Spring is just around the corner but there is still plenty going on in Niseko and the March calendar is filling up.  

Check your diary for these events and happenings.

6 March  SLOPE Style Contest at Hanazono

7 March  Namara Ippatsu Air Competition at Grand Hirafu

Fireworks weekends at Grand Hirafu on 6^th, 13^th, 20^th and 27^th of March

Niseko Annupuri Festival at Annupuri – 13^th, 14^th, 20 – 22^nd March

20 – 22^nd march – The North Face event at Niseko Village

Just wanted to let our loyal readers know about a couple of special dining events coming up over the next few weeks here in Kitanomine, Furano.

First is the Naturwald Restaurant’s all-you-can-eat Steak Lunch Buffet, featuring steaks cooked up teppan-yaki style right before your eyes. The buffet is rounded out with soups, salads, pizza, fresh baked bread, and a selection of desserts. At 1300 yen per person it is hard to beat this value. This restaurant can be found just two doors down from Fresh Powder Furano, and the special lunch will be run on the weekends of 20th & 21st Feb, and 27th & 28th Feb. 11:30 to 14:00.

Also on the upcoming dinner menu is Sri Lanka Curry Night at the Furano Brewery Yama no DOXON on Saturday 27th February. Kicking off at 6:00 pm, the curry will be prepared and served by a visiting exchange chef from Sri Lanka. Live entertainment will include local bands such as Coffee Beans Band and DOXMASU (actually thought to be a stage name for Mr Miyata, the owner of DOXON.) Advance tickets 1500 yen, at the door 1800 yen include all you can eat curries. Yama no Doxon is also home to a variety of microbrews and just 4 blocks from Fresh Powder.

Speaking of which, did you know that the 22nd of each month is “Furano Curry Day”? Special menus and discounts await at the many mouthwatering curry shops throughout town. If you ever needed an excuse to stretch your legs and go exploring, here it is!

Tempura lovers are in for a treat in March. Every weekend and holiday lunch at Naturwald will feature an all-you-can-eat Tempura Buffet, with each piece cooked right before your eyes and served sizzling hot. You can have yours with a little green tea powder and salt, as “ten-don” on a rice bowl with sweet sauce, or alongside a bowl of udon noodles. Also 1300 yen for all you can eat, what a way to take a lunch break from the slopes! 11:30 to 14:00.

Happy skiing, boarding, and dining! - Blog Boy

22nd KUTCHAN YUKITOPIA FESTIVAL
20 – 21 FEBRUARY 2010

The annual Yukitopia Festival is held at the Kutchan Chuo Park (just behind the Kutchan Public Hall).
Various events include the wedding at the snow chapel, Nabe cooking contest, treasure hunt in the snow, snowball fighting, flea market, food stand and best of all the snow slide with lots of fun and laughter for all ages. Here is the event schedule for Yukitopia 2010.

２月２０日（土） Saturday 20th Feb 2010
10:00 to 18:00　巨大雪ダルマ・子ども滑り台・小雪像 — Giant Snow Man / Kids Slide / Miniature Snow Sculptures
10:20 to 10:30　羊蹄太鼓演奏 — Yohtei Taiko Drumming Performance
10:30 to 11:00　開祭式、もちまき — Opening Ceremony, Rice Cake Giveaway
10:30 to 17:30　屋台村 — Festival Food and Game Stalls
10:30 to 17:00　フリーマーケット（文化福祉センター内） — Flea Market (At Kutchan Culture and Welfare Center)
11:30 onwards　鍋大賞コンクール — Nabe Hot Pot Competition - Lunch Event
11:00 to 11:15　ダンスパフォーマンス — Dance Performance
12:00 to 13:30　雪合戦（高校生以上） — Snowball Fighting Competition (High School and Adults)
13:00 to 14:00　雪中ボブスレーゲーム — Bobsleigh Games
13:00 to 17:00　雪中キャンプデモンストレーション — Snow Camping Demonstration
13:00 to 15:00　芸能鑑賞と文化の体験（文化福祉センター内） — Live Performance Cultural Experience (At Kutchan Culture and Welfare Center)
14:00 to 15:30　雪合戦（小・中学生） — Snowball Fighting Competition (Elementary and Junior High)
15:30 to 16:30　ストラックアウトin雪トピア — Struck Out in Yukitopia
16:00 onwards　鍋大賞コンクール — Nabe Hot Pot Competition - Dinner Event
16:30 to 18:00　シーニックナイトライブ＆キャンドル点灯 — Scenic Night Live & Candle Lights
16:30 to （予定） 雪上ウェディングin Yukitopia♪　 — Snow Wedding in Yukitopia

