Crazy massive Japanese post of super awesome!! (conclusion)

Finally, here's the last bit of my Japan journal.

Festival

We left off with me and Dave being stuck in a bus station for an hour. Snow still steadily falling on the way down to Yamagata, we eventually made it with time to spare for the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. There was a guy at Yamagata station selling bento boxes by chanting, in a very low voice, "BENTOOOOOOOOOOO!!" It was almost hypnotic. Dave decided to buy a box for the train trip.

We met up with Luke at the airport and headed to Sapporo. The flight was, at times, bumpy, and a contingent of passengers actually clapped when we landed in Sapporo surrounded by snow. It's a bit amusing having people clap at planes landing safely - they don't clap when buses park safely or when trains stop. (Mind you, this was shortly after that well-covered emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York.) But anyway, we were safe and sound at cold Sapporo.

It started to snow hard soon after we checked in at our hotel and we ended up freezing at the Sapporo Snow Festival. The festival itself was great to see at night because of all the lit-up ice sculptures that were on show - and there were some impressive ones. At one of the larger sculptures there was a woman in a large bubble playing music while the multi-coloured lights kept up with the beat.

When we'd had enough of the cold, we went looking for a place to drink and ended up at a place called Rad Sisters. It looked a bit suspect going by the name, but the place was actually a decent hangout. That, and they had all you can drink until close (6am) for 2000 Yen (roughly the equivalent of 40 Australian dollars at the time). Dave made sure he got his money's worth, which came back to bite him in the ass - I woke up and found him sleeping on the floor of our hotel room. Evidently, he made it as far as the room and decided he couldn't go any further onto his bed at the far side of the room.

We had a late start because of the night before, but we made good progress thanks to the clear skies that welcomed us outside. We went ice skating near the Sapporo TV Tower then had a look at the Snow Festival sculptures in the sunlight. I was briefly separated from Luke and Dave when I went around taking photos but we eventually ran into each other again and went on to do some cross-country skiing at a very short loop designed to give people a trial of the sport.

After it started snowing again, we walked around looking for things to do and eventually ended up at a shopping mall. We at at this place called Pepper Lunch where you order your meal from a vending machine (though the meal doesn't actually come from the vending machine - just a ticket) and they chuck the ingredients onto a hotplate for you to cook. It was good, although the hotplate's heat dissipated perhaps a bit too quickly.

There was a big air jump at the Snow Festival area that Luke and Dave went to check out but they either missed it or it wasn't on. Instead, they ran into some impromptu dancing in the streets. I, for one, was glad that I stayed back at the hotel instead of freezing to death for a second night in a row. Besides, the next day was Niseko.

Niseko - Japan's Australia

I'd heard that Niseko was a resort full of Australians. It wasn't surprising to hear, really - a lot of resorts I've been to around the world have been full of Australians (and foreigners in general) either working or visiting. Still, it was a bit disappointing to see that it was true. Because it was a popular resort, the hills were full of people and any new powder was ripped up by early afternoon. Despite that, it was a decent collection of ski hills (Niseko United consisted of four interconnected ski areas) and I got my money's worth for the time we were there.

The fog was a lot more prominent in Niseko than it was in our previous week of snowboarding and even when it cleared up for a small moment, it came back with a vengeance later on. A good example of this was on our third day. I decided to climb up to the peak of Niseko in search of some fresh lines. It was clear when I began the climb but as soon as I reached the peak a thick cover of fog rolled in. There was a little hut at the peak - empty but for a few benches and the ice building up on its walls - where all of the pilgrims of the peak huddled together and waited out the fog. Eventually, I tagged along with a group of other people (I didn't want to brave the bad visibility alone) and headed down. The climb, it turned out, was well worth it, but it was still not as untracked near the bottom as I would have hoped.

I went snowboarding at night for the first time at Annupuri, one of the ski areas, and it was an interesting experience. On the one hand, you had a lot of space to move around because of the lack of other people on the hill. On the other hand, your face froze because of the cold (and your eyes, too, if you wanted to see better and had your goggles off). It was a decent area to do night boarding due to its easy tree runs, but I had no desire to keep going for too long as the area that was lit up was repetitive.

