After our trip of beauty in the snowy wonderlands of some secret little national park, a secret snow-laden beach and a little Christmas celebration, we headed to our main stop in Japan's Hokkaido Island: Niseko.
To Ski or not to Ski
As a quick catch up, merely a week or so before this, my old spine injury kicked in, had be bedridden for days and struggling for the entire time since, right up to this point in Japan. But we already committed with money to this ski vacation and I really didn't want it to go to waste - no refunds.
So I thought I'd take a sensible risk, go anyway, and if I'm not feeling right, I'll just stand around in the snow instead of skiing. Still a waste of money, but not as much. I'd still get to enjoy the hotel amenities, the snow, the food, and so on.
Well, by the time we arrived in this Niseko resort, my back wasn't hurting per se, but it was TIRED. I'd bene lugging my backpack around and walking around nonstop and it had had enough. But... I didn't want the wife to know that so I chugged along in silent discomfort.
Personally, I felt I could definitely do a bit of light skiing on the green tracks. Every landing would be a soft landing anyway, although still not without risk. There were very few injury-related moments that made me think it was going to snap in the last few days so I made a judgement call, and it turns out everything was fine!
Kind of.
Hilton Village
My wife managed to wrangle some crazy deal. At first we had a hotel we paid an extortionate price for, but the people behind it 'accidentally' cancelled our booking. I don't wanna talk about it. Urgh.
But anyway at the LAST minute, literally 10 hours before our flight when this happened, we looked at one of the few places left with a room, Hilton.
Agonizingly, it was even more expensive, but if we didn't do it, we wouldn't be going at all. So we pulled the trigger on that massive expense. Fortunately we actually paid less than HALF PRICE for our stay, as somebody had diamond membership and was able to kind of pass it down to us in a deal.
Not only did we get diamond access to the diamond breakfast floor and such, but for over half price discount? Nice!
I haven't had plain old western food like this for a LONG time
Even so... Bitcoin better go up fast if I'm gonna make up that expense! (I write this as Hive hits 0.60 heh... I banked profits into HBD so now I feel good)
The best thing about this hotel was not the room. Two single beds, tiny-ass bathroom I could barely squeeze into, old and outdated. It was not the amenities even though these were indeed very posh and made us feel like we were living in a fantasy land of rich people.
What we saw entering the lobby
What we heard while chilling in the lobby
But actually it was the fact it was a ski in/out hotel. Literally next to the elevators from our room is the place to put on or rent your gear, hire a trainer and so on. The second you walk outside, the first thing you see is a ski slope. Amazing!
I think I'm going to die
At this stage in our ski career we figured green was no problem. My wife foolishly decided to just jump right into it and go on the longest possible gondola, TO THE TOP OF THE F*CKING MOUNTAIN.
I was like 'are you sure this is the right one?' and she was like 'yeah it's fine lets go!'
It wasn't fine.
Yes, the lines were green, but in pigment only. This mountain was very much NOT green. NOT beginner. NOT safe!
We immediately knew we messed up although to be fair, why are they green when they should clearly be blue or red.
The long and short of it was... we were too scared for 80% of the slopes.
But we were very high up a mountain which was covered in metres of snow.
We had to get down somehow.
We walked.
For 2 hours.
For context, that mountain is about 1,300m tall, and perhaps we were 1,000m up, walking the whole thing in steep, slippery, cold conditions down winding, wiggling paths.
There were a few moments we attempted to ski but ultimately, I didn't wanna take any unnecessary risks, there were some turns I wasn't sure I could handle and, if not, I'd be driving right off the edge into a forest far below. No thanks.
So yeah, we walked, in uncomfortable, unwieldy ski boots, carrying our heavy skis the entire way, made so much more difficult by thick snow and a downward trajectory. It was HARD.
Sometimes, I sat on my butt and slid down some of the super steep bits, with little success.
Needless to say, I was pretty unhappy at this absolute waste of time so it's not like I thought about taking many photos of the ordeal lol. But worse, my legs were absolutely jelly-fied.
By the time we got down, I was saying with conviction... I think I'm good. No more ski for me. I'll just chill in the hotel until we leave.
I wasn't being moody, I just saw the writing on the wall. My legs were wrecked from that journey! My back was... doing ok all things considered, but it was still a risk I was not willing to take - even less now that I could barely walk from exhaustion.
Later, when asking people far higher up the evolutionary chain of skiing and snowboarding, they were immediately reactionary like 'oh god yeah they are NOT green, they lied to you, they are pretty advanced don't go there!'.
Oh well. Live and learn.
So yeah. That was fun!
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 42.85038 lat 140.65034 long Ski time! d3scr))