Travel Archives - James Ramsden

How to get to Niseko Grand Hirafu ski resort

Niseko is by far the most popular ski resort in Hokkaido. Its world-famous powder is joined by Japanese culture to give an experience like no other.

Niseko is actually a combination of four ski areas on the same mountain. They are quite far apart at the bottom, but the ski areas meet at the top. They are:

Hanazono
Grand Hirafu
Niseko Village
Annupuri

The best-developed of these, and the most popular for international tourists, is Grand Hirafu. It is not close to many towns and can be quite difficult to get to. This guide will show you the different ways on how to get to Niseko Grand Hirafu.

View from Grand Hirafu. Image source

First, get to Hokkaido

Hokkaido is a large island at the north of Japan, about the size of Ireland or slightly smaller than South Korea. Its main city is Sapporo.

The easiest way to Hokkaido is by air to Shin-Chitose Airport (New Chitose Airport). Most people fly to Tokyo and get a connecting flight. Some international flights also fly directly to Sapporo, e.g. from Kuala Lumpur using AirAsia.

Once at the airport, if you want to go to Sapporo first, it’s very easy to go by train. Trains to Sapporo are every 15 minutes directly from the airport’s station, and cost 1070JPY each way.

Then, get from Shin Chitose Airport to Niseko

Most people transfer from the airport by bus. Niseko bus runs four services a day through the winter directly to Grand Hirafu. Check the timetable for times and stops. (Note: Niseko Hirahu = Grand Hirafu). The fare is 4400 yen per person. Reservation is recommended during peak season.

The bus will drop you off at the Welcome Center in Grand Hirafu, which is a large car park at the top of the village. Contact your hotel to see if they will pick you up from the Welcome Center. Otherwise, you could take the village’s B-Line bus around the village. Or you could walk – most hotels are walking distance away.

…Or get from Sapporo to Niseko

There are two buses a day from Sapporo to Niseko, and two coming back. Check the Niseko Bus page for times and stops.

As above, the bus will drop you off at the Welcome Center.

Can you get to Niseko by train?

There are no useful train services all the way to Niseko. Don’t get fooled by the fact that there is a train station called ‘Niseko’ nearby. This serves the village of Niseko (not the same as Niseko Village) which is actually quite far from the ski resorts.

It is better to take the train to Kutchan, the town nearest to the ski resorts. Then, from Kutchan, you have several options:

Take a taxi (about 7km)
See if your hotel will pick you up from the station
Take the Niseko United shuttle bus D-line

The shuttle bus is the obvious choice if you are on a budget, but check the link above first. The buses only run in the evening and during peak season, primarily so that people staying in the resort can enjoy Kutchan’s restaurants.

To go by train, the route is:

Airport — Sapporo — Otaru — Kutchan.

You sometimes have to change at Sapporo, and you definitely will have to change at Otaru. The fare is currently 2630 yen. Check your route with Hyperdia.

If you are wanting reservations, it is generally not possible to reserve trains outside of Japan. In any case, The majority of services on these routes are unreserved anyway – just buy a ticket and jump on.

What about the ski train?

You may have heard of the Niseko Ski Train. This is a direct, express service from Sapporo to the village of Niseko, stopping at Kutchan on the way. It avoids needing to change at Otaru. The train runs a few times a day during the winter season.

The best way to get times is probably just to check your route on Hyperdia. If the ski train is running when you want to travel, Hyperdia will show it as a possible route.

Niseko Ski Express. Image source

Can you take a day trip to Niseko?

Many ski resorts in Hokkaido are a short train or bus ride from Sapporo – the best base for a day-trip style ski holiday. This is a great way to ski in Hokkaido on a budget, since you can stay in cheap Sapporo accommodation, and use a tourist rail pass to get around.

Niseko is just a little too far from Sapporo to visit just for the day to get a good day of skiing. However, if you don’t mind having a slightly shorter day, it can be done, if for a few hours:

Take the 07:55 bus from Sapporo bus station.
Arrive at 11:01 at the Grand Hirafu Welcome Center
Go ski!
Catch the 17:09 from the Welcome Center back to Sapporo

This gives you about 6 hours in Grand Hirafu – remember to factor in travel time to/from the Welcome Center.

One disadvantage of not staying the night is that you don’t have a hotel who might provide help with transport. On the plus, accommodation in Niseko is expensive…

Header image source courtesy of Mark Kenworthy under Creative Commons licence

How to apply for a Japan Working Holiday Visa (UK guide)

The Working Holiday Visa is probably one of the best ways to visit Japan. It’s the best of both worlds – you can stay longer than on a tourist visa, and you can also get a unique insight to the country by working alongside the people of Japan.

The usual tourist visa for British citizens visiting Japan is three months. However, the Working Holiday Visa for Japan permits you to stay for up to a continuous period of 12 months.

I recently applied to work over the winter season in a Japanese ski resort, and the Japanese Working Holiday Visa was the obvious choice for me. Here, I will explain what this visa is, and how I applied for it.

