Hello adventures,

These last few days have been less chaotic but still eventful! I’m so trying to figure out the cadence of writing. It’s been hard to find time to be at my laptop. It only occurred to me recently that I can take notes on my phone while commuting and such.

Feb. 9th
My first day in Kutchan I mostly spent the day driving around town, hitting the hot springs and eating! It was a nice break from all the chaos. I ate lunch at Ichifuji and got the grilled herring. It has a really light flavor which paired really well with grilled crispy skin. This was my first time eating herring that I know of. I was imaging that it would have a stronger flavor. All I’ve ever heard about it before was through a friend mentioning pickled herring. There’s a lot of polarizing thoughts around it like durian.

After lunch I made my way to Kyogoku Onsen. This was was a fantastic spot not too far from the main town. It had an outdoor pool, plenty of indoor pools, a sauna and a cold pool. I’ve started to become hooked to onsens.

I’ve started developing a routine for onsening. I’ll do a good scrub down to start. I’ll hit up all the hot pools for 5-10 mins each. And for the rest of the time I hit up the sauna and cold pools. I’ll usually sauna for 10 minutes and then hit the cold pool, rest and repeat. I’ll repeat the cycle from 3-10 times depending on how much time I have. For the cold pool I try to work my way up in a session to 3 mins. If there’s time after the sauna I like to sit in the hottest pool to finish up. I then do a final scrub down and wash my hair if needed.

Once I finish with the bath side of things I check out the onsen kitchen. I love getting a soft serve vanilla ice cream to wrap up my onsen trip. Hokkaido is also known for it’s cream so it has been a real treat here. Some of the soft server ice cream remind me of condensed milk.

After the onsen I went back into town to find dinner. I tried to go to a few different options. Some were closed for the holidays. Some were fully booked out for the night. I ended up at a random izakaya which had a very traditional japanese feel to it. I got some sushi, and beef tendon miso soup. The tendon was nice and tender. The sushi was also really good and some of the best salmon I’ve had so far.

Feb. 10th
The next day I woke up pretty late (9am) considering that I went to bed around 9pm. I was debating on snowboarding or not and finally decided to go around 10. This would be my first time snowboarding by myself. I’ve always had friends around to hang out with and encourage me. I’m still new-ish to snowboarding. This will be about my 10th time boarding. I feel comfortable going down blues and have gone down 1 or 2 blacks before. I guess all of this is to say I was a little nervous and wasn’t super into the idea of snowboarding by myself.

Niseko had some nice long green runs which was nice to start on. After warming up I went to the top of the mountain. In order to make it down to the same base that I started I needed to go down at least 1 black. The section at the top was quite steep and I saw a few people wipe out before me. Thankfully it’s been snowing which helped ease some of my fear.

As I went down the mountain I hit up a few tree runs! One of the sections of trees was through the steep part and wasn’t as fun for me. I didn’t have the skills to make it through smoothly and took a few falls. The other tree run I did was near the green run so and I quite enjoyed it! I think tree runs near green runs are some of my favorite terrain now. It has an increase thrill and feels like dancing in the snow. You can choose your own path but you gotta stay on your toes to pivot at any moment.

I also hit up the park for one of the runs. That was a mistake. Thankfully the powdery snow saved my ass. The park starts off with what I feel like a medium jumps. I’ve done smaller jumps before at least. I decided to send it anyways. The first jump wasn’t so bad. I got a little bit of air and landed but feel quickly after as I couldn’t keep balance. The second jump though. Oof. I got way more air than I intended and couldn’t rotate enough to make the landing. I landed tail side into the hill and took a few tumbles eventually rolling into the powdery snow. No injuries, but definitely got some whiplash and would be feeling it the next day. After the park I decided on just 1 more run which was just down the green I took at the beginning of the day. All and all, a successful day and I made it down in one piece.

After finishing up at the ski resort I headed to another onsen! Yusenkaku. I liked this onsen slighly better than the one in Kyogoku. They’re quite comparable though. The main thing which makes me lean to Yusenkaku though was this pool they had. I was observing some of the older women and noticed one of them pressed a button. After pressing the button she sat at the pool nearby and suddenly a stream of water came down from the ceiling. I was in awe. It was like a little waterfall. She used it to massage her shoulders. I later sat in that same pool and massaged my shoulders and neck for a few cycles.

After finishing at the onsen I headed back towards Niseko and grabbed dinner at yakitori place. It was quite late (11:15 pm) when I got there but thankfully I made it in time for their last order (11:30). I asked them for their recommendation, there was a pop-up event happening at the time for sushi so they recommended that. I got some sushi and a few skewers to top off the meal. I kind of wish I just got skewers honestly though. The sushi from the pop up was fine, but I feel like the sushi from the other place was better and a lot cheaper. The sushi set came with “fancier” fish but it also came with salmon and I thought the salmon from the other izakaya was more fresh and delicious. The skewers though were quite amazing!