Sunday 30 December 2012

My Christmas Day

We awoke in our 19th floor executive hotel room in Sapporo, Hokkaido; with a breath-taking view of the city, coated in white. A lazy start, listening to Christmas tunes on my iPad to get in the spirit while we open presents and drink tea.


Once showered and dressed we went down to the best breakfast buffet I have ever seen and ate in front of a large window with a view of a snow covered garden; gorging ourselves on bread, waffles, fruits, eggs, bacon, french toast and yoghurt.


But no time to rest as we head to the station, not before Maki takes a complementary sauna while I pack up our wonderful gifts. We meet Maki's friend at the station to send us off and board our train to Niseko. On the train we eat an assorted sashimi-don bento while watching the Narnia like scenery whizz by and taking time out to start watching 'The Great Escape' on my iPad (It is Christmas after-all and never seen it all the way through).


We dropped our stuff at our hotel, grabbed our rented skies and headed to the slopes for our lesson.  The ski lesson was good with a slow start as dusk set in and the flood lights came on, lighting the slopes with a beautiful glow; soon after which a bit of a blizzard set in, giving us a little challenge for our first lessons. But we did well and learnt a lot.


We returned to our new hotel and a buffet lunch including roast beef, more sashimi, tempura and loads more food than we could realistically eat. Once our stomachs had been sufficient filled with all the great food, we retreated to warm our aching muscles in the hotels outdoor, mixed onsen; a hot bath surrounded by a winter wonderland, cover in a thick blanket of snow.


Splendid.

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