Niseko Japan

For a kid from LA, I’ve spent a lot of my life in the snow. I started coming to the snow monthly as a child of 5. I remember those years in Mammoth well and the best years were the big snow years. One trip we went snowmobiling and when I stepped off the snowmobile I almost disappeared into the bottomless snow. As an adult, I lived in Mammoth full time and remember the days when you could lose a car overnight. I’ve had days where I literally had to swim out my front door when it snowed 6 feet overnight, but I have never experienced nonstop snow like here in Niseko Japan.
I can’t even come up with words to describe this nonstop natural occurrence.  As crass as it sounds, “puking” snow seems to be the most descriptive. A blizzard happens and then it is over. A snowstorm or winter storm happens and then it’s over. Like a teenager after their first big beer binge, snow in Niseko, Japan keeps coming and coming and coming!

Traveling to Niseko Japan from North America is relatively easy, but it’s a long haul. The best part is that the time difference is so great that your body has no idea what time it is and beyond waking up on the early side, you are pretty much good to go. The other great thing, after all that travel, is that you have managed to change your world 100%. There is no way you can confuse Niseko for another ski area in the world. Yes, they have gondolas, chairlifts (single chairs, double chairs and quads), but everywhere you turn, something is completely new and different. One of my favorite treats in Japan is the heated toilet. Nothing is more welcoming on a freezing ass cold day!  I’m sure there are even more treats in store if I could learn how to drive the thing with all those nobs and buttons. Hanazono has toilets that lift the lid when you open the stall door. If that isn’t customer service, then I don’t know what is!