This account was written from a UK point of view. Most of the information here is relevant to all countries on the Working Holiday Visa programme, but there may be some small regional differences, so be sure to check the website of your local embassy.

Step 1: Do your research – is the Working Holiday visa right for you?

Firstly, you have to ask if the Working Holiday Visa is right for you. Note that the application process is quite lengthy, so for a regular non-working holiday, it is infinitely easier to get the usual stamp in your passport on arrival.

Also note that the Working Holiday visa is not a replacement for a full employment visa. If you are going to Japan exclusively to work full-time, you are unlikely to have your application granted.

With that in mind, what are the criteria for applying? Here are the requirements from the Japanese Embassy in the UK:

Be British Citizens who are resident in the United Kingdom
Intend primarily to holiday in Japan for a period of up to one year from the date of entry
Be aged between eighteen (18) and thirty (30) years both inclusive at the time of application for a Working Holiday Visa
Be persons who are not accompanied by children
Be persons who are not accompanied by spouses unless those spouses are in possession of a Working Holiday Visa or otherwise
Possess a valid passport and a return travel ticket or sufficient funds with which to purchase such a ticket
Possess reasonable funds for their maintenance during the period of initial stay in Japan
Intend to leave Japan at the end of their stay
Have not previously been issued a Working Holiday Visa (except where you were unable to use the Working Holiday visa issued due to unavoidable circumstances, and an application for
re-issue is made no more than 3 months from the expiry date of the original Working Holiday visa.)
Have good health

I have emphasised the main limitations.

The intention of the programme is to promote cultural exchange by allowing young people to spend an extended period in Japan. This is why there is a low age limit. It is also not suitable for family travel for similar reasons.

Notice how there is no requirement to actually work – perhaps surprising, given the visa’s name. The primary focus is to holiday, whilst using work to supplement your funds and as a method of integrating with the Japanese during your time there.

You are also required to have sufficient money to fund the first few weeks or so, as well as your return journey. The Embassy defines ‘possessing sufficient funds’ as:

Finally, each person can only use one Working Holiday Visa for Japan in their lifetimes. Use yours wisely!

Step 2: Prepare your documents

So you’ve decided that the Working Holiday Visa is right for you? Now, we need to prepare our documents. This can take a little bit of time – you may need to set aside a few hours for this.

This list of documents is taken from the official embassy page.

All documents need to be printed – ideally on A4 paper. Once you have prepared your documents, you will need to take them to the embassy in person to apply for your visa.

Passport

Must be valid for the entire duration of the visa – i.e. 12 months. Also, it is common practice for visa-issuing authorities to demand that a passport has another 6 months’ validity. So if your passport is due to expire within 18 months of your arrival in Japan, I would look into renewing your passport.

Also make sure that there are two blank, consecutive pages free.

Completed visa application form

This form can be a bit tricky to fill out. The ‘Visa Application Form’ is in fact a standard form that the embassy uses for all types of visa applications. From what I gather, it is not necessary to fill out every field, although the more you can complete the better.

For example, it asks for your port of entry, entry date, and flight number. Of course, if you haven’t booked your flight yet, you won’t have this information – and you might not want to book them until your visa is confirmed!

Similarly, you may not have any contacts in Japan for the ‘Guarantor’ or ‘Inviter’ fields.

In my case, I already had a potential job offer and my flights were already booked, so I can’t say for certain what would happen to your application if you left these blank. When you eventually submit your application to the embassy, you will be able to ask any questions there. Other accounts (see links at the end) seem to back this up – it’s not the end of the world if you can’t fill everything in.

One passport-sized photograph

This is purely for the embassy’s records – they’ll use your passport photo for the visa itself. Glue it on to your application form – no sellotape, staples or paperclips!

CV

If you are applying for a Working Holiday Visa, you are intending to work. If you are intending to work, you need a CV! Get it done now so it’s out the way.

Outline of intended activities

This is a concise list of your plans in Japan. Keep it short – a bullet point list of dates, regions and activities should suffice. Here was mine:

Arrive in Sapporo at end of October.

November – March: Living and working in Hokkaido. Working in a ski resort, and skiing during free time. Intending to work/stay in Niseko due to the demand for English-speaking employees.

April (or at end of ski season): Free time in Japan. Intending to travel around Hokkaido, then around Tokyo, before flying back to the UK.

A written reason for applying for a Working Holiday Visa

If this visa is like applying for a job, then this would be the covering letter. This is where you get to explain why, for example, you want to visit Japan, what you will get from your time there, or how you might help UK-Japanese relations. This is where you convince the embassy official that you intend to use the opportunity provided by the visa to its fullest.

It’s also an opportunity to explain why you are applying for the Working Holiday Visa instead of a normal tourism or employment visa. Make sure you understand the benefits and limitations of this visa, and explain why it will allow you the best chance of fulfilling your plans in Japan.

Bank statements showing sufficient funds

You also need to send your last 3 months of bank statements. You need to show that you have enough funds (£2500 for a solo traveller) to cover your initial time in Japan.

