Furano
The flight from Sydney to Narita Tokyo was pretty good. Even though it was a long overnight flight, I was ok. It is a lot easier to make long flights in the same time zone, than it is flying east or west.
Across to Haneda and on to Sopporo
I had to get from Narita to Haneda Airport for the connecting flight to Sapporo. This involved a 45 minute bus ride that included the bridge and tunnel that crosses Tokyo Harbour. This an amazing piece of infrastructure.
The flight to Chitose (Sapporo) was about an hour and a half. From the airport would get an appreciation how mountainous Japan it is.
Train to Furano
I took the train from Chitose airport to Furano. This involved a change of trains on Takikawa. The second train was a little one carriage number.
It checked into the Natulux Hotel which is opposite the railway station and sat down to a ‘curry’ meal.
Up to the Slopes
In the morning I took the bus to the ‘New Prince Hotel’ where my skiing mates were staying. There was no point in skiing. They had already called it a day by about 12.00 noon.
Wandering the streets on Sunday night
We took the bus into the town and went to a hardware store. This was interesting, however the others found it more interesting because they buy stuff in this type of store. I bought some snow spikes.
We wandered the town looking for a place to eat. Seemingly because t was Sunday, there were very few placed open. We finally found a place. The food was pretty good.
Finally Skiing
Next day I caught the bus to the ‘old’ skiing area.
The Furano resort is split into two parts. It would appear the area closest to the town was established first. The second part where the New Prince Hotel is located was seemingly established some time later. It is not possible to catch a bus to the new part before 11.00 a.m. That would appear to be strategy to encourage you to stay at the ‘new’ hotel.
It is possible to ski from the ‘old’ part to the ‘new’ part by taking a gondola to the top of the mountain and skiing down to a ‘link’ lift which takes you half way up the mountain above where the New Prince Hotel is located.
The main people mover on the ‘new’ side is the Ropeway. This is lift with two large boxes that hold 101 people. Check out the Flicker photos.
There are also some chairlifts, one with a screen.
Except on a few occasions the Ropeway was never close to being full. Also, I never experienced nay waiting times to catch a chair lift.
The Garmin Link gives you an ideal of the lifts and runs at the resort.
I had a couple of runs with my Balmain host. He wasn’t impressed with the state of the snow, however, I thought it was pretty good.
I meet the others in town and be had a reasonable meal in the bar type place.
Good Snow
Need day, the snow was a lot better. My Balmain host could not ski, having hurt his knee sitting down in a chair. Given his history of skiing injuries, this one hardly rates a mention.
That night we had a Shabu Sabu meal which is sliced meal boiled in water. It was very good.
Icy Snow
The next day’s snow was a bit icy. I tried to meet up with the others, but we missed each other.
They didn’t come into town, I ended up eating in the Furano Bar, which is an Italian restaurant. I met a woman from Bundaberg, who “would prefer to live in Furano”. Interesting.
More Icy Snow
The next day’s skiing was much the same. Again I missed meeting up with the others. On the snow.
A night we had a good meal in a traditional Japanese restaurant.
Flickr Link
Garmin Link
billrider2013 