LVT: Japan - November 2016

I feel like it has been so long since I have sat down in front of a computer and written anything other than coursework. In fact it's been well over a year since I have done so and I'm quite excited at the prospect of getting this blog up and running again for our time in Japan. I chose not to blog whilst we were in France because I worked a lot and snowboarded in my free time and that was it, there wasn't much to tell. This time round it could end up being exactly the same, I really couldn't say at this point. But what I aim to do is to pop up a post on here once a month for all of you, friends and family, back home to see what we are up to and also to be a nice memory for Danny and I to look back on. I love so much looking through my posts from Canada, so hopefully this will be a similar kind of thing and something for us all to enjoy; time will tell.

First of all, the journey from little old Oundle to Japan. It was quite something. For a start it was the longest journey that I have ever taken and it certainly felt that way too. We weren't taking any chances after we missed our flight to France last season, so we decided to go and stay at an airport down at Heathrow to eliminate another similar disaster from occurring. I was extremely grateful to have Danny to get all our luggage, not only on a train from Peterborough to London but through the London Underground, on a busy, 'Winter Wonderland' tourist filled Sunday, with major delays on the Piccadilly Line and people who cannot bare to wait two minutes for the next train to arrive. Lets just say we were very grateful once we reached Heathrow and could escape the sweatiness into fresh, clean air. Once at the hotel we shared some food and wine and relaxed by watching David Attenborough's 'Planet Earth 2' whilst trying to not feel too anxious about the adventure that was to come.

Five am rocked around way too quickly for my liking and up and out were onto the bus taking the 10 minute journey to Terminal 4 for the first leg of our journey: London Heathrow to Abu Dhabi. A seven hour flight with Etihad with a pretty quick two hour changeover; as long as the first flight wasn't delayed we would be fine. To my surprise the airlines food was pretty tasty, we managed to bag extra legroom seats and the film selection awesome - so that was me happy and entertained and before I knew it we were landing in the UAE. Straight through security no issues and in the gate waiting for the next leg of our flight within half an hour, it all seemed to be going a bit too well. So journey number two: Abu Dhabi to Tokyo. Now the food on this flight was insane, Danny was in his element! Full Japanese a la carte with beer and wine - what's not to like!?! But this journey was ten hours and we knew we had to sleep to feel remotely human when we arrived. Me, being the sloth like creature that I am, managed to sleep absolutely fine for a good seven hours of the journey - Danny, not so much. But we arrived safe and sound. On collection of our baggage we were informed that there had been an earthquake in Fukushimi which is North of Tokyo, but still a lot further South than we were heading. However, Tokyo was on tsunami alert which at the time we thought was going to affect our flight up North to Sapporo - as it was, again all went well and we were in the air and landed again on time to meet up with everyone in the airport ready to get to the resort. Almost 34 hours door to door, I think it's fair to say that we were pretty darn happy to be in a room with a bed and a pillow and heating.

Our first full day in Niseko Village was Wednesday 23rd November. Due to jet lag we were up after only about 5 hours sleep (2 for Danny) and went to meet one of the managers, Alex, for a tour around resort. Now our accommodation is a short bus ride away from where we will be working and around a 30 minute walk to the nearest shop; pretty much on a secluded farm with views for miles. Alex showed us around the Hilton Hotel which is where most of the instructors will be based and then through the cute little village of shops and bars and restaurants which just looks like the quaintest little wooden town covered in snow, so beautiful! I saw the little wooden wig wam type building which is the daycare centre I shall be working in and then we went to the staff canteen for lunch. You get A LOT of food for 300 yen. Rice, miso soup; a main which is either a noodle dish such as ramen or udon, a curry, a fish dish or the dish of the day which is called "higawari" and then there is a side salad, bread roll and some kind of sweet treat along with unlimited coffee, green tea and/or water. So just to put that all into perspective, all of that for the equivalent of £2.13 - cheaper than a Tesco meal deal and so much better!

After we had eaten all of that food we got back on the bus and headed into Kutchan which is the nearest sizeable town to Niseko Village. We needed some cardboard boxes for storage, some kitchen utensils and most importantly some food. Because we aren't actually into the season yet the bus schedule is pretty poor which meant that we were going to be stuck in Kutchan for over three hours. We did our food shop first (stupidly) which ended up taking a fair amount of time as we had absolutely no idea what half of the produce was. We played it safe with noodles, bread and eggs, cereal, milk and beer. There was a 100 yen store next to the supermarket as well which we got our homeware stuff from - basically a Japanese Poundland but better because everything is 100 yen which equates to 71p, bargain! We looked round a few very expensive ski/snowboard shops and just wandered around the town until it was time to catch the bus back and get unpacked and into some sort or order at home and before we knew it that was the end of the first day.

On Thursday we had been invited to a Safety Prayer for Niseko Village, which was a traditional Japanese Ceremony that takes place every year with the hope of everyone having a safe season. All of the staff that were in resort, both Japanese and International, attended and we did the best we could do join in with the ceremony - which was entirely in Japanese. It was conducted by a Japanese priest who had traditional Japanese clothing on and the most insane pair of clog type shoes that I think I have ever seen. There was lots of waving around a funny kind of stick, even more clapping and some strange wailing noises but it was definitely something fun and different to be a part of. We then all got to go to the Hilton Hotel buffet and have lunch together which was delicious and plentiful and then back on the bus back to the staff accommodation.

After those first two days I think we both feel like we are spiralling slowly into some kind of mad state of being. Because we don't start work until the 1st of December, and the resort does not open until the 1st of December and we don't get our lift pass until the 1st of December, there is absolutely NOTHING to do. We have watched an unacceptable amount of TV (thank goodness for VPNs and wifi) and I read an entire book in 24 hours ('Small Great Things' by Jodi Picoult, which is such an eye opening and hard hitting read if anyone gets the chance to read it) so we are both itching to start work and get on our snowboards as soon as possible. It will be nice to get into a proper routine too because we still haven't quite got over our jet lag, and a busy day of work will definitely help that all settle into place. So with one day left of "unemployment" still to go I'm in the process of downloading a new book and filling my time with writing this and trying not to miss my home and family and all my lovely toddlers at the nursery too much and remember how much fun we will be having in a few days time. The first month of being in a new place I always find difficult, lots of new faces to meet and a new culture to adapt to, but I think this is going to be a great season and we are going to face lots of challenges and learn new skills; it's going to be good and I hope I can document it well enough on here without boring you all too much. So all my love and I'll leave you with a few pictures from our first week...