Japan - a few tips and handy links for first timers
Japan is so close for us from Cairns, one 7.5 hour direct flight to either Tokyo or Osaka and just like that, BAM you are in a different world!
The last time I went I didn't take my camera gear, just did all photography on my iPhone, as I needed to take a holiday from the Canon and its heavy mates! Some places I had to keep the phone in an inside pocket as it would get too cold and shut down.
It was great not having to lug it all around but I know the photos are average in comparison.
Usually I take a diverse lens like the 24-70mm and one other eg 100mm or a wide.
If I was going over there just to photograph, I would definitely take the 70-200, but it is soo HEAVY!!
Anyway this blurb is more about other stuff rather than photography, for first time japan travellers, as I get asked all the time and I forget stuff, so I sat down and wrote some words - of hopefully helpful stuff.
We usually fly into Tokyo or Osaka, spend a few days sightseeing, and then head up to Hokkaido to ski. We have skied on Honshu but it's not quite as cold as the north island and have had a few icy days, which is no fun. There is always heaps of snow, but if you get a few sunny days in a row, with thousands of skiers compacting the snow, then you get ice and mush. Hokkaido is generally too cold for ice to form, so the snow stays a nice powdery, fluffy deliciousness. With that in mind, if you have little kids with you I would suggest Honshu for skiing, as it may be too cold for them up north.
The first time we went we froze, as we had Australian standard clothing, NOT GOOD! Once we had all the warmer gear, we enjoyed it so much more. Doesn't matter where you are, if you are cold and uncomfortable, it won't be fun.
So Tokyo or Osaka?
We prefer Osaka as there is more to do in the area and Osaka is a good base.
Tokyo is good for eating and shopping, and Disney if you have little ones.
Osaka has more of a range of things to do and you can do day trips to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Nara, and Kyosan.
Either one, tips for accommodation: stay out of the CBD areas, but on a train line. If you can score a place on the Loop lines then that's even better as this is the main line that all side trips depart from.
In Osaka we stayed at the Hotel Monterey La Souer in Kyobashi, which is across the road with an adjoining skybridge to the train station, AND on the Loop line. VERY handy.
It was also close to Osaka Castle and had a 7/11 on the ground floor.
7/11's or quickie marts are everywhere and a great place to grab a quick breakie of baked goods and save you some $ as the hotel breakies are usually pricy. They also do coffee and hot meals. Good coffee is hard to find. Starbucks are OK but nothing like what we can get at home.
Most restaurants have the menu out front and in english OR they have pictures of the food or little plastic models of what the plates look like in the shop window.
Back to accommodation... booking.com has been great for us with no problems. It allows you to cancel up to 2 days before usually, and you don't have to pay until arrival.
It's also great for searching accommodation using the maps to filter on locations near stations.
The rooms are typically very small. A double bed is more like our king single. Unless you pay big $ for the room, the beds will be hard, and the pillows weird! They put a rice bag or something in them, so BYO pillow is recommended, if you have a favourite and are fussy with pillows.
I take a little travel pillow, which is a small kids pillow so it doesn't take up much room.
Getting around. Travelling on trains with luggage in tow is super annoying. If you can, avoid doing this at peak times of the day. Note their peak hour is more like peak 2 hours morning and night. Also make sure if you are tripping to the airport, that the train isn't one that breaks up at a certain station and only the front half continues on to the airport. Yep, we've done this and had to leg it from carriage to carriage before it separated and left the station. Was funny afterwards, but not at the time.
Rail passes are excellent. You have to buy them online before you leave Oz. They don't cover subway lines, only JR and most bullet trains. They are easy to use and you don't waste time at the ticket booths every time you travel, just flash your pass at the manned gates. The only annoying thing about them is you have to convert the voucher you get in the mail to a pass once you arrive in Japan. There are offices at main stations where you can do this but if you wish to use it straight away you have to go to the exchange office at the airport and it is ALWAYS busy, queues for miles and the crazy thing is its all manually done. It takes forever! So tip: if you are tired or have little ones with you, do this the next day and just pay your fares separately to get to your motel from the airport.
Plan your day trips and allow for conditions to change your plans. eg snow can stop trains and planes from running on time. Always good to have a back up plan in place. This has only happened to us once in all our trips. There are great apps and websites to use for planning such as www.hyperdia.com where you can put in start and end destinations and find routes to get there. Google maps is brilliant, we would be lost without this.
