Happy new year to all our readers! Christmas has come and gone and a new year is here. The weather has been very pleasant and we enjoyed some 'cold' spells in the country which was very nice.
For every one of us who live in the tropics, we dream about experiencing snow, or the cold weather at least. That's why we travel to countries that have four seasons. So, since it's been pleasantly cold the last few weeks, I thought I'd share about the winter wonderland trip that I had in Japan. Ready? Here we go.
This trip happened way back 2009, and we went to Niseko, Japan after Christmas to ski. Niseko is a town located in the southwestern part of Hokkaido, Japan.
The nearest airport to it is the New Chitose Airport in Sapporo. Niseko is the most famous ski resort in Japan, known for having tons of light powder snow, which you will see in the pictures that I'll be sharing. We flew in from Hong Kong and we took a Cathay Pacific flight.
From the airport we rented a whole bus and drove up to the mountains for about 2 hours. The higher you go, the more snow you see, and for someone like me who has never seen snow before, I just couldn't keep my eyes from the view outside. Everything you see is almost white.
After driving for almost two hours, we arrived at our accomodation. Niseko actually refers to a mountain range and a municipal area. There is a mountain calle Mt Yotei, which is affectionately known as the Mt Fuji of the south. We stayed in the area called Grand Hirafu, and we rented a whole house. The people I was traveling with know how to travel in style, and I was very blessed to have been able to travel with them.
It was already dark when we arrived so the first evening was spent eating and then getting to bed. As this trip happened quite some time ago, I can no longer remember all that we did obviously, so I'll just be sharing the pictures I took. Anyhow, every day was spent playing on the snow.
One thing about snow- it looks very beautiful indeed. But it is also very cold, so if you don't have the proper clothing, you can get frostbite in a matter of hours, or even worse, death. So I had thermal underwear on, plus an outer cloth, plus the winter jacket. Regular shoes cannot be worn, as the ice can be very slippery. Falling and slipping on ice could be fatal as well.
My usual get up in the snow looks like this. The shoes should have soles that provide grip, otherwise you could fall and get injured really bad. Inside the house is heated, so you can wear regular clothes, but when you go outside you have to bundle up.
This is the area just outside our rental house, and of course we monkeyed around taking loads of pictures in the process.
We also played snow ball fights and became like kids again. Such fun! We also did some sledding. I did not ski since I didn't know how, and although my companions encouraged me to take lessons, I did not because I was embarrassed, as my classmates would have been children, ha ha ha!
Basically, every where you turn is covered in snow. If and when you walk, and the snow flakes land on your face, it's like getting caressed with ice- really cold. And sometimes I walked, just to feel the cold, and to experience snow while walking.
Every morning, trucks will go on the roads to sprinkle salt, to make it less slippery. It's a different kind of salt, of course, one made for this very purpose. :-) Main roads like this are insulated to prevent snow from accumulating on the surface.
These are the so-called trucks, and yes, the white thing inside that truck is salt. And they sprinkle it on the road. Winter wonderland. It's the small roads that get sprinkled with salt because they are not insulated.
This is the foot of the skiing area. As you can see beyond, there are several slopes. On the other side of the mountain is for snowboarding, and for people like me who don't ski, sledding, ha ha.
A snow sculpture near one of the hostels in the area. Food was relatively cheap there, although I did not take a lot of pictures of food. I was not interested then, I guess, because I did not know that I'd be blogging all about my travels. :-)
Snow, when fresh is powdery, so you don't get wet. You only get wet when it starts to melt. And apparently, each snowflake has a different shape. No two snowflakes are ever the same! So I just had to lie down on the snow and play angel wings by swishing my arms up and down. :-)
This is the roadside we pass by when we go to the ski area from our rental house. There is a free shuttle bus that takes skiers to and from the ski area, but people can also walk, provided they can brave the cold.
Which I did, one day, but I had to walk like this! Ha ha ha! It was cold when the snow hits your face, so I had to pull up my turtle neck shirt to cover my face and walk like a robber. See the snow accumulated on the hood of my jacket. Brrrrr!
By walking I got to do this, form a frozen heart, and take a picture of it! Ha ha! It was quite troublesome to keep putting on mittens and removing them when I had to take pictures. You just can't move around outside without them though. Your hands will freeze!
This is the area where we did sledding, and on the right side is a higher slope where the snow boarders were playing around.