２月２１日（日） Sunday 21st Feb 2010
10:00 to 16:00　巨大雪ダルマ・子ども滑り台・小雪像 — Giant Snow Man / Kids Slide / Miniature Snow Sculptures
10:00 to 15:30　屋台村、フリーマーケット — Festival Stalls
10:00 to 11:30　どこまでとばせるでShow — Gumboot Kick Competition
10:00 to 14:00　ペイントボール大会 — Paintball Tournament
11:30 to 12:00　ウルトラマンゼロ　ショー　 — Ultraman Zero Stage Show
12:30 to 13:15　雪中宝さがし — Snow Treasure Hunt
13:15 to 14:30　激走！水面滑走トライアル — “Ski Across Water” Trials
14:30 to 15:00　ウルトラマンゼロ　ショー — Ultraman Zero Stage Show
15:15 to 16:00　抽選会 — Lucky Dip

It is official, the Flake Film Fest will be back in Niseko for its ninth year. Exact screening dates are still up in the air but look for these unique grassroots films to hit town in the first week of March. Like culture but have no attention span? No problem, these short films of all genres weigh in at under 8 minutes a piece.

http://snowymountains.org.au/flakefilmfestival.html

Visitors to Furano in Jan and Feb will be glad to hear that the Saturday Night Live Cultural Performances are back! Here is the schedule:

23rd Jan: Poetry & Calligraphy, Hyottoko Dance, Japanese Folk Tales

6th Feb: Shakuhachi (Flute) and Guitar, Shishimai (Lion Dance), Traditional Dance

13 Feb: Traditional Dance, Koto (Japanese Harp), Heso Odori (Belly Button Dance)

20 Feb: Traditional Dance, Poetry & Calligraphy, Yosakoi Dance

27 Feb: Traditional Music, Traditional Dance, Japanese Folk Tales

This year the cultural performances will be held inside the Kitanomine Gondola terminal, just across the street from Fresh Powder! Hope to see you there…

The next morning: we are reminded of Furano’s characteristic blue sky mornings. Pretty hard to resist hiking up. Kei from Furano Snow School is talking a walk to look at the accumulation by the top of the quad station.

The 10 cm is sticking to the hill, showing that earth temperatures have reached freezing.

This goes under the “only in Japan” department.

The "Segway Ski" enables skiing on flat dry surfaces like concrete.

This fancy set of kicks features auto-balancing technology similar to the Segway. Hopefully they will have it perfected by May in time for the snow melt!

Check out Engaget’s article on the technology at work.

This just in from our friends at Kuro-Dake… things are looking good for their plans to open on Nov 6, once again aiming to be Japan’s first ski lift in operation for the season. They are reporting 40 cm accumulation at their base with temperatures locked below freezing at the base station (1100 m ASL). This picture from their staff says it all:

Kuro-dake Base Station, 2 Nov 2009: 40 cm!

The news you powder hounds have been waiting for! All Hallow’s Eve has become bitterly cold, with the mercury at -2 C and dropping. At 5:00 pm we saw the first specks of white and within 20 minutes later it is coming down non-stop.

Update - check the photo gallery below for daily updates.

Stani, living in Furano’s sister city of Schladming, Austria just sent these amazing photos of an early snow season. They have over 120 snow guns at Schladming but it looks like they only needed a few of them to complete this picture…

Check out the discussion and more amazing photos on ski.com.au.

While I was playing around at the zoo, it seems that most of Furano City, including the ski hill area, is now up on google streets. Based on the decoration it looks like the photos were taken over a year ago, but you can still get a really good idea of how close we are to the ski hill (simply rotate the camera 180 degrees!)

I have overlaid our google map of the area, check it out! Just click any of the locations shown on the index to the left. The system will automatically jump to the nearest available viewpoint. You can see exactly where our apartments and Chalet are located, and even take a virtual stroll around the block!

Note: The photo data of this area is over a year old, many signs and storefronts have changed. For example our apartments’ sign has been redone in stainless steel.

This is either really cool or really scary, depending how you look at it. You may have heard of Google Streets, the search engine giant’s somewhat controversial program to provide photo-realistic virtual representation of the world’s streets. They have just added a few local areas including Asahiyama Zoo. You can’t actually go inside the main exhibits, but I was able to get this view of the rhino exhibit.