If you are doing a long trip eg Osaka to Hiroshima I would book the seats the day before. It doesn't cost anything with the rail pass but is convenient.
Don't try to fit too much in in one day.
Theres is always heaps of walking to do. Even when you think you won't be walking much as you are catching trains, you still end up doing heaps of walking. Even just within stations, especially the bigger stations and platforms are away apart and not every platform has escalators, be prepared for loads of stairs! This is why its a good idea to try and get accommodation as close to a station as possible as it is SOOOO good to come up from a station, after walking all day, and there's your hotel across the road!
Take cash: good for vending machines and temple admissions. You end up with pockets full of coins so vending machines are a great way to offload some of this.
Also, take neurofen/panadol as Japanese medicine isn't as strong.
Tokyo
Some things I can recommend:
Tokyo Dome City - good for all ages of kids and us older kids, go at night for all the cool light installations.
Harajuku - crazy fashions and street happenings, also known for its amazing crepe vendors. You will find lots of street vendors selling steamed dumplings etc just about everywhere.
Also close to Meiji Shrine - a nice break from shops and crowds, a beautiful path of cedar lined trees leads you to the main shrine, a bit of a walk but worth it.
Mt Fuji - good day trip, went up the ropeway for a nice view of the mountain and its surrounding towns and lakes. A river cruise here would be nice but we ran out of time. We spent hours getting over to the ice caves, but they were very disappointing.
Imperial Palace Gardens - huge, so lots of walking, again.
Shopping - animae districts like Akihabara are cool to go to, as its very different to our shops great to do late afternoon and just as all the neon lights come on.
Osaka
Some things I can recommend:
Universal Studios - get fast passes prior to leaving home, some travel agents sell them. At peak times you may not get into some places eg Harry Potter World, unless you have a prior booked time and fast pass. Its pricey, but if you are a potter fan, so worthwhile!
Osaka Castle - good to go late afternoon, do the inside tour, and then have dinner at the many market stalls at the base of the castle and watch the castle transition into night. One of my favourite castles in Japan.
Koyasan - Possibly one of the most amazing places on this earth!! Hard route to get to but so amazingly unique and dripping in culture. It took me 3 hours each way as a typhoon had taken out part of the railway and we had to bus up, but it was worth the effort. I will go back and stay overnight next time.
Umeda Sky Tower - after a trip to the top make sure you visit the basement reenactment of Old Tokyo with its narrow laneways and wooden shopfronts.
Kyoto
- Bamboo Forest at Arashiyama
- Torii Gates at Fushimi
- Nijo Castle
- Gion - go late afternoon/ early evening
- Philosophers Path
Nara - Giant Buddha, numerous temples, deer roaming the streets (be careful they pester you for food - a lot)
Hiroshima - not to be missed, but allow at least half a day or more.
Miyajima Island - good to do after Hiroshima, would love to go back here and stay for a few days, huge torii gates in the ocean, amazing vivid orange temples, chairlift up the mountain to many other temples and shrines. The deer are much friendlier here than Nara.
One other place we spent a few days in last trip was Matsumoto.
It is on the way to Nagano from Osaka, and mostly known for its castle which you can tour. I really liked this place, plenty of little market stalls and cute book shops where you could sit down and read and order coffee or whiskey. Perfect on a cold winters day.
Skiing Tips
We have found if you leave your trip to later in the season, its way cheaper, not only to get there but also accommodation. So late Jan, Feb, March or even early April (for Hokkaido). It is busiest at New Year and the first week of January. We have been at that time and will never go then again. The queues and amount of people travelling is overwhelming.
I have booked trips personally and I have booked with agents. I highly recommend ski japan.com to organise your trip if you are planning to go to one of their managed resorts. They can organise the entire trip for you. You don't save money by doing it all yourself. Skijapan have been very easy to deal with and you can pay in Australian dollars. Also their website is fantastic! Theres a lot of other agents that can learn a lot from these guys.
We have tried 4 different places to ski now, two in Hokkaido (Niseko and Furano) and the other two in Honshu (Nozawa Onsen and Tsugaike Kogen) both west of Nagano.
Niseko
One of the biggest and busiest resorts in Japan, and you will see people from Cairns there, heaps of them in fact. We have visited 4 times now. This is a great place to go if you want to do stuff other than skiing all the time.
A couple of our houses we have stayed at; Neyuki and Genji & Musashi
I have done a professional photo tour with Glen Claydon, which was fantastic.
