to find the correct train and get out of Sapporo.
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The trains in Japan are incredible. They are very efficient and well organized. It took a little over an hour to make it to Otaru where I switched trains for the run to Niseko. It was snowing somewhat heavily in Otaru and I was really starting to get excited. The trip from Otaru to Niseko was absolutely beautiful. Snow covered hills with streams running alongside the train track. It looked really similar to the mountains in North Carolina, just with a lot more snow.
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I got off of the train in Niseko and walked in to what seemed like a ghost town. There was noone around and I had no idea where to go. I went back in to the train station and asked how to get to a Hotel. Of course no one spoke English and so it was a bit of a chore. Luckily the attendant contacted a pension style hotel (bed and breakfast) owner that spoke English. His name was Watabe and he ran the Hotel Kiitos. They had no guests and he told me that Niseko was empty, now that winter season was over.
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My room was comfortable and very reminiscent of a winter cabin. I felt very lucky that I hadn’t taken a bus to the resort area. Watabe and his wife were amazing people. They cooked breakfast each day and it was always delicious. The first day was a Japanese style breakfast. Squid and noodles. Good but, I was relieved when they cooked bacon and eggs the next two mornings. I had dinner there one night, and truly enjoyed the home cooked Japanese meal.
Hotel Kiitos is about a ten minute drive from the ski areas. Watabe drove me to Niseko Higashiyama in the morning and showed me where to get my ticket and where the Gondola loaded.
Niseko Higashiyama is the centrally located area at Niseko. Annupuri is to the left and Hirafu is to the right. All three areas are on the same lift ticket, which is actually only about 40 dollars. You pay a 10 dollar deposit for the actual ticket which is a RFID card. The system is similar to Bachelors system. The main difference is the readers actually have a reasonable read range and you keep the ticket in your pocket. You slide up to the reader and the bar rotates to let you in. This is a very efficient system and worked flawlessly all day.
The ride up the Gondola is slightly akin to torture. Directly visible from the gondola is some incredible terrain. There are so many steep treed lines that it is mouthwatering. Luckily the future holds promise. Higashiyama is now owned by CitiGroup. There are many improvements in the works including opening this previously closed terrain as a special riding area. If this happens Niseko will no longer be classified as flat. Well, at least not as flat.
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It had snowed 1-2cm a day for the last 4 days and with nobody on the hill my hopes were high for some decent snow. As the gondola came towards the platform I looked up and saw a snowboarder laying down perfect arcing turns through smooth creamy snow off the top. Stoked.
I took the short traverse over to the single chair to the top. I saw a few people hiking towards the summit. Unfortunately I never saw them or anybody else really for the rest of the day.
The single chair was a bit on the frightening side. The platform was not made from someone my size. My ass was hanging off both sides and the back rest barely came up to the bottom of my back. Any wind and this thing would be downright deadly. I guess that is why it is closed regularly.
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The views from the top are stunning. Mt. Yotei is a stunning volcano that juts right up out of the valley floor. The valley floor is only a few hundred feet above sea level. Mt Annupuri is a bit over 3 and Yotei is over 5. It really is a stunning mountain. All of the local Japanese refer to it as Huji. Then they laugh and say “Hokkaido’s Fuji”.
