Day 3: Morning train to Kutchan. Spent the day at Snowboarding at Niseko. Overnight at Niseko.

As usual our day started early. We wanted to hit the Hakodate Market before catching the first train to Kutchan, the town nearest to our Ski area (Niseko/Hirafu).

It's no fun waking up at 5:00AM 2 days in a row. Not to mentioned that it is probably -10°C outside and we had to drag our luggage to the nearest tram stop by 6:15AM. It took us about 15 mins to JR Hakodate station. Right next to the station is the Hakodate Market.

 

When we entered the Market, we realised that it was very clean, and did not have any fishy smell like the markets in Malaysia. It was mostly dry and everything was arrange very nicely all within an enclosed area.

One of the most interesting thing I found is their live Crabs that they have. Very similar to those Crabs you see in the show Deadliest Catch. The crab are pretty big, thus they are able to extract the meat from their legs to make Crab Sticks! As we were very short of time, we just had to capture a few photos and be on our way.

We were on the 7:04AM train to Kutchan, with a stopover at Oshamambe (53 mins wait). If you ever need to search for train schedule, you can use hyperdia.com, as it will give you all the train schedule, where to change trains and even the fares accurately. Our fare was ¥5320 each to Kutchan. We decided not to purchase the JR Rail pass or the JR 3 Day Hokkaido pass as it was NOT as worth it as it seems. I will write a post on the JR Rail pass, pros and cons later.

We arrived at the station on time and waited for our pickup. Fortunately the place that we had booked provides pickup. The ride to the lodge took about 15 minutes. The whole journey there, the whole place was filled with SNOW... everywhere there was fresh snow, at least 1-2 feet of fresh snow.... WOW....

We were greeted by Matt Stormont, the manager of Niseko Freedom Inn when we arrived. The interior was very cosy and had western styling. Our room was reasonably big and had an en suite bathroom. Some of the other lodge only had shared toilets, thus is one of the criteria why we selected this place. Of course, the price was reasonable too.

Without wasting anymore time, we decided to change and head out to rent some snowboards and get on the slopes. Niseko Freedom Inn also provided us with discounted daily lift tickets as well as the ability to take the snowboard, boots and helmet and pay for together with our final hotel bill. Great... less hassle for us, more time on the slopes.


Niseko Freedom Inn is not situated in the Hirafu town area, where there are lots of restaurants, cafe as wells as lodges. It is actually situated near the Hanazono area, which is all by itself... a little out of the way from any shops or facilities. However Niseko Freedom Inn provides us with drop off service to the nearest ski lift, the Hanazono ski lift.

We got our gear from the Demo Equipment Hire (No it is not a DEMO unit, but the brand name!) and headed to the slopes. After not skiing for like 5 years, it took us some time to gear up and to get to the ski lift.... not to mentioned hop on and off the ski lift :p

Here is a photo taken from where we had our lunch, the Hanazono Centre. As you can see from the photo, it was freezing cold and constantly snowing outside.

We ended our day at about 4PM, a little early we know, but since its winter it gets dark by at around that time. We had a pickup from Hanazono back to our lodge.

As usual, I was already planning for dinner... what can we eat up here... we asked our host Matthew and he suggested that we either head to the Hirafu town, or the Kutchan town. I didn't want to eat at a commercialised area (Hirafu) and definately not western food. So he recommended us a Sushi Train restaurant at Kutchan. Kutchan is actually the main town closest to the ski resorts and it is where all the locals stays. Nothing commercialised about Kutchan, thats for sure. Not gonna pay tourist price for food I could get back home!

We booked in the ride to Kutchan for dinner and decided to try an nearby Onsen (5 mins by car). The first time Onsen experience was a little different. Once you get past the idea of stripping down to nothing and sitting in a hot spring bath butt naked with people you didn't know.... you are ready to enjoy what Japan has to offer! I will write the Onsen experience in a different post.

After about an hour at the Onsen area, we headed back to the lodge. If you ever visited an Onsen, you would realised that it really gets your heart pumping... and makes you really hungry too!! Our driver dropped us off at the Yoteimaru Sushi Restaurant. When we entered, it was very similar setup as Sushi King in Malaysia... however the food they served was outstanding. If you want to read what we had for dinner, click here.

After dinner, we were picked up and sent back to the Lodge.... what a long day it has been...