Since I do all of my banking online, I don’t have these statements to hand. Instead, I logged on to my banking and printed the statements at home.

Why they want 3 months I don’t know. Maybe they want to see that you haven’t just borrowed money from family?

Note that borrowed money, such as overdrafts and credit cards, doesn’t count.

Step 3: Go to the embassy

As far as I know, you must apply at the embassy in person. You can’t apply by post, online, or by sending someone else for you. You can go to either London or Edinburgh – I went London. Make sure you have all of your documents with you.

You do not need an appointment. Just turn up during opening hours (and not right before closing time!). Tell security at the front door that you’re there to apply for a visa, and they’ll send you in the right direction.

In London, there was a waiting area where I collected a ticket and waited for my number. After only about 5 minutes, my number came up, and I walked through to the next room. There is a row of post-office-style counters.

A friendly young Japanese woman greeted me. I gave her my documents. She flicked through them all quite casually, like she was reading a magazine. She asked me a couple of simple questions (I had forgotten to fill part of my application form), but nothing at all challenging. She asked what I was going to do there (“oh, you’re going skiing? ワォォ！”) and if I’d applied for a Working Holiday Visa before.

She then stamped some documents, and gave me a receipt. She took my passport from me, and said to come back in one week. There would be a visa fee of £16 to pay on collection – to be paid in cash with exact change only.

As I understand, what happens in this week is that the application is sent to an official who will then approve or reject the application.

The receipt will be printed with your collection date. It is very important that you don’t lose this receipt, and you bring it with you to collect your passport.

Step 4: Pick up your passport

Picking up your passport requires a second trip to the embassy on your collection date, about a week after applying. This is a pain if, like me, you live hours away from the nearest embassy. You can send someone else to pick up your passport for this second visit though – follow the instructions on your receipt for how to do this.

This should be a very quick visit – just get a ticket and visit the visa window like before. Hand the staff member your passport receipt and the fee (in exact change!).

You’ll find your brand new visa pasted inside your passport!

Visa dates

The visa they gave me was dated as being valid until 13 October 2017 – apparently 12 months after my application was processed in Japan.

However, this date seems to be the latest you can arrive in Japan and register your residency (in the next step) – not the date you must leave Japan. When I registered in Japan, my residency card was dated to expire on 29 October 2017 – 12 months after I arrived.

My understanding is that I am able to stay in Japan until my residence card expires, i.e. on 29 October. I am not entirely sure here. If you are likely to be cutting it fine with your leaving date, I would advise you contact the embassy for clarification.

Step 5: Arrive in Japan

Have a safe flight!

On the arrivals card (given to you on your flight, if not you’ll find them in the airport in immigration), for ‘purpose of visit’ I selected ‘other’ and wrote ‘Working Holiday’.

At immigration in Japan, take the foreigners queue. The immigration official will give you a credit card-sized Residence Card. Keep it safe!

They will also staple a piece of paper entitled ‘Designation’ in your passport. Your employer in Japan will need a copy of this too.

Step 6: Register your residency

You’re in Japan now – are we not done already??

There is one final step. Within 2 weeks, you need to have gone to the local Government Office to register your residency.

You need an address in order to register. This is why it’s helpful to already have an employer by this point, but I assume you could use a hotel address if it’s all you have.

It’s helpful to have a Japanese speaker with you when you visit the government office, though it isn’t essential. If you’re in an area popular with foreigners, the staff may have some basic English ability, and the forms you need to fill are bilingual anyway.

How do I find my government office?

All cities and larger towns have a government office.

Perhaps the easiest way is to go to Google Maps and search in your area for 役所 (Japanese for Government Office).

More information

The Working Holiday Visa for Japan is available to citizens in a number of countries around the world. This official page lists the 16 participating countries: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Republic of Korea, France, Germany, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and Austria.

Here are some other blog posts from around the web of other people who have applied for a Working Holiday Visa.

Map: How I got from the UK to China by train

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This is quite cool – just going through some old files and I found this map from my travels back in 2010. It’s a map of the route I took to get from York in the UK to Beijing near the Chinese coast – entirely by train.

The map is an enormous PNG file. I travelled with no technology (how much things have changed now!) and used an A4 folder to carry all of my information with me. The map is nothing more sophisticated than lots of screen grabs of Google Maps stitched together, then I drew the route on the resulting image in Paint. The red line shows the route. Red dots are stopping stations. Black dots are where I changed trains. The map may not look flashy, but it served its purpose, and it showed the route clearly when printed at 300dpi.

The entire journey took about three weeks including around 7 days of sight-seeing along the way. The bulk of the journey mileage was handled by the Trans-Mongolian train, which is a 6-night direct service between Moscow and Beijing. Travelling through Europe was done with a combination of day and night trains. The Man in Seat 61 provides an excellent introduction to the different ways to get to Moscow from the UK – I chose the slightly awkward route via St Petersburg to avoid needing an expensive Belarusian visa.

