Booked snow trip

Due to budget constraint and my manager who didn't allow me to take leave on the last week of the year, I had to either cancel my snow trip or postpone it to next year so I was thinking of the first week of January, at least skiing over New Year's and the shops will be opened when I return to Tokyo. But I was afraid of the delayed snowfall so plans got delayed again.

For the last few weeks I have been seeing all those snow or japan posts on social media and it was just too much I HAVE to go once this season.

The tentative dates were after Chinese New Year because my friend has to use his flights before mid Feb. It was met with 2 coincidences: one, my cousin and her husband are going to Niseko in Feb and two, the dates coincide with our planned dates. I roughly checked the accommodations in Hokkaido but it was almost fully booked and the only ones left were the expensive ones, for the past 2 days I was fretting over whether to go back to Myoko or explore Niseko where I had never been.

Within 2 days I pretty much bought and booked everything for my snow trip and this time round it's.... drum rolls.... NISEKO!!

The cost of accommodation is the difficult part. All those which are left are either really expensive like Hilton or some 6 star resort that costs one month of your pay for 4 nights, or really lousy but at the price of a 5 star hotel. I was really contemplating on booking this new $350 per night resort which is really beautiful until chanced upon this affordable lodge on airbnb. I messaged the owner on airbnb but there wasn't any reply so I googled them and all the booking sites on them were fully booked.

It's either the slim chance of getting this $180 per night lodge called the Frying Pan or I will have to take the $350 one called The Kamui, which would also be unavailable if I didn't hurry. I called the Frying Pan directly the next morning. Despite the language barrier, I managed to ask if there's a room available for 2 person for 4 nights and he said yes. I was quite skeptical because he might not understand what I was talking about and I had to confirm with him again. Even after we hung up I was really surprised that they really did have a room but still not sure if it was confirmed. That afternoon I got an email from them confirming my reservation and I was soooo relieved.

Next was the accommodation in Sapporo. Most of the hotels were fully booked and prices jacked up for that week because of the snow festival. After searching for sooo many, I did manage to book a reasonably priced business hotel using my Japanese alias. Hehe.

Next were the domestic flights and the transport. I didn't want to waste time travelling from Narita to tokyo city center and back again for the flight so we are flying 3 hours after landing and a separate one back to Haneda, because our Tokyo hotel is nearer to Haneda.

Everything fell in place perfectly, except for the prices of hotels in Hokkaido, but oh wells, opportunity comes once in a while. I still miss Myoko though. I saw the amount of snow there, it's incredible this year.

Hm.... maybe in March.........