Maybe because I am in Japan, but I could not get the English interface to come up. In case you are stuck in Japanese:

1. Yellow lines are mapped roads and trails, click the white arrows to move along them
2. Top left controls free zoom and angle
3. Drag the little guy on the bottom right map to move around. When you drag, the available areas are shown in blue outline.
4. Move the mouse over the picture to see other angles available.
5. Click and drag on the picture to freely change the angle 360 degrees. (Each point on the map is actually a full 360-degree panorama!)

大きな地図で見る

If you can’t see the map above, click here to open in a new window.

Just over a month until the slopes are scheduled to open, and the locals are getting stoked! The new Daisuke Sasaki powder video, “End of the Line“, (trailer on their site) will hold a promotional showing in Furano at the Kitanomine Gondola Terminal (just across the street from us) on October 24th. The showing is free, doors open at 5:30 pm. There is a party with the crew at 8:30 pm, 1000 yen includes your first drink.

I’d also like to bring your attention to Sweetgrass’ “Signatures”. In addition to the extremely authentic locations including Moiwa, the film exceptionally captures the magnificence and beauty of Hokkaido’s winter, and is more about appreciation and emotion than the usual video motif of “who can plow the most pow”. Here is the trailer (HD available)!

Many of you probably know Asahidake as a back country destination. The highest mountain on the island of Hokkaido, it features a single cable car from 1150 m to 1600 m. To give you some idea of the snow quality at that height, take the best snow from the top bowls of Niseko and Furano and put that at the lift base. Sure enough they had an amazing story of their own to match our Typhoon report - 10 cm of ACCUMULATION at the base on the morning of the 11th.

Christmas in October?

This picture is from Asahidake Onsen, at the BASE. Of the ski runs. In early October. You can see the news with video feed through the link below.

Doshin News - 10 cm Accumulation at Asahidake Onsen, Oct 11

What’s the best way to get autumn photos and exercise at the same time? Hiking of course. There is a super easy and rewarding hike right outside our front door - the Kitanomine Ski Hill. In anticipation of the November snows, the main runs are cleared and cut, making it a very easy 20 minute walk to the top of the quad lift. That boosts us from the 250 m lift base to about 500 m ASL, offering amazing views of the autumn leaves, farmland of the Furano valley, and Tokachidake mountain range. Hope you enjoy the results.

If you’re feeling frisky and have more than a 30 minute lunch break to do your photography, it’s about another 60 minutes hike to the top of the Kitanomine Gondola.

Bitterly cold rain swept through the Furano valley yesterday evening, and this morning rain clouds lifted to reveal snow on Nishi-dake. The snow line is now just over 1000 m, which means that the next flakes to fall are likely to land on the upper ski slopes. I was hoping to get up with the Furano Mountaineering Club and hike the traverse to Nishi-dake’s peak next weekend, but it looks like the climb may be called off due to early winter. You can see last year’s hike here.

The view from our front steps this morning. From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

Clouds are stubbornly sticking to the Tokachi range, Taisetsuzan seems to be getting even more snow! You can also check our weather page for a live webcam of the ski hill, just in case we get a surprise dump at ground level here.

Snowfalls on the moutains are very early this year, hopefully we have a great start to the Furano ski season in store.

As promised, photos of the early snow! Here is the Tokachi mountain range, a popular back country destination including Mt Tokachidake, Mt Asahidake, and Mt Kurodake.

Tokachi Mountain Range - From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

First snows on Mt Ashibetsu - From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery

As evening temperatures dip into the low single digits, the mountains are bursting with reds, oranges, and yellows. The elusive “yuki-mushi”, or “snow bugs”, considered to be harbingers of the first snows, have already been sited at ground level.

The nearby highest peaks of Asahidake (Hokkaido’s highest) and Tokachidake (home of the highest drivable point on the island) have received their first dustings of snow weeks ago, but Typhoon #18 has given us something even better. We don’t get many typhoons up here in Hokkaido and I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of those warm, wet masses of air passed through our chilly autumn skies. Yesterday morning we had a brief break in the cloud and I was able to witness the result: snow covering the upper third of nearby Mt. Ashibetsu-dake. Ashibetsu is 1600 some meters, and our ski hill on Nishi-dake is just over 1000 meters, so I would estimate the snow line is only about 200 m above the upper slopes. Not bad for the second week of October!!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a photo and the rest of the typhoon effect has resulted in heavy cloud cover today. Will update you shortly. In the meanwhile, here are some shots of the autumn foliage I got last week. Click the photo for more!

From Furano Autumn 2009 Scenery