Dave and Luke kept going until late and we ended up eating at a place (that was about to close) called Paul's that served good food and Belgian beers. It was sad that it was the best place we ate at in a Japanese town (in my opinion - Dave apparently had some good sushi at some other place the night before). The first place we ate at was an okonomiyaki place that was run by Australians (and didn't have very good amounts of batter), and the last place we ate was a steak place that charged too much.

We didn't really get a good taste of the night life, either. Because of the snowboarding and because of our hostel's lockout time of midnight, the most we experienced of Niseko's night life was watching the Australia vs Japan World Cup Qualifier at a bar two doors down from the hostel. (It was a match that Japan should have won but ended in a draw.) That, and random people outside in the early hours of the morning waking us up by yelling things like, "DO A BACKFLIP!"

Rusutsu

We had a spare day at Niseko and, because of money and weather concerns, we ended up forgoing plans to do cat skiing in favour of heading to Rusutsu, a resort roughly an hour away.

Stepping into the lobby of the building (which looked like a hotel) at the base of the resort was like stepping back in time. It was the '80s again. The first thing we saw was a merry-go-round that reminded me of a scene from American Gods. Nearby was a giant fake tree that resembled a face and talked when you pressed a button under it. There was also a penny arcade in the area and a frozen-over theme park outside. It was really bizarre. The resort even used paper lift tickets and actual ticket checkers instead of the magnetic cards and gates that we had gotten used to.

The resort had three ski areas (and three peaks) and a fairly reasonable amount of terrain. The mountain at the entrance seemed pretty bland and was filled with learners and competitors of some sort but the other two were pretty good. Despite the flat light, windy conditions, fog, and the rain at the end of the day, I had what was one of the best days of snowboarding of the trip. You could still find a good amount of powder if you went deep enough into the trees, and that's where I stayed for most of the day.

The day was topped off by going on the merry-go-round (for free) and seeing a crazy lady yelling at random people in the lobby as we waited for our bus back to Niseko.

Finale...?

Friday the 13th was interpreted as the bringer of doom and catalyst of bad luck. On that day, which was our day in Rusutsu, Luke almost broke his hand. The next day, Dave lost his camera. The day after that, our flight got cancelled. Bad things come in threes, after all. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The night of that Friday was a night that was much warmer than all the others that we had spent in the snow. When we woke up the next day, it was raining at Niseko. People went out to ski or snowboard but came back within an hour or two after realising that the conditions were atrocious. We went out for a short walk and Dave stepped into a cold puddle. I took that as a sign to go back and relax at the hostel while we waited for the bus to the airport.

Halfway through the bus ride, Dave realised that he didn't have his camera with him. He scrambled through his things but couldn't find it. He eventually conceded that he may have lost it at the hostel or it was stolen at the welcome centre where we waited for the bus, and did his best at filing a police report at the airport.

We landed in Tokyo and went to Roppongi for our last night out. We stayed out until about 5:30, mostly because it was when the clubs closed and when the trains began to run again. Luke and I went back to the hostel afterwards while Dave stumbled on and eventually got back at around 8, two hours before check-out time.

Our last day in Japan was spent taking random photos at the Imperial Palace, looking for souvenir samurai swords, revisiting Harajuku, and getting our flight cancelled.

We got to the airport after an hour or so of train travel only to find out that we needed to go back from whence we came (i.e. Tokyo station) to catch a Shinkansen to Osaka because our delayed flight had been redirected to Kansai airport thanks to Narita's curfew. On the plus side, the bus transfers were free, we will be (supposedly) refunded for our Shinkansen tickets, and the Shinkansen we rode on was the fastest one they made. It was pretty sweet speeding past sleeping towns on the way to Osaka. Alas, we didn't get a chance to see Osaka as we headed straight to the airport to catch our plane.

When we got to Cairns, we were told that we'd been put on the next Qantas flight to Sydney. Unfortunately, when we got to the Qantas counter, we were told that they hadn't been sent our names and that it was too late to put us on the flight. Angry at this, we decided to spend some time in Cairns instead of waiting around at the airport for a few hours to catch the next flight.

After more than 24 hours of being in transit, we eventually made it back to Sydney 8 hours later than we were meant to get back. It was a very long Friday the 13th.

Japan (part 3) overview

Days spent: Almost 9
Mountains climbed: 1
Cameras lost: 1
Planes missed: 3

Photos

Are now up here.