We normally think of the world as a very big place, where the only way to travel long distance is by air. There is something very humbling about going by train though, to think that there are two strips of carefully engineered steel running almost continuously half way around the world. To see every town along the way, see the timezones, climates, geography and flora changing along the way, really gives a sense of scale of the world that can’t be felt when travelling by plane.

Here is the map. To see the full-size version, it’s best to open it on your computer. Right-click here, and choose ‘save image as’. (Note it’s a 10MB image if you’re on a slow connection!)

How to get to Kiroro ski resort

Kiroro Ski Resort is one of the best ski resorts in Hokkaido, and it’s easy to see why. Great runs, English-friendly, brilliant snow, and yet it manages to avoid the crowds of the nearby, more popular Niseko.

The resort also has the advantage of being close to Sapporo, making it easy to get to. This guide will give you some of the best ways on how to get to Kiroro ski resort.

Directly from the airport

Buses run directly from the airport from December to March, with 6 buses a day in each direction.

Check this page for times, and to book online.

If you want to go by train as much as possible, or there isn’t a suitable bus, then take the train from the airport to Sapporo. Trains are every 15 minutes and cost 1070JPY. Then, to get from Sapporo to Kiroro, read below.

By Hokkaido Access Network bus from Sapporo

Buses run from Sapporo bus station to Kiroro, stopping at various hotels along the way. The buses are well-timed for day trips – they leave Sapporo in the morning, and drive back in the evening. Buses run daily through winter. Check this page for exact times and to book online.

The buses are quite expensive, at 3500JPY each way. I haven’t taken this bus yet so I don’t know what it’s like – if you have, please leave your comments below.

By Chuo Bus from Sapporo or Otaru bus stations

Chuo bus, the main bus company in the Sapporo region, is my preferred way to get to Kiroro. The buses are comfortable, and there was plenty of space when I took it. The buses are actually full-size coaches, and there’s plenty of space for ski equipment.

The buses run both from Sapporo bus station and Otaru bus station, next to their respective train stations. They leave at 08:10 from both bus stations. If you have a choice between the two, I’d recommend making your way to Otaru, as it’s the closer of the two to Kiroro.

It’s possible to just turn up at the bus station and buy a ticket on the day. However, to avoid disappointment, I recommend booking online here. (There’s an English button in the top right.)

However, they have one big disadvantage – the buses only run on holidays and weekends. They run daily over the New Year Period, and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Check the above link for dates. If the Chuo bus is running, I recommend you take this service. If not, you can use the (much more expensive) Hokkaido Access Network from Sapporo otherwise.

From Otaru, a ticket costs 930JPY each way, and 1540JPY from Sapporo. Buy a ticket at vending machines at the bus station, or you can use your Kitaca card.

Reservation is supposedly required, though I’ve used the buses without a reservation myself. Call Kiroro Resort General Information on 0135-34-7111 by 6pm the day before to make a reservation.

By Kiroro resort bus from Otaru Chikko station

Unfortunately, as of the 2016-17 season, the free bus from Otaru Chikko station no longer appears to be running 🙁

If the Chuo bus isn’t running when you need it, you could take the resort-run free bus. This bus runs daily from the taxi rank outside Otaru-Chikko station, including weekdays. The bus leaves Otaru-Chikko at 08:30, 10:00, 13:00, 15:05 and 18:25, and the return bus leaves Kiroro at 12:10, 14:15 and 17:30. The bus is free of charge both ways.

However, I only recommend the resort bus on days the Chuo bus isn’t running. Why?

The bus is first-come first-served, with no reservation system. The service is popular and there is a realistic chance that you will be left behind.

The bus is small and quite uncomfortable. The seats are tiny, with no legroom.

If you do decide to take the resort bus, do arrive at least 15 minutes early and form a queue at the taxi rank. Similarly, on your return, arrive early at the resort hotel (where the bus will drop you off and pick you up from) to be sure of getting a seat.

For more information on times, fares and pickup points, see the company’s website.

By car

Car rental in Japan is not expensive if you book in advance. Driving is quite a feasible way of getting around, and there is plenty of parking at ski resorts.

The main problem is the amount of snow and ice on the road. The Japanese do a good job of clearing their roads, especially in the cities, but the volume of snow that falls means that dangerous road conditions are inevitable, especially outside of the cities on the mountain roads. If you are not used to driving on snow and ice, I wouldn’t make this a time to start.

Another thing to consider is making sure you hire a car that is big enough for your ski equipment! Japanese Kei-cars (the boxy little cars you see everywhere with the yellow reg plates) may be tempting because they’re the cheapest (sometimes less than 4000JPY/day), but make sure you can get everything in it, occupants included, before you drive away.

To book your car, I use ToCoo! to organise car hire. Prices are as good as you’ll find anywhere, and the whole website is in English.

By taxi

Taxi obviously isn’t the cheapest option, but it’s feasible if you have no other way.