Imagine living in conditions such as this, several feet of snow dumped on the ground every single day for almost six months! Ugh! It's good to just go for a few days, but living there? I guess it would get boring for me after some time.
There was also a mini zoo in the area and there were a few animals children can see and pet if they are brave enough. I felt bad for the animals though. It must have been very cold for them!
These are goats, and there were also some ducks which were huddled together. There was also a yak, and a lamb, but I could not find my pictures of them. Anf of course, several penguins.
Anothet shot of the skiing area. Cable cars take you up the top, and then you just ski down as fast or slow as you can, depending on how proficient you are at skiing.
This cute baby loved petting the penguin in the picture! :-) And the animals had their shelters in the snow by the way. Still, it must have been cold!
This is the road that goes along our rented house. If the snow plows do not come, the road will be almost impassable. It was just so beautiful looking at the whiteness of the surroundings, though. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Look at the snow on the cars. Imagine having to clear the snow from your car every morning so that you can go to work. It's very soft though, so it's easy to take it all off. Unless there's really a lot. Tedious, eh?
And of course, no trip to winterwonderland would be complete without building a snowman. You just roll some snow to the size you want, shape it, put in the nose, ears, mouth and arms, and voila! You have Olaf the snowman!
Nothing else but snow! Stores in the area take only cash, although some years have passed since then, maybe now they take credit cards. I remember us going into town to buy groceries so we could cook since we had a house, we filled up our cart with goodies, and when I handed in my credit card, the lady shook her head, and uttered something in Japanese. Someone who could speak English kindly told us that they only take cash! We had to walk several blocks to find an ATM to get some cash to pay for our purchases.
It's also very light as you can see. Since its powdery, it is very light. You just scoop it up and shape it any way you want.
This little river has not frozen totally. Imagine dipping your toes in the water! Ha ha ha!
Feet upon feet of snow. That's all you see. Really.
Look at the snow on the roof! Roofs are constructed in a shape where snow will automatically fall off in case too much accumulates. So one should be careful when standing under falling snow. You could get buried alive. :-)
The red color of the fruits of this tree made a good contrast to the snow so I took a picture.
This sums up my experience with snow, and hopefully, I will get to experience it again. Til next time!
For more travel articles, read here:
For every one of us who live in the tropics, we dream about experiencing snow, or the cold weather at least. That's why we travel to countries that have four seasons. So, since it's been pleasantly cold the last few weeks, I thought I'd share about the winter wonderland trip that I had in Japan. Ready? Here we go.
This trip happened way back 2009, and we went to Niseko, Japan after Christmas to ski. Niseko is a town located in the southwestern part of Hokkaido, Japan.
The nearest airport to it is the New Chitose Airport in Sapporo. Niseko is the most famous ski resort in Japan, known for having tons of light powder snow, which you will see in the pictures that I'll be sharing. We flew in from Hong Kong and we took a Cathay Pacific flight.
From the airport we rented a whole bus and drove up to the mountains for about 2 hours. The higher you go, the more snow you see, and for someone like me who has never seen snow before, I just couldn't keep my eyes from the view outside. Everything you see is almost white.
After driving for almost two hours, we arrived at our accomodation. Niseko actually refers to a mountain range and a municipal area. There is a mountain calle Mt Yotei, which is affectionately known as the Mt Fuji of the south. We stayed in the area called Grand Hirafu, and we rented a whole house. The people I was traveling with know how to travel in style, and I was very blessed to have been able to travel with them.
It was already dark when we arrived so the first evening was spent eating and then getting to bed. As this trip happened quite some time ago, I can no longer remember all that we did obviously, so I'll just be sharing the pictures I took. Anyhow, every day was spent playing on the snow.
One thing about snow- it looks very beautiful indeed. But it is also very cold, so if you don't have the proper clothing, you can get frostbite in a matter of hours, or even worse, death. So I had thermal underwear on, plus an outer cloth, plus the winter jacket. Regular shoes cannot be worn, as the ice can be very slippery. Falling and slipping on ice could be fatal as well.
My usual get up in the snow looks like this. The shoes should have soles that provide grip, otherwise you could fall and get injured really bad. Inside the house is heated, so you can wear regular clothes, but when you go outside you have to bundle up.
This is the area just outside our rental house, and of course we monkeyed around taking loads of pictures in the process.
