Before we hit the slopes we had two days in Sapporo for the Snow Festival. There are three locations of the festival in town. We hit the Odori site first. It comprised of about 3km of snow sculptures and a jump ramp for boarders.
The second site was Susukino - they had ice sculptures and sculptors at work.
And the third site was Tsudome, which had snow slides, snow rafting etc. We unleashed our inner children and went nuts!
After Sapporo we bussed to Hirafu, Niseko and had 6 days on the slopes. With the help of Captain Simmo, Kept Ninja and I ventured on many reds and one black slope... for those European skiers out there, Japan has green, red and black... no blue... although 28 degree slope on some green runs sounds kind of blue to me! We had one private lesson which helped us get our ski's parallel and saved our legs from the painful snow plough!
We wore our heart rate monitors again and kept track of our runs...
| Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday | |
| Holiday | 1 | 1 | |||
| Jumbo | 1 | ||||
| Green | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Sennoki | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Family | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Boyo | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Beginners Access | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Alpen | 2 | ||||
| Kings Access Area Pass | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Kogen | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Annupuri Family | 6 | ||||
| Junior | 5 | ||||
| Dynamic | 1 | ||||
| Utopia | 1 | ||||
| Annupuri Shirakaba | 1 | ||||
| Shirakaba | 1 | ||||
| Banzai | 2 | ||||
| Enchantment | 1 | ||||
| Makes Sense | 1 | ||||
| Namara | 1 | ||||
| Cruiser | 1 | ||||
| Renraku | 1 | ||||
| Silver Dream | 2 | ||||
| Distance (m) | 11215 | 8257 | 16267 | 7632 | 13884 |
| Calories | 1200 | 1200 | 1700 | 1200 | 2000 |
Average Distance per day: 11.5km
Average Calories per day: 1,460 Cal
We had over a metre of snow whilst we were there - visibility wasn't flash all the time but better to have a soft landing than ice!
We stayed at The Vale, next door to Alpine Ridge where we stayed last year... in comparison:
Pro's of The Vale:
- onsen downstairs (indoor and outdoor) and heated pool (outdoor)
- Nice restaurant downstairs
- superb shower
- 15m from the Ace Family Lift
Cons:
- one flight of stairs from the lockers required to get to the first lift - I know, we're ski snobs :P
- ski lockers were too small
Overall - great accommodation!
We also tried out some new restaurants and bars in town...
- The Barn - set 3 course menu - delicious food, great cocktails, great ambiance.
- The Ice Bar - we froze, but the cocktails were good and the novelty-factor was high... I didn't try the cave ice bar... claustrophobia set in!
- Steak Rosso Rosso - not as wonderful as we remembered it but still nice beef!
- Dragon - a misinterpretation of the menu lead to me order sushi... in -10 deg weather... doh
- Abu Cha 2 - again, the food wasn't as good as the memory... funniest thing was Captain Simmo's face when he saw how small his crab dish was :)
- Tamashii Bar - we had great burritos here and played pool whilst we waited to check in.
- Sekka Cafe - we had a great venison gnocchi
Besides the eating, skiing and cocktails, we also had a bit of fun on the tubes at Hanazono... the signs said to sit in the tube and go down one at a time... but seriously, how is that fun?... we raced...face forward - Kept Ninja has great video footage of this and skiing... hopefully we can get them on youtube soon and I'll post the link... for now - here's some tame video of our first runs... Miss Quotable won most races... though both she and Splintah had course collision with Kept Ninja of which he came out unscathed.
Overall and great holiday with lots of laughs and great company... back to work and the real world now!
xoxo
Karate Kate