The nearest town to Kiroro is Otaru, a 28km drive away. Taxis cost around 600JPY per 1.5km, so expect a charge of around 10000JPY if by the meter. You’ll find taxis waiting outside Otaru station.

Planning a weekend ski trip to Les 3 Vallees, France

Last winter, a friend and I were looking to go skiing for the weekend. The challenge was to do it without having to take any time off work, to maximise time on the slopes, and not for stupid money.

This post is about how we planned for that weekend, how it went, and what I would do differently on my next weekend ski trip in Europe.

Deciding where to go and how to get there

We are both based near London, so that was the obvious point from which to plan. The challenge with ski resorts is that they, by their very nature, difficult to access, and we didn’t want to spend most of the weekend travelling to and from the resort rather than being at the resort itself.

Most ski resorts tend to let accommodation on a weekly Saturday-to-Saturday basis. This obviously was not going to be suitable, so if we were going to use a hotel then likely it would have to be a hotel in a nearby town rather than at the resort itself.

But this also means that the quietest day on the slopes is Saturday. So this would be a good day to target for the actual skiing. It would be nice to already be there by Saturday morning, which would mean travelling down Friday night.

This ruled out flying from the UK. Short haul flights generally don’t fly in the late evening, so we wouldn’t be able to fly Friday night. The first flights on Saturday morning still wouldn’t be able to get us on the slopes before lunchtime on Saturday.

How about driving? Technically possible, but we would have been looking at an overnight drive, finishing with us climbing up the snowy mountain to the resort without having slept. Probably not ideal.

This would not have been the first time I have been skiing in Europe. In February 2014, I went skiing for the first time in Val Thorens, a resort of the 3 Vallees in the French Alps. We took the overnight train from London to Moutiers each way for the week-long trip. A quick look on the Eurostar website showed that are two trains per week in each direction throughout the ski season. A crazy idea – could we take the overnight train for a day of skiing from London?

Amazingly, it is possible! There is an outbound train from London on Friday night, travelling direct to the French Alps, and a return train on Saturday night in the opposite direction. It would only allow one day on the slopes, but it would be a full day, and unlike driving or a night on an airport floor, there was opportunity for a good few hours’ kip on the train.

So, it looked like we were going to the 3 Vallees. Since we were only going for one day, it seemed like a good idea to return to Val Thorens. I enjoyed the slopes here last time, and there was still plenty I wanted to do there. It would mean we could head straight to my favourite runs without having to spend time getting acquainted with a new resort.

Taking the Ski Train to Les 3 Vallees

We bought the train tickets for the Eurostar well in advance, with a return costing around £150 per person. We went standard class outbound, and due to a good price, we got the standard premier class return.

In hindsight, I would really recommend getting the standard premier in each direction! The journey is around 10 hours, and it’s best if you try and get as close as possible to a full night’s sleep. Here are the two classes:

This is standard class:

Image: Stephen H

And this is standard premier:

Image: David McKelvey under Creative Commons

The difference is the extra space. Standard class may be fine if you are doing the 2 hour journey from London to Paris, but for getting a decent rest overnight, the extra space is definitely worth a little extra money!

The outbound train has a great party atmosphere. Bring food and drink with you and enjoy the ride!

Arriving at the French Alps – things start to go wrong

The train makes multiple stops at different stations within the French Alps. We planned to alight at Moutiers, the nearest station to Val Thorens, and then to take a public bus between Moutiers bus station (which is connected to the train station) and the resort.

Arriving at Moutiers, to our confusion, the buses to Val Thorens don’t seem to be running. Through a combination of asking other confused tourists, and my own broken French, I learnt that the road to Val Thorens (there is only one!) had been closed due to a large boulder blocking it. There was literally no way to get to Val Thorens that day.

Adamant that we had not come half way across Europe to see a train station, we tried to see where else we could go from Moutiers. There are many resorts in the area, but they all seem to be connected by a highly fragile road network with no redundancy. The only available option was the resort of Courcheval, which as it turns out wasn’t a terrible compromise.

Plan B: Courcheval

Courcheval is a little more up-market than Val Thorens. VT has a big student-y crowd, while Courcheval seems to attract couples and very middle-class families, as evident from the architecture and the extremely expensive-looking jewellery shops. It is also exceptionally beautiful.

Image: Clifton Beard under Creative Commons

We had pre-paid for pretty much everything before we left the UK – all for Val Thorens. We had to buy new ski passes and pay for ski rental again. We explained the situation at the ticket counter, but they said we wouldn’t be able to transfer our ski passes as we had bought it from a different company. We would have to buy again and try and get a refund later on. This is certainly some useful advice – there are no real benefits for buying ski passes in advance, save from a couple of minutes in the ticket queue! If you’re thinking of buying in advance, I would say not to bother. Similarly for ski hire, there are so many rental shops that, unless you have an unusual shoe size, you should have no problem finding equipment by turning up on the day.

At long last, by mid-morning, we were all kitted out and ready to go skiing! Courcheval is certainly more attractive than Val Thorens, which is very concretey and faux-chalet, with few trees. The mountains are stunningly high – certainly much more dramatic than the smaller mountains of northern Japan.

