Last year I went to Hokkaido, to Sapporo and had one of the best weekends of my year gazing at giant snow sculptures and rows of snow candles lining a pretty canal lined the other side with a row of warehouses-come-restaurants, bars, microbrewery and shivering a little with the frigid air that cut right through the bone much more than the Yamagata wind to which I had grown accustomed.
We shot off to Niseko for a day of skiing too and I plodded up to the peak and rocketed down in knee-deep powder snow that glistened and threw through the air with a fua-fua sound, an onomatopoeic word Japanese reserve for the finest, lightest, the best snow for skiing.
This year I went again and it was a different story.
I seemed to have picked the one bum weekend all season, although it hasn't been great this year. Rain on Friday and rivers running down the road at the base of the mountain. High winds on Saturday and Sunday so no trip to the peak. Most of the lifts were closed. Not a great ski trip. But a great trip nonetheless.
I was amazed to see carpets, central heating and bedrooms bigger than our classroom at school in my mate Alastair's place in Niseko. Leaving Kutchan station to catch the bus in, I left Japan too. A waitress in an izakaye looked at me with a frown when I ordered something in Japanese, even though she was, er, Japanese. Niseko is a mini-Australia. There's a popular bus service running directly from the airport to the resort so there need be no cross-pollination of skiiers and boarders with Japan.
All got me thinking about possibly putting in a season this winter.
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