sapporo

Seemore, sounds good to me!!

Kokusai Kiroro Rusutsu Furano Niseko Teine Backcountry

More hanko'ing??? Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!

All the hills around Sapporo under a blanket of white. Kurodake looking good for its opening day on the 14/15th (forgot if Friday or Saturday!)

Asahikawa, 25cm's??

Still gotta wait until Wednesday for the police to finish filling out forms, then send them off to the car dealership, then wait to get a date to pick up the thing! Looooong!!

Thanks again for all the info. Itching to get my hands on it and to take it out! Sure my dog will ruin the funky 2 tone seats soon enough though!!

First

That's the one!! Will post pics when I get it. Didn't notice it was an x trail at all when we saw it at the lot. It also has an F1 style pop up steering wheel, should make putting on snowboard boots pretty easy in the drivers seat.

Thanks for the advice guys! Still looking about for the best deal for us. It's a 2004 Nissan X trail Axis. Petrol. Automatic. In a slightly yakuza style....champagne gold! (Not my colour of choice!) Looking forward to picking it up in possibly 2 weeks time!!!!

So, got a car!! Nissan X Trail. Now, which insurance to get and from which company? Any advice?

¥5,500 for day ticket + ¥500 for IC Card = ¥6,000. Then when u go home u get ¥500 back for the IC Card

I've got ¥5000 in my head, def an expensive place to go!

Meaning in the shovel and probe department, what do u carry? Only a mad man or woman would forget to load his/her pockets with cheese before venturing onto the mountains!!

From a week or so ago...

Going to buy a shovel and probe at the end of the month (Shugakuso sale), wondering what everyone carries and any advice (other than a 300cm probe cos I live Hokkaido)??

Now let's hope you don't need to use it while you are here!

Not sure that would work?! The locals are the ones that visit on none-powder and none-bluebird days and probably, none-weekends!! So surely they are the ones that bring the