Hubby has done a snowmobiling day tour with the boys which they all were buzzing about for days! They gave it 10/10. It was hard trying to find a company that did proper tours, not just kids machines around a paddock a couple of times. They ended up using black diamond tours www.blackdiamondtours.com - they come highly recommended.
There are other snowmobiling tours for kids around the place, especially at Hanazono.
There are heaps of classes to do like calligraphy, cooking groups etc.
We did a day trip to Otaru once, caught the train from Kutchan, and spent the day checking out quirky museums, glass blowing, breweries and little gift shops. Otaru is on the northern coast of Hokkaido so you can see snow right up to the beaches. It was still very cold walking around the streets, so take your thermals.
Kutchan is only a 15min bus trip from Niseko. Good to go for an afternoon shopping, stock up on groceries or warmer clothes. There is at least one good ski shop there. Also good for restaurants and bars.
Niseko has plenty of variety for eating out. From the street vendors selling takeaways, to Italian pizza kitchens, to traditional japanese style. If you are not keen on Japanese food you definitely won't starve. Theres also heaps of great wine bars, cocktail bars and burger joints. Most of these have pool tables and dart boards. We had a few favourites but over the years they change hands/names and become other things.
Sapporo is good for a day trip as well. They have a huge ice festival there every February for a week or so. Most of the shopping is underground, so its nice and toasty.
As for the skiing at Niseko, I don't think the main front valley is the best. We preferred Annapuri on the west side of the mountain simply because it was less crowded and had better runs for our ability (beginner to intermediate).
Night skiing, we love! Three reasons: you can actually see the contours of the snow better as there is no glare from the sun, so easier to see where you are going.
Less people, so no lift queues ever
No beginners out, so no one to run into you and no learner groups blocking runs.
It is colder at night, but remember its dark by 4.30, and we would just stay out until about 7 or 8. Most night skiing goes to 9pm.
In general we learnt to be out skiing when everyone was usually having lunch and dinner. We would eat when they all came out on the slopes. We usually started late in the day, especially if we were doing night skiing.
Another good area is Hygashiama area near the Hilton. Theres some good forest runs and harder runs higher up.
Layer! Always take more clothes than you need, as you can always strip thermals off and pocket them. If you are cold you won't have any fun. Be aware of little kids hands and feet as they can coldest first, and always put a beanie on your head for your ears. Its generally around minus 10 and minus 15 at night.
Furano
We just love the ski runs here, perfect for our ability and some nice pretty forest runs.
This is where we saw "diamond dust" whilst riding the chairlift up one morning, it was just beautiful.
We stayed right on the snow next to the lifts, at the New Prince Hotel. Not a fan of staying in hotels for ski trips, but not a lot of options here for large houses. The great thing about the hotel was the convenience to get to the lifts, ski hire was downstairs, and they had brilliant ski lockers to store your gear. You walked out the back of the hotel and along the flat for about 40-50m and you were at a lift. You could actually plank ski to it.
There is also the Prince hotel, not to be confused with the New Prince. The Prince is much older, but also has a brilliant ski in/ski out location. It also looked liked it had a great lobby bar downstairs which our hotel lacked. We managed to find bars and restaurants scattered about but we had to catch the free bus from our hotel to get to them. A lot of the farmers that can't work during the winter convert their houses into little restaurants for the winter, so they welcome you in and you sit in their downstairs living area while they happily cook you dinner.
We had some awesome meals here.
The hotel had restaurants but we found them expensive and limited.
From Furano you can do some great day trips.
Biei Blue Pond is highly recommended to visit at night, you can do a tour from Biei.
Furano is famous for its wine and cheese, so theres also a few places to go tasting.
There was a great kids set up next door to the hotel with slides and ice houses, which us bigger kids enjoyed. There is also the cutest little chalets spread throughout the forest just below the hotel.
These little wooden chalets open up from around lunchtime until late at night selling unique handmade items: jewellery, little wooden figurines, souvenirs etc.
It was a very beautiful place to walk around at night.
There was also a great stone building hidden in the forest called Cafe Mori No which served the most amazing soups and crusty bread.
We had dinner there a few times.
Nozawa Onsen
Had our most recent trip here, January 2018. It was different to all other places but I probably won't return. The whole village is built on a very steep hillside. We stayed in an amazing house closest to the lifts, there's a chair lift literally across the road (the road which is also a ski run so you can ski right to the door).
