Our First Driving Adventure In Niseko
Heard from my sister, on her trip that they drove up around 10 AM and the snow on the roads began melting. And it became quite slippery throughout. As a newbie winter driver, I didn’t want to risk anything. Therefore we begun driving up to Niseko from The B Sapporo at 6.30 AM so we’d reach the top earlier. According to Google Maps, it says we will need about a 2 hours drive.
We really didn’t know what to expect, so I had to drive very carefully and slowly. Also, we did not use the in-car GPS because we can’t figure out the UX. Google Maps still works better for us. It was lovely and peaceful drive, and perhaps because it was very early, there weren’t many cars as well. Everything was so beautiful, and while I focused on driving, Minmin focused on taking photos and videos.
During the journey, we even caught the sunrise. One interesting thing we saw were the snow-clearing troopers. There were workers signalling to us on danger spots, as well as telling us that their machines are nearby clearing the snow. It’s amazing how serious a view they had on safety, even on such a low traffic stretch of road.
You may not be able to see from the photos and videos, but it was powdery we barely notice it. It was pretty amazing how neat the roads were despite it being snowing constantly. Until now, we never figured out how they kept the snowy roads so neat; we just know that Japan is incredible.
Pit Stop At Seicomart
Stopped by at a particular Seicomart while we were nearing Niseko, for two reasons. Firstly, we’ve not seen Seicomart before, so we’re curious about this Hokkaido-born convenience store. Secondly, we needed to pee. We took this chance to embrace the snow, which was honestly beyond our cold tolerance levels. We didn’t spend much time, took a couple photos, ate our breakfast in the car and proceeded on. What’s there to FOMO about when we’ve got the next 3 days in this snowy region?
Driving to Niseko Station
For the sake of memories, and the Eki stamp, we made a little detour to Niseko Station. It was a little train station operated by JR Hokkaido, and only ran several trips a day from Sapporo. Fortunately we drove, and not take public transport. Because of the irregular schedule, we’ll be missing out a huge part of the day by the time we got here via train. We snapped a few pictures at the station, before making our way down to Niseko Negula. Totally excited for our upcoming days in the land of powder snow!