Image: James Ramsden

Courcheval has a good mix of beginner, intermediate and advanced slopes. Skiing with my beginner counterpart, we spent some time on the nursery slope before moving onto a green run. The resort thankfully wasn’t too busy, though I suspect it would get a bit crazy in peak season when it’s not Saturday. Like all major European ski resorts, there are mountain restaurants aplenty, which provided us with a tasty but ridiculously over-priced pizza for lunch.

Image: James Mellor under Creative Commons

Heading back

After lunch, we went to the tourist information to double-check that we could get back to Moutiers this evening, being well aware of the problematic roads. Turns out they had some not so good news – they were imminently closing the road to Courcheval! We had missed the last bus, and in a panic we had to organise a taxi to come for us.

So, mid-afternoon and with some 6 hours to kill, we were back in Moutiers, waiting for the train to take us back to the UK.

Would I do it again?

We did have a lot of bad luck on this trip. I’m sure we could do it another 10 times and be fine. But the sensitivity of the road network to problems means that I would probably head to a slightly more robust area.

Next time, I may be tempted to look at the area around Bourg St-Maurice. This is the terminus of the ski train, and the ski resorts round these parts are much closer to the train station.

I would be happy to take the train again, though I would not go in standard class. Try and book your tickets far in advance for the best prices.

I don’t know why I wrote this article in summer though. It’s just made me want to skiing right now…

Planning a ski trip to Japan: A ski map of Hokkaido

As part of my research into my first ski trip in Japan, I have been researching the different places to go.

I am a relative beginner with little over a week of experience, but I’m wanting somewhere with the best snow, a good mix of slopes, and away from the crowds. In Hokkaido, we’re spoilt for choice and it can be quite bewildering to know where to go, where to stay and how to get around.

I put together the map of Hokkaido ski resorts below as an evolving work to help understand the different regions in Hokkaido for skiing. I haven’t actually been to any of the places below yet, but it is quite a useful tool for putting together my plans. I have also saved piste maps into each of the resorts – zoom in and click a ski icon to take a look.

Full screen version: click here.

It seems that many of the most exciting and promising resorts can be accessed within a couple of hours of Sapporo by train, even the distant Tomamu in the east. With a JR pass, it’s very easy to get about by train, and it will likely be cheaper to stay in Sapporo and do day trips to lots of different resorts. Furano is the only significant exception that’s a little too far – maybe a couple of days at a hotel there?

The PowderHounds website (and their own ski map) was an excellent resource in my map and my own planning. I recommend you take a look, especially at their list of top resorts.

Anything I’ve missed out? Any other amazing places you can recommend?

Taking the Trans-Siberian from Moscow to Beijing

This is a throwback to my travels in 2010 when I spent 4 months travelling around Europe and Asia. This is taken word-for-word from my TravelPod blog that I kept at the time, and have just re-discovered.

This post starts as I boarded the Trans-Siberian train for the week-long journey to Beijing.

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Boarding the Trans-Siberian

Found the train in the station without a problem. Took cheesy photos of ourselves outside the train (catching unsuspecting passengers within the train in the photos). Was a very long train – maybe 15 passenger carriages. Two carriages first class, remainder second. Every one was a sleeper carriage – second was 4 beds to a room, first was 2 beds and a tiny en suite.

Milan and Christine were indeed in the next carriage. They were sharing with Coreen, a very Scottish 27 year old travelling to Mongolia assisting with research for three months. Made for a very entertaining compartment – Milan and Christine have the most amazing love-hate relationship – it’s quite amusing to see them bicker, fall out, make up, and fall out again in the space of half a minute. It’s all in good humour – I don’t think they could ever actually fall out. But I must say nice things – I did give them the address of this blog 🙂

In my compartment was Rita, an extremely friendly lady who, according to Milan, had designated me her adoptive grandson for the length of the journey. She was quite undoubtedly the most sociable person on the train – within a day it seems she had met every person on their train, learnt their names and their story. She is a very talented linguist with knowledge in English, Finnish, Russian, Mandarin and probably more that I can’t remember right now. She had many stories to tell – many of them revolved around her ex-husband – he would only travel 5-star, and she was taking this opportunity to do what she had always wanted to do and rebel – stay in youth hostels, travel the world by train, and meet lots of people – none of which he seemed to want to do. She took a great interest in my plans – she insisted that she takes a copy of my itinerary.

