Saturday morning was a bit of a struggle, getting up at around 6:20am. We rushed downstairs to grab breakfast as soon as the restaurant opened at 7am, as we had to meet at Sapporo station at 7:40am. Eventually everyone arrived (read: sea of gaijin) and we piled onto a bizarre train that was decked out in baseball team colours and insignia. Strangely, some people had reserved seats while others didn't, but it worked out ok in the end as some seats weren't filled. I had been expecting a relatively quick journey, as Niseko isn't that far from Sapporo really. However, to my surprise, it took nearly 2 hours. The train was painfully slow, despite being a limited express. I think it may have been something to do with the snow, but I can't see why that would have made it travel at about 40km/h for the whole distance!! >:(

We finally got to Kutchan station, anyway, and caught a bus up to the Niseko slope. Then began the ridiculous wait for our rental gear. There were admittedly a lot of us, but I was extremely surprised that the shop hadn't prepared for us. We'd all sent in our preference for boarding or skiing as well as our boot sizes, but they had nothing ready. So it ended up as a 2 hour wait in line for gear. Needless to say, we were very unimpressed as a group, and I was extremely pissed off. We finally got onto the slopes at about noon, nearly 6 hours after we'd woken up. As Goz's friend Ryan said, he'd never do another 'day ski' ever again. Either stay in a hotel right near the slope, or just don't bother, it's not worth it in terms of time!

Anyway, all was not lost, as once on the slope we all seemed to forgot our irritation. As it was just a day trip, there were no lessons provided, so we were left to our own devices. After finally figuring out the lift pass system, I got up to the top with Ryan and Goran. Ryan, who'd boarded before, gave us some tips and we tried our best to make our way down the beginner slope. Needless to say, there was a lot of crashing, faceplanting, butt-sliding and general falling over, hehe. This continued for several runs before I finally figured a few things out and began to be able to get down most of the beginner slope without falling over. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and I really want to do it again.

Ako, surprise, surprise (yes, yes, I know it's not as bad as your town, Michelle :P), isn't particularly well placed to have snowboarding as a hobby, but it's a hell of a lot better than Perth :) I'm not too far from some good slopes in Hyogo, up near Tajima, which probably only take 3 or 4 hours to get to. Also, there's the ultra famous Hakuba near Nagano, which I can get to on night bus. Kotani-sensei told me today that there was one JET he knew who lived in Hyogo who went to Hakuba nearly every single weekend for a whole season, lol. I was very impressed. So I might see if I can work out a good itinerary and drag some others along too, maybe the first weekend in March. One of my new friends who lives in Gifu also snowboards, so I might be able to tee something up with her too.

After going up and down the mountain gleefully for hours and hours, we had to finish up just before 4pm in order to catch a bus back to Kutchan. Ryan convinced me to go on one last run, which would have been fine except for the accident we had. He was helping me out and accidentally crashed into a lady, bending her ski pole. She was a really good sport about it, thankfully, but poor Ryan trying to bend her ski pole back into shape ate up some time. Haha. It was quite funny, really. Anyway, net result was that we missed the bus. Thankfully, so did another 8 or so JETs, and we managed to bag a maxi taxi party van back to Kutchan. Luckily so, too - the train we were going to catch only came once every 5 hours! :/

At the station, we grabbed some beers and food and generally tried to dry off. Thanks to a bad assumption on my part, I'd gotten pretty wet! I had assumed that clothes rent was included in the price of the day, but it wasn't. Thankfully I'd worn my Mont Bell pants! Although they're certainly not water proof, they're water resistant and the powder snow of Niseko tended to fall off before melting. So I got about 3 or 4 hours of sliding on the snow out of them before they started to get wet. I couldn't say the same for my tshirt though! With all the twisting around, it had come out of the back of my pants and had become encrusted with ice as I slid down the hill. If I go boarding again, I'll definitely need to rent gear, or buy some new stuff!

The long ride back to Sapporo on the train was ok, as I chatted to some new friends I'd made. One of them, Parry, had heard of a kani tabehoudai (all you can eat crab) place that he wanted to check out for dinner. So Team Yuki Matsuri organised to meet up with him to do that. After grabbing a quick shower back at the hotel, we all met up with Parry in Susukino train station at about 8pm. The tabehoudai was great - it was actually a nomihoudai as well, and all for $40. It really makes me wonder how they make money, some of these places! Between the 6 of us we probably ate at least a crab each, not to mention an immense amount of prawns, scallops and other seafood. It was totally awesome.

After that the girls went home and Goran and I wandered around with Parry and some of his friends until they all decided to head home. Goran and I then met Suzie and hit up the 500 yen bar. Totally awesome - everything was 500 yen. We had been drinking for most of the night, so were pretty happy as we headed home towards the hotel at about 1:30am. To our surprise, Dan was just getting out of a car at the hotel. This was the end of a long story, haha. He'd met up with one of his JET friends and had gone to a nomihoudai for lunch, then a karaoke (with more drinking). He'd ended up lost, at a beef bowl restaurant, where he'd managed to ask how to get back to the hotel. Someone had said it was a really long way, but to Dan's great luck, a customer piped up and said he knew where the hotel was and could drive Dan back. Totally incredible - that's Japan for you! We decided it was a bit early to finish the night, and headed to a nearby konbini for more drinks and food. Then we took a wander through Nakajima-koen, where Goran decided to ninja climb a tree (very successfully until it came to getting out, when he fell, haha - thankfully into soft snow!). We finally got to sleep at around 3:30am.

I took Sunday pretty easy, waking up quite late. I had begun to catch the cold that was going around, and combined with the extremely hot and airless hotel room, didn't feel too great. I got up and grabbed some water and food though, and felt a bit better. The others were out looking at O-dori, which I'd already seen, so I went to take some photographs in Nakajima-koen with the aim to work my way to O-dori via Susukino. I got so absorbed with finding the best angles to take some shots of a statue though, that I forgot the time. So before I knew it it was time to go out for dinner. Meaning I didn't actually get any photos of the ice or snow sculptures, whoops!

Dinner was a nomi-tabe-houdai at the Sapporo beer garden with the rest of the ALTs that had come to Sapporo. Genghis Khan, of course, and 2L 'towers' of beer. Plenty of good times, although my jacket still smells like lamb! :/ Afterwards we wanted to go out to party a little more but had trouble finding a place. We wandered to a bar that I can't remember the name of, but for some reason everyone decided it wasn't good. I think it was really full. So we headed to Club Booty next, which had a $20 cover charge - no thank you! Next stop was Rad Brothers, a rather seedy gaijin bar that we were all pretty happy to get out of quick smart. Final stop was an Irish Pub, which wasn't too bad, but didn't have Guiness. Lol. What a strange concept. Finally it was back to bed at around 2am.