delicious, isn't it?

おいしいですね | oishii desu ne | delicious, isn't it?

Nigel Abbott of Hanazono Powder TV reviews the Nihonbashi restaurant in Kutchan. A welcome addition to the snow reports.



Kutchan access is very easy using the free Night-Go bus that departs from a bus stop very close to the Niseko Club lodge.

snowfall & snow depths

Some number crunching and charting illustrates the snowfall and snow depth in Niseko so far this season.

The cumulative snowfall since the official season opening has been 9.9 metres (or for those non-metric folk, about 33 ft).

Data is derived from snowjapan.com reports, with the snow depth as measured at the top of Hirafu.

plenty of snow

Midway through the peak season in Niseko, the snowfall for January has been recorded as 'above the average'.  Fresh snow has been  falling consistently in the resort throughout the month. There are still some vacant rooms at the lodge in February plus there should be plenty of space (and snow) for those who want to take advantage of the great discounts available in March.

spare a thought

The incredible abundance of snow that the Niseko resort has been receiving during this season continues to surprise even many of the locals.  While this much snow is always glorious when it is falling on the hill, it sometimes presents some interesting challenges for the lodge.

exchange rates

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) this week released a country forecast summary for Australia.  Included in the material was a forecast for the AUD/JPY exchange rate (see the first column expressed as A$:¥100).  Inverting this relationship provides some forecast ¥:A$ exchange rate averages.  Of course these are all forecast averages for the respective years and the AUD trading today at 85 JPY seems to be reasonable value (albeit well below the 105 JPY when the Niseko Club lodge was acquired in mid-2007).

	A$:¥100(av)	¥:A$(av)
2009	1.37	73
2010	1.26	79
2011	1.17	85
2012	1.19	84
2013	1.21	83
2014	1.22	82

fluffy stuff

The fluffy stuff pictured was recently on sale at the nearby Rusutsu resort.  Plenty of that other 'fluffy stuff', powder snow, has been falling steadily in Niseko over the past few days, with more forecast.

sapporo snow festival

When: February 5th - 11th, 2010
Where: Odori Park, Susukino, and other places in Sapporo City, Hokkaido.

Since its beginning with a mere six snow statue displays in 1950, this winter the 61st Sapporo Snow Festival will be held in February, 2010.  Hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures will line 1.5 km Odori Park and other sites around the city.  At Odori Park, you can see gigantic statues and statues made by individual citizens of Sapporo, as well as statues made by people from overseas.  All of such art works, made only with white snow and crystal-clear ice, are impressively large and sophisticated. It is a representative Japanese winter festival, attracting more than 2 million people every year.

More information here.

[Source JAL]

cool climate concerts

Writing in today's Melbourne 'Herald Sun' Simon Plant reports on the Australian Chamber Orchestra's Niseko tour starting this Friday:

Packing his winter togs

We know he's a surfing nut but Richard Tognetti (right) is an avid skier as well.

"I love winter," says the artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, "so anything that gets me into a cold climate, the happier I am."

Imagine Tognetti's delight, then, when the ACO got the go-ahead to perform three concerts in Japan. In winter. At a ski resort.

Niseko on Hokkaido in Japan's north is one of the world's great ski destinations and Niseko Village is where the ACO will launch the inaugural Niseko Winter Music Festival on January 15.

"I couldn't think of anything better than ski-ing all day, then attending a concert in the evening," Tognetti says.  The ACO is no stranger to Japan, having played in Tokyo in 2008.

"I was keen to showcase the ACO in Japan again," Tognetti says, "but not just fly into a big city and do a one-night stand. I wanted to find an interesting venue."

Tognetti also sought Japanese talent: acclaimed harpist Naoko Yoshino and "one of the best taiko drumming troupes in Japan".

"Japan is an incredibly cultured place," he says. "I thought, wouldn't it be great to do something that showed we weren't just a bunch of sporting yobbos? So I talked to some Japanese people about it and they were intrigued."

Tognetti, armed with his "impossibly precious" Guarneri del Gesu violin, will be joined in Niseko by half a dozen ACO members to play Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Grieg's Holberg Suite and Piazzolla's Contrabajissimo.

"If this festival works well, we'll do it again," Tognetti says.

Will there be time for downhill racing?

"Sure. But if I just wanted to go ski-ing in Japan, that's what I'd do. I wouldn't go and put three concerts on there."

 More information here.

akemashite omedetou gozaimasu

Happy New Year / あけましておめでとうございます.  New Year's Eve had some remarkable night skiing conditions in the Hirafu area and the snow storm (fubuki) has just kept coming.  The powder snow now falling in Niseko is of such quality that in the words of a junior AAC member now staying at the lodge “if [Australian alpine resort] ever had snow this good they would probably put in a bottle and erect a shrine around it.”


This morning at 10am there was a ceremonial cracking of a sake cask at the King Bell restaurant on the mountain.  Sake at that hour was clearly not too early on New Year's Day for those present.

train to niseko

An alternative to air travel to Niseko (via New Chitose airport and two hour bus transfer) is to use the excellent Japanese railway system.  The bonus is the experience of using the shinkanzen [bullet train] from Tokyo to Hachinhoe in northern Honshu and seeing plenty of Japan along the way.  From Hachinhoe there is a connecting limited express train service that travels through the 53 km Seikan Tunnel beneath the Tsugaru Channel that separates Honshu and Hokkaido.  The limited express train service travels to Oshamanbe, from where a single carriage train, similar in some ways to a Melbourne tram, travels the final few kilometres to Kutchan station (take care not to disembark at the stations called 'Niseko' and 'Hirafu' which are actually some distance from the the Niseko resort).  An example route departs from Tokyo station at 8:56am, arriving in Kutchan at 7:19pm.  Trip planning can be done through the excellent Hyperdia website (switch off air travel options).

booking status 3 (09/10)

Current booking status at the lodge for 2009/10 winter season at the date of posting is charted here. This is intended as a rough guide and is subject to change due to new bookings or cancellations.

Please e-mail the booking agents at Outdoor Travel Japan for the exact booking situation.  Commercial booking enquiries can also be made through SnowJapan.com.

hanazono tv

Samara Tanton (often seen at Falls Creek in company with Pete the Snow Dragon) and Haruka Ito deliver a clever bilingual Hanazono TV Daily Powder Report on conditions in that part of the Niseko resort.

exchange matters

The best Yen exchange rates for the Australian dollar currently appear to be through the firm KVB Kunlun which has local offices in Melbourne and Sydney.  On 14 December they were retailing JPY at the rate of 80 per AUD, compared with a rate of around 77.5 at the major banks and other foreign exchange vendors. You should contact them directly in order to obtain an over-the-counter quote and the simplest transactions are cash-for-cash. More details here.