Also in our compartment was an Australian couple who were concluding their tour of Europe, a Polish (I think) couple who were taking the Trans Siberian to Beijing basically for the journey – they only had 2 days in Beijing (Adam doesn’t have much interest in the city) before returning home. There was a group of 4 to the other end of the carriage, 3 guys and a girl. The guys were cycling across Mongolia – not sure exactly what she was doing. There was a Mongolian woman who Rita was very friendly with – her Russian visa had expired by 18 months (she had a Russian husband), but she was trying to return to Mongolia to pick up her papers. Or something like that. Finally (as far as I remember) there were three Swedish girls who had taken three weeks off work so they could take this train, spend a little time in Asia and then return home. They couldn’t quite explain why they wanted to do it though… but then nobody on the train (including myself) could give a definite and concise answer. It’s probably clear that a bit of a community spirit develops when a group of people are held together for such an amount of time! But then, when we had a look at other carriages, none of the others seemed quite as sociable – most of the doors were shut and the passengers kept themselves to themselves. Carriage 6 was the place to be 😀

The carriage itself was comfy enough. The beds were very hard but long enough. The outside temperature was hot from Moscow, got very cold in Siberia, before getting hot towards Beijing. Shame the heating didn’t follow that pattern in the slightest. The Chinese conductors were friendly, though they spoke little English. The lack of a shower or even a good sized basin was a problem – but when everyone on the train is not showering at the same time, nobody minds 🙂 The toilet was the crude dumping-on-tracks job – the ‘flush’ was simply the hole in the bottom of the toilet opening up, revealing the track below. I was thinking of marking on the map each point when I’d gone to the toilet… or not 🙂 So yea… basically no hygiene facilities.

No food was provided, although we could help ourselves to hot water. We’d all brought a stash of noodles and biscuits. Thankfully, the train stopped for 20 minutes at a station every 4 hours or so, and if it was working hours the platform would be buzzing with hawkers selling all sorts of food, drink and other bits and pieces. The food often seemed to be home cooked Russian food and was fairly priced. At various points, I bought a chicken and potato ready meal thing (delicious and no food poisoning :D), crispy toffee tube things, and a litre can of beer!

Russia

For the first few days, the scenery was relatively uninteresting. Trees, grass, few hills but largely flat, Russian shack villages, the odd chimney stack, piles of logs. Passed through many of the Russian cities along the way – lots of concrete socialist style tower blocks (even if the area was sparsely populated, tower blocks seemed the favoured way of housing people). Weather was good the first day, but by the second night it had turned cold (they forgot the heating and the blankets were hardly warm – lots of grumbling in the morning).

It was surprising how quickly time goes on the train. You spend so much time generally chatting with everyone that it doesn’t take much reading, sudoku and noodle making for the day to end. At no point did I feel bored and that I had nothing to do. Had a lot of fun on the third evening when the whiskey came out (thanks Coreen!), playing cards (none of us could remember a comprehensive set of rules for any card game – we improvised a game of Uno then some bizarre variant of Go Fish).

Into Siberia

As we approached Lake Baikal the scenery got more mountainous. We were also getting more remote – the chimneys and makeshift landfill sites in western Russia became less common. Lake Baikal itself was a truly amazing sight. The train approached it from the mountain tops – glimpses of the lake appeared every so often between the mountains. The track descended as it followed the perimeter of the lake until we were by the water’s edge. The lake was still half thawed from the winter – large sheets of ice remained. The morning was windless, so where there was water, the mountains reflected in it beautifully. The mountains themselves had also part thawed – veins of snow remained, giving me the impression that the black mountains were being illuminated from within… maybe. The scale of the ‘lake’ is hard to comprehend – I took many photos but I doubt that a single one of them will do the lake justice.

Crossing the border into Mongolia

Passing into customs from Russia to Mongolia, it unfolded that the Mongolian woman was not permitted to leave Russia due to having an invalid visa – yet of course she was not technically allowed to stay. Apparently she was aware that she would have difficulties – she attempted to bribe the customs official (this is Russia – it’s not that unusual) but unfortunately for her it didn’t work. She was led off the train by the Russians and never seen again.

Moving into Mongolia (customs took 6 hours! Horrible time!) the foresty scenery soon disappeared, giving way to tall rolling grassy hills. Most of the train got off at Ulan Bator (me, Rita, the Australian couple and the Polish couple remained) and we got a new shipment of passengers. They seemed all nice, but it wasn’t the same as before – there wasn’t quite the same community spirit. We were due to arrive in Beijing in little over a day anyway.

After Ulan Bator the greenery disappeared – we were now travelling through the Gobi Desert. Very dry, hot and sandy – such a contrast to what we’d seen just a day before.

Arriving in China

Northern China on the way to Beijing is a natural wonder. The train travels down a valley of steep tall mountains, giving glimpses down the river as we travelled between tunnels. One of the reasons I took the Trans Mongolian rather than the route avoiding Mongolia was that I’d heard the scenery is something not to be missed – I would certainly agree.

The mountains levelled off as we approached Beijing. Not an attractive introduction to the city – lots of rubbish everywhere, slums, factories. China might be on its way to becoming a developed nation but this sight demonstrated that there’s still a lot to do before China’s new found wealth becomes more universally distributed.

After 6 days of travelling, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we somehow made it to the station to the minute on time – 14:04 this afternoon (that’s GMT+8, no summer time). Made our farewells, took a few last photos, and that was it. All alone in Beijing.. eep!