We also played snow ball fights and became like kids again. Such fun! We also did some sledding. I did not ski since I didn't know how, and although my companions encouraged me to take lessons, I did not because I was embarrassed, as my classmates would have been children, ha ha ha!
Basically, every where you turn is covered in snow. If and when you walk, and the snow flakes land on your face, it's like getting caressed with ice- really cold. And sometimes I walked, just to feel the cold, and to experience snow while walking.
Every morning, trucks will go on the roads to sprinkle salt, to make it less slippery. It's a different kind of salt, of course, one made for this very purpose. :-) Main roads like this are insulated to prevent snow from accumulating on the surface.
These are the so-called trucks, and yes, the white thing inside that truck is salt. And they sprinkle it on the road. Winter wonderland. It's the small roads that get sprinkled with salt because they are not insulated.
This is the foot of the skiing area. As you can see beyond, there are several slopes. On the other side of the mountain is for snowboarding, and for people like me who don't ski, sledding, ha ha.
A snow sculpture near one of the hostels in the area. Food was relatively cheap there, although I did not take a lot of pictures of food. I was not interested then, I guess, because I did not know that I'd be blogging all about my travels. :-)
Snow, when fresh is powdery, so you don't get wet. You only get wet when it starts to melt. And apparently, each snowflake has a different shape. No two snowflakes are ever the same! So I just had to lie down on the snow and play angel wings by swishing my arms up and down. :-)
This is the roadside we pass by when we go to the ski area from our rental house. There is a free shuttle bus that takes skiers to and from the ski area, but people can also walk, provided they can brave the cold.
Which I did, one day, but I had to walk like this! Ha ha ha! It was cold when the snow hits your face, so I had to pull up my turtle neck shirt to cover my face and walk like a robber. See the snow accumulated on the hood of my jacket. Brrrrr!
By walking I got to do this, form a frozen heart, and take a picture of it! Ha ha! It was quite troublesome to keep putting on mittens and removing them when I had to take pictures. You just can't move around outside without them though. Your hands will freeze!
This is the area where we did sledding, and on the right side is a higher slope where the snow boarders were playing around.
Imagine living in conditions such as this, several feet of snow dumped on the ground every single day for almost six months! Ugh! It's good to just go for a few days, but living there? I guess it would get boring for me after some time.
There was also a mini zoo in the area and there were a few animals children can see and pet if they are brave enough. I felt bad for the animals though. It must have been very cold for them!
These are goats, and there were also some ducks which were huddled together. There was also a yak, and a lamb, but I could not find my pictures of them. Anf of course, several penguins.
Anothet shot of the skiing area. Cable cars take you up the top, and then you just ski down as fast or slow as you can, depending on how proficient you are at skiing.
This cute baby loved petting the penguin in the picture! :-) And the animals had their shelters in the snow by the way. Still, it must have been cold!
This is the road that goes along our rented house. If the snow plows do not come, the road will be almost impassable. It was just so beautiful looking at the whiteness of the surroundings, though. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Look at the snow on the cars. Imagine having to clear the snow from your car every morning so that you can go to work. It's very soft though, so it's easy to take it all off. Unless there's really a lot. Tedious, eh?
And of course, no trip to winterwonderland would be complete without building a snowman. You just roll some snow to the size you want, shape it, put in the nose, ears, mouth and arms, and voila! You have Olaf the snowman!
Nothing else but snow! Stores in the area take only cash, although some years have passed since then, maybe now they take credit cards. I remember us going into town to buy groceries so we could cook since we had a house, we filled up our cart with goodies, and when I handed in my credit card, the lady shook her head, and uttered something in Japanese. Someone who could speak English kindly told us that they only take cash! We had to walk several blocks to find an ATM to get some cash to pay for our purchases.
It's also very light as you can see. Since its powdery, it is very light. You just scoop it up and shape it any way you want.
This little river has not frozen totally. Imagine dipping your toes in the water! Ha ha ha!
Feet upon feet of snow. That's all you see. Really.
Look at the snow on the roof! Roofs are constructed in a shape where snow will automatically fall off in case too much accumulates. So one should be careful when standing under falling snow. You could get buried alive. :-)
The red color of the fruits of this tree made a good contrast to the snow so I took a picture.
This sums up my experience with snow, and hopefully, I will get to experience it again. Til next time!
For more travel articles, read here:
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