It was called Kamoshika Lodge and we booked it through nozawa holidays. www.nozawaholidays.com
The house was also about 30m to the "Craft Room", which became our regular hang out. They did a few meals, sometimes had live music, and the place was always rocking no matter what time of day you went. It was like the Tardis - tiny but always seemed to fit you in. They also did great breakfasts and "pirate coffee", coffee with a nip of something extra :)
The Neo Bar, which was also close to the house was great as well, good food and vibes, but you need to book here as it is very popular.
The onslope restaurants were really good, plenty of them and great food at reasonable prices.
We found the ski runs here either too easy or too hard, not a lot of in-between ones. Got stuck on some hard narrow ones one afternoon, it was major hard work to get down. They were classed as intermediate but should have been black runs.
The towns onsens were plentiful and are hotter temps higher up the hill.
They are all free and basically just have privacy buildings built around them. No one mans them so you are often the only one in there. They are great for sore muscles, so I was having them daily.
Adding our most recent review to Tomamu February 2019
January 29th we arrived at the Towers Hoshino Resorts Tomamu in Hokkaido.
I don't know if it was because we didn't have 20 other people to look out for or whether it was just because we didn't have our kids with us this time, but this would have to be our best trip yet.
The rooms were spacious enough, with a nice little bay window to sit on and look out at the ski slopes and rest of village below. The towers are connected to dining halls, where you have several options to choose from for breakfast (awesome french toast), via covered walkways, though they are not heated but you can easily get around without tramping through snow.
We possibly had the coldest temps we have experienced to date as well. Most days were around minus 8-10. One morning was minus 18 degrees C.
The new Hotalu Street was my favourite. You can ski into it during the day and pop your skis off for a hot chocolate, then continue on your way. At night it comes alive offering a great variety of restaurants from italian, a steakhouse, soup curry house, burger cafe, sushi rolls bar, and some awesome place that just had melted cheese on everything. There are some fire pits scattered around the area that get lit up from late afternoon which really add to the ambience.
There was another place we ate at on our final night, right out jutting into the forest, Ninnupuri Dining Hall, a buffet style, but AMAZING food. We had to roll back to our rooms after second and third helpings!
There was also some outdoors activities such as snow rafting and snowmobiling. Mina Mina wave pool was a short free shuttle ride from the towers and offered something for everyone with a massive 80x30m heated wave pool complete with floating pool toys, warmer spas around the edges, a bar and cafe and if you wanted something hotter, an outdoor onsen on the edge of the forrest.
There was also the Ice Village to visit at night with igloos selling alcohol and souvenirs plus an outdoor ice skating rink.
As for the skiing, excellent! The blue runs here were fantastic, nice and wide with plenty of tree run options for those mad boarders. There wasn't a huge amount but perfect for 5-6 days. Some runs got groomed in the middle of the day!!! The off piste system was brilliant. Our friend travelling with us did this - applied online the night before, got a sleeve pass at the ticket office and signed a waiver saying he would return the pass by 3pm that day. If he doesn't hand it in by then they send out a very expensive search party. He also said it was THE BEST off piste powder and boarding he has ever done.
They had a rental store on the ground floor and lockers for storage. When you finished skiing for the day/night you handed your skis into a storageroom area out near the lifts, which we thought would be annoying, but it was actually really good. No need to cart them back inside and into your lockers. The queues for lifts were non existent, and sometimes you would be the only person on a run, so crowding was not a problem.
Would highly recommend this place.
Asahikawa
A 3 night stopover on the way back from Tomamu to Sapporo.
Nice to spend a few days wondering around snow covered parks and temples, but also good to do some city shopping. Stayed at the Hoshino Resort OMO7 which had reasonably comfortable beds and moderately sized rooms for japanese standards. The best thing was the bar down in the lobby area, with great bar snacks and ambience.
Sapporo Snow Festival
Ticked off a bucket list item here, but was a little disappointed. The Otori Park sculptures were the highlight, with some massive sculptures, live dancing and singing, a massive snowboard ramp with expert boarders doing their stuff and plenty of food vendors selling all sorts of stuff. There was also an ice skating rink and plenty of free rest spots with tables and chairs and heaters to sit around.
There is also the Susukino Ice sculptures in Susukino, a short subway ride away, which I would recommend viewing at night since they are in the middle of a street and they don't close the street off to traffic until dark. Most of these stand 7-8 foot high.