First day in St Petersburg

This is a throwback to my travels in 2010 when I spent 4 months travelling around Europe and Asia. This is taken word-for-word from my TravelPod blog that I kept at the time, and have recently re-discovered.

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When Visa say that they’re accepted worldwide, they may not be lying but they’re certainly stretching the truth. It was not a great time to find this out after having arrived in St Petersburg, having not eaten a proper meal in 3 days, water supplies long gone, dehydration looming, no way to pay for my hostel for the night, and with not a single cash machine in sight sporting the Visa logo. Russia may still be insular in many ways, and the way it likes to move money around the cyberspace is certainly one example.

An hour or so of wandering aimlessly, I eventually found my way (at last) to a touristy bit with a Visa cashpoint. Put my card in, entered pin, yada yada yada… your card has been declined by your bank. This wasn’t turning into a good day.

I concluded that, since I had bought train tickets in Lithuania, and to a bank watching its accounts for fraud, finding transactions in Lithuania that it hadn’t expected might be considered suspicious and so HSBC had probably blocked my card. I don’t know whether they’re just keen to minimise fraud or just like being overzealous to annoy their customers, but this will have been the third time it will have happened. Not impressed…

Last resort, I decided to go straight to the hostel I was booked to stay for the night, and ask for their trust and kindness and for them to let me use their computers and check in before I had access to any cash. Thankfully, all was fine. I was able to call up the bank from the number online, sort it out, get my card unblocked, and also to give the bank my travel plan so hopefully this won’t happen again. They say.

The hostel itself is on the 4th floor on the main road into town, by the station to Moscow. In a 14 bed dorm (not too packed though – it’s a big room). Fairly clean, friendly staff, amazing showers – power shower jets and a built in radio?? Mainly chinese students in at the moment, there was a party of English people but they left this morning before I had a reasonable chance to meet them. Hostel is about 25 minutes walk from the city centre.

Spent most of the day doing some intense sightseeing. There is so much to see here, it’s incredible – landmarks like palaces, mansions, monuments, cathedrals and gardens all knit together into a seamless sequence around the city. If Moscow is where money was made, Saint Petersburg is where it was spent. And I’ve only seen a fraction of the city so far. No photos yet (USB ports on this computer have been disabled, or are just broken, dammit!) but a quick google should give you an idea.

The feel of the city itself is certainly worth noting. It’s now 22:40 and the roads are still full while pedestrians, both tourists (lots of them!) and locals, are zipping around the city or taking part in the city’s significant cafe culture. It has probably helped that today’s been stunningly hot – especially for this part of the world – 26 degrees in the afternoon I believe. For most of the day, the street outside my hostel turns into a carpark more than anything worthy of being called a road. The buses and trams are always full, and even during off peak time the subway is an intensely crowded experience. Towards peak time, crowds were spilling out of the subway stations, out of the halls, and well onto the paths outside. There are just so many people here. Even compared to London, this is something else. (And Saint P is certainly not supposed to be one of the busier cities on my route – so there could well be even more to prepare for!) It seems “off peak” isn’t defined as the time when the roads are fairly empty, just as the time you can actually move.

Speaking of the metro, at only 22 rubles a single (50p) it’s a fairly cheap way of both getting around and doing some sightseeing too. The lines are incredibly deep – the escalator journey alone takes 2 minutes each way. I believe the reasoning is that the stations underground were designed to double up as air raid shelters in case of war – which is also why they are so ornate. I wish I was able to take more photos (only got a few on my camera phone) but bringing out your camera in a tube station around 100 commuters in a packed subway station not only is asking for pickpocketers and the like, it just feels a bit silly too.

Back to the roads – if you ever thought there were some bad drivers in the UK (you know who I’m talking to) then Russia is a whole new experience. Lane discipline is optional, the horn rules, pedestrians and even other drivers are annoyances that prevent drivers getting to where they need to be, and must be eradicated. Speaking of which, there’s a very strange rule on pedestrian crossings here. When the green crossing light is on, you cross. But right turning traffic still crosses their line and is about to cross your crossing. In the UK, that would mean somebody’s done something wrong, so you jump for your life out of the way. But here (and also, oddly, in Berlin) it’s the norm that the car gives way, and then carries on when everyone’s crossed, like a UK zebra crossing. But not all the time. I still haven’t quite figured it out. Sometimes I attempt to cross and have to react quickly to the driver’s own inability to do so. Sometimes the car approaches, I jump back, the car stops anyway, the driver looks confused and annoyed. I just follow everyone else now. Also… half the cars seem to run on half flat tyres. The roads are filled with the noise of the flat tyre squelching sound. Maybe they forgot that winter’s finished? Just something I noticed. Also saw that, with the introduction of capitalism, the number of Ladas is surprisingly low on the road (separately saw 4 of them broken down on the streets today). You can’t help but get the impression that Russia still doesn’t really want to do capitalism and suchlike, but it’s getting there.

Long tiring day, exhausted. Planning tomorrow maybe to catch the train just out of the city to see one of the many palaces around the area . We’ll see.