The third part is Tsudome Park which is more for the kids, though we had fun in the interactive section of the dome with virtual reality hockey and luge, some curling, and snowball throwing.
The last time I went I didn't take my camera gear, just did all photography on my iPhone, as I needed to take a holiday from the Canon and its heavy mates! Some places I had to keep the phone in an inside pocket as it would get too cold and shut down.
It was great not having to lug it all around but I know the photos are average in comparison.
Usually I take a diverse lens like the 24-70mm and one other eg 100mm or a wide.
If I was going over there just to photograph, I would definitely take the 70-200, but it is soo HEAVY!!
Anyway this blurb is more about other stuff rather than photography, for first time japan travellers, as I get asked all the time and I forget stuff, so I sat down and wrote some words - of hopefully helpful stuff.
We usually fly into Tokyo or Osaka, spend a few days sightseeing, and then head up to Hokkaido to ski. We have skied on Honshu but it's not quite as cold as the north island and have had a few icy days, which is no fun. There is always heaps of snow, but if you get a few sunny days in a row, with thousands of skiers compacting the snow, then you get ice and mush. Hokkaido is generally too cold for ice to form, so the snow stays a nice powdery, fluffy deliciousness. With that in mind, if you have little kids with you I would suggest Honshu for skiing, as it may be too cold for them up north.
The first time we went we froze, as we had Australian standard clothing, NOT GOOD! Once we had all the warmer gear, we enjoyed it so much more. Doesn't matter where you are, if you are cold and uncomfortable, it won't be fun.
So Tokyo or Osaka?
We prefer Osaka as there is more to do in the area and Osaka is a good base.
Tokyo is good for eating and shopping, and Disney if you have little ones.
Osaka has more of a range of things to do and you can do day trips to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Nara, and Kyosan.
Either one, tips for accommodation: stay out of the CBD areas, but on a train line. If you can score a place on the Loop lines then that's even better as this is the main line that all side trips depart from.
In Osaka we stayed at the Hotel Monterey La Souer in Kyobashi, which is across the road with an adjoining skybridge to the train station, AND on the Loop line. VERY handy.
It was also close to Osaka Castle and had a 7/11 on the ground floor.
7/11's or quickie marts are everywhere and a great place to grab a quick breakie of baked goods and save you some $ as the hotel breakies are usually pricy. They also do coffee and hot meals. Good coffee is hard to find. Starbucks are OK but nothing like what we can get at home.
Most restaurants have the menu out front and in english OR they have pictures of the food or little plastic models of what the plates look like in the shop window.
Back to accommodation... booking.com has been great for us with no problems. It allows you to cancel up to 2 days before usually, and you don't have to pay until arrival.
It's also great for searching accommodation using the maps to filter on locations near stations.
The rooms are typically very small. A double bed is more like our king single. Unless you pay big $ for the room, the beds will be hard, and the pillows weird! They put a rice bag or something in them, so BYO pillow is recommended, if you have a favourite and are fussy with pillows.
I take a little travel pillow, which is a small kids pillow so it doesn't take up much room.
Getting around. Travelling on trains with luggage in tow is super annoying. If you can, avoid doing this at peak times of the day. Note their peak hour is more like peak 2 hours morning and night. Also make sure if you are tripping to the airport, that the train isn't one that breaks up at a certain station and only the front half continues on to the airport. Yep, we've done this and had to leg it from carriage to carriage before it separated and left the station. Was funny afterwards, but not at the time.
Rail passes are excellent. You have to buy them online before you leave Oz. They don't cover subway lines, only JR and most bullet trains. They are easy to use and you don't waste time at the ticket booths every time you travel, just flash your pass at the manned gates. The only annoying thing about them is you have to convert the voucher you get in the mail to a pass once you arrive in Japan. There are offices at main stations where you can do this but if you wish to use it straight away you have to go to the exchange office at the airport and it is ALWAYS busy, queues for miles and the crazy thing is its all manually done. It takes forever! So tip: if you are tired or have little ones with you, do this the next day and just pay your fares separately to get to your motel from the airport.
Plan your day trips and allow for conditions to change your plans. eg snow can stop trains and planes from running on time. Always good to have a back up plan in place. This has only happened to us once in all our trips. There are great apps and websites to use for planning such as www.hyperdia.com where you can put in start and end destinations and find routes to get there. Google maps is brilliant, we would be lost without this.
If you are doing a long trip eg Osaka to Hiroshima I would book the seats the day before. It doesn't cost anything with the rail pass but is convenient.
Don't try to fit too much in in one day.
Theres is always heaps of walking to do. Even when you think you won't be walking much as you are catching trains, you still end up doing heaps of walking. Even just within stations, especially the bigger stations and platforms are away apart and not every platform has escalators, be prepared for loads of stairs! This is why its a good idea to try and get accommodation as close to a station as possible as it is SOOOO good to come up from a station, after walking all day, and there's your hotel across the road!
Take cash: good for vending machines and temple admissions. You end up with pockets full of coins so vending machines are a great way to offload some of this.
Also, take neurofen/panadol as Japanese medicine isn't as strong.
Tokyo
Some things I can recommend:
Tokyo Dome City - good for all ages of kids and us older kids, go at night for all the cool light installations.
Harajuku - crazy fashions and street happenings, also known for its amazing crepe vendors. You will find lots of street vendors selling steamed dumplings etc just about everywhere.
Also close to Meiji Shrine - a nice break from shops and crowds, a beautiful path of cedar lined trees leads you to the main shrine, a bit of a walk but worth it.
Mt Fuji - good day trip, went up the ropeway for a nice view of the mountain and its surrounding towns and lakes. A river cruise here would be nice but we ran out of time. We spent hours getting over to the ice caves, but they were very disappointing.
Imperial Palace Gardens - huge, so lots of walking, again.
Shopping - animae districts like Akihabara are cool to go to, as its very different to our shops great to do late afternoon and just as all the neon lights come on.
Osaka
Some things I can recommend:
Universal Studios - get fast passes prior to leaving home, some travel agents sell them. At peak times you may not get into some places eg Harry Potter World, unless you have a prior booked time and fast pass. Its pricey, but if you are a potter fan, so worthwhile!
Osaka Castle - good to go late afternoon, do the inside tour, and then have dinner at the many market stalls at the base of the castle and watch the castle transition into night. One of my favourite castles in Japan.
Umeda Sky Tower - after a trip to the top make sure you visit the basement reenactment of Old Tokyo with its narrow laneways and wooden shopfronts.
Kyoto
- Bamboo Forest at Arashiyama
- Torii Gates at Fushimi
- Nijo Castle
- Gion - go late afternoon/ early evening
- Philosophers Path
Nara - Giant Buddha, numerous temples, deer roaming the streets (be careful they pester you for food - a lot)
Hiroshima - not to be missed, but allow at least half a day or more.
Miyajima Island - good to do after Hiroshima, would love to go back here and stay for a few days, huge torii gates in the ocean, amazing vivid orange temples, chairlift up the mountain to many other temples and shrines. The deer are much friendlier here than Nara.
One other place we spent a few days in last trip was Matsumoto.
It is on the way to Nagano from Osaka, and mostly known for its castle which you can tour. I really liked this place, plenty of little market stalls and cute book shops where you could sit down and read and order coffee or whiskey. Perfect on a cold winters day.
Skiing Tips
We have found if you leave your trip to later in the season, its way cheaper, not only to get there but also accommodation. So late Jan, Feb, March or even early April (for Hokkaido). It is busiest at New Year and the first week of January. We have been at that time and will never go then again. The queues and amount of people travelling is overwhelming.
I have booked trips personally and I have booked with agents. I highly recommend ski japan.com to organise your trip if you are planning to go to one of their managed resorts. They can organise the entire trip for you. You don't save money by doing it all yourself. Skijapan have been very easy to deal with and you can pay in Australian dollars. Also their website is fantastic! Theres a lot of other agents that can learn a lot from these guys.
We have tried 4 different places to ski now, two in Hokkaido (Niseko and Furano) and the other two in Honshu (Nozawa Onsen and Tsugaike Kogen) both west of Nagano.
Niseko
One of the biggest and busiest resorts in Japan, and you will see people from Cairns there, heaps of them in fact. We have visited 4 times now. This is a great place to go if you want to do stuff other than skiing all the time.
A couple of our houses we have stayed at; Neyuki and Genji & Musashi
I have done a professional photo tour with Glen Claydon, which was fantastic.
Hubby has done a snowmobiling day tour with the boys which they all were buzzing about for days! They gave it 10/10. It was hard trying to find a company that did proper tours, not just kids machines around a paddock a couple of times. They ended up using black diamond tours www.blackdiamondtours.com - they come highly recommended.
There are other snowmobiling tours for kids around the place, especially at Hanazono.
There are heaps of classes to do like calligraphy, cooking groups etc.
We did a day trip to Otaru once, caught the train from Kutchan, and spent the day checking out quirky museums, glass blowing, breweries and little gift shops. Otaru is on the northern coast of Hokkaido so you can see snow right up to the beaches. It was still very cold walking around the streets, so take your thermals.
Kutchan is only a 15min bus trip from Niseko. Good to go for an afternoon shopping, stock up on groceries or warmer clothes. There is at least one good ski shop there. Also good for restaurants and bars.
Niseko has plenty of variety for eating out. From the street vendors selling takeaways, to Italian pizza kitchens, to traditional japanese style. If you are not keen on Japanese food you definitely won't starve. Theres also heaps of great wine bars, cocktail bars and burger joints. Most of these have pool tables and dart boards. We had a few favourites but over the years they change hands/names and become other things.
Sapporo is good for a day trip as well. They have a huge ice festival there every February for a week or so. Most of the shopping is underground, so its nice and toasty.
As for the skiing at Niseko, I don't think the main front valley is the best. We preferred Annapuri on the west side of the mountain simply because it was less crowded and had better runs for our ability (beginner to intermediate).
Night skiing, we love! Three reasons: you can actually see the contours of the snow better as there is no glare from the sun, so easier to see where you are going.
Less people, so no lift queues ever
No beginners out, so no one to run into you and no learner groups blocking runs.
It is colder at night, but remember its dark by 4.30, and we would just stay out until about 7 or 8. Most night skiing goes to 9pm.
In general we learnt to be out skiing when everyone was usually having lunch and dinner. We would eat when they all came out on the slopes. We usually started late in the day, especially if we were doing night skiing.
Another good area is Hygashiama area near the Hilton. Theres some good forest runs and harder runs higher up.
Layer! Always take more clothes than you need, as you can always strip thermals off and pocket them. If you are cold you won't have any fun. Be aware of little kids hands and feet as they can coldest first, and always put a beanie on your head for your ears. Its generally around minus 10 and minus 15 at night.
Furano
We just love the ski runs here, perfect for our ability and some nice pretty forest runs.
This is where we saw "diamond dust" whilst riding the chairlift up one morning, it was just beautiful.
We stayed right on the snow next to the lifts, at the New Prince Hotel. Not a fan of staying in hotels for ski trips, but not a lot of options here for large houses. The great thing about the hotel was the convenience to get to the lifts, ski hire was downstairs, and they had brilliant ski lockers to store your gear. You walked out the back of the hotel and along the flat for about 40-50m and you were at a lift. You could actually plank ski to it.
There is also the Prince hotel, not to be confused with the New Prince. The Prince is much older, but also has a brilliant ski in/ski out location. It also looked liked it had a great lobby bar downstairs which our hotel lacked. We managed to find bars and restaurants scattered about but we had to catch the free bus from our hotel to get to them. A lot of the farmers that can't work during the winter convert their houses into little restaurants for the winter, so they welcome you in and you sit in their downstairs living area while they happily cook you dinner.
We had some awesome meals here.
The hotel had restaurants but we found them expensive and limited.
From Furano you can do some great day trips.
Biei Blue Pond is highly recommended to visit at night, you can do a tour from Biei.
Furano is famous for its wine and cheese, so theres also a few places to go tasting.
There was a great kids set up next door to the hotel with slides and ice houses, which us bigger kids enjoyed. There is also the cutest little chalets spread throughout the forest just below the hotel.
These little wooden chalets open up from around lunchtime until late at night selling unique handmade items: jewellery, little wooden figurines, souvenirs etc.
It was a very beautiful place to walk around at night.
There was also a great stone building hidden in the forest called Cafe Mori No which served the most amazing soups and crusty bread.
We had dinner there a few times.
Nozawa Onsen
Had our most recent trip here, January 2018. It was different to all other places but I probably won't return. The whole village is built on a very steep hillside. We stayed in an amazing house closest to the lifts, there's a chair lift literally across the road (the road which is also a ski run so you can ski right to the door).
It was called Kamoshika Lodge and we booked it through nozawa holidays. www.nozawaholidays.com
The house was also about 30m to the "Craft Room", which became our regular hang out. They did a few meals, sometimes had live music, and the place was always rocking no matter what time of day you went. It was like the Tardis - tiny but always seemed to fit you in. They also did great breakfasts and "pirate coffee", coffee with a nip of something extra :)
The Neo Bar, which was also close to the house was great as well, good food and vibes, but you need to book here as it is very popular.
The onslope restaurants were really good, plenty of them and great food at reasonable prices.
We found the ski runs here either too easy or too hard, not a lot of in-between ones. Got stuck on some hard narrow ones one afternoon, it was major hard work to get down. They were classed as intermediate but should have been black runs.
The towns onsens were plentiful and are hotter temps higher up the hill.
They are all free and basically just have privacy buildings built around them. No one mans them so you are often the only one in there. They are great for sore muscles, so I was having them daily.
Adding our most recent review to Tomamu February 2019
January 29th we arrived at the Towers Hoshino Resorts Tomamu in Hokkaido.
I don't know if it was because we didn't have 20 other people to look out for or whether it was just because we didn't have our kids with us this time, but this would have to be our best trip yet.
The rooms were spacious enough, with a nice little bay window to sit on and look out at the ski slopes and rest of village below. The towers are connected to dining halls, where you have several options to choose from for breakfast (awesome french toast), via covered walkways, though they are not heated but you can easily get around without tramping through snow.
We possibly had the coldest temps we have experienced to date as well. Most days were around minus 8-10. One morning was minus 18 degrees C.
The new Hotalu Street was my favourite. You can ski into it during the day and pop your skis off for a hot chocolate, then continue on your way. At night it comes alive offering a great variety of restaurants from italian, a steakhouse, soup curry house, burger cafe, sushi rolls bar, and some awesome place that just had melted cheese on everything. There are some fire pits scattered around the area that get lit up from late afternoon which really add to the ambience.
There was another place we ate at on our final night, right out jutting into the forest, Ninnupuri Dining Hall, a buffet style, but AMAZING food. We had to roll back to our rooms after second and third helpings!
There was also some outdoors activities such as snow rafting and snowmobiling. Mina Mina wave pool was a short free shuttle ride from the towers and offered something for everyone with a massive 80x30m heated wave pool complete with floating pool toys, warmer spas around the edges, a bar and cafe and if you wanted something hotter, an outdoor onsen on the edge of the forrest.
There was also the Ice Village to visit at night with igloos selling alcohol and souvenirs plus an outdoor ice skating rink.
As for the skiing, excellent! The blue runs here were fantastic, nice and wide with plenty of tree run options for those mad boarders. There wasn't a huge amount but perfect for 5-6 days. Some runs got groomed in the middle of the day!!! The off piste system was brilliant. Our friend travelling with us did this - applied online the night before, got a sleeve pass at the ticket office and signed a waiver saying he would return the pass by 3pm that day. If he doesn't hand it in by then they send out a very expensive search party. He also said it was THE BEST off piste powder and boarding he has ever done.
They had a rental store on the ground floor and lockers for storage. When you finished skiing for the day/night you handed your skis into a storageroom area out near the lifts, which we thought would be annoying, but it was actually really good. No need to cart them back inside and into your lockers. The queues for lifts were non existent, and sometimes you would be the only person on a run, so crowding was not a problem.
Would highly recommend this place.
Asahikawa
A 3 night stopover on the way back from Tomamu to Sapporo.
Nice to spend a few days wondering around snow covered parks and temples, but also good to do some city shopping. Stayed at the Hoshino Resort OMO7 which had reasonably comfortable beds and moderately sized rooms for japanese standards. The best thing was the bar down in the lobby area, with great bar snacks and ambience.
Sapporo Snow Festival
Ticked off a bucket list item here, but was a little disappointed. The Otori Park sculptures were the highlight, with some massive sculptures, live dancing and singing, a massive snowboard ramp with expert boarders doing their stuff and plenty of food vendors selling all sorts of stuff. There was also an ice skating rink and plenty of free rest spots with tables and chairs and heaters to sit around.
There is also the Susukino Ice sculptures in Susukino, a short subway ride away, which I would recommend viewing at night since they are in the middle of a street and they don't close the street off to traffic until dark. Most of these stand 7-8 foot high.
The third part is Tsudome Park which is more for the kids, though we had fun in the interactive section of the dome with virtual reality hockey and luge, some curling, and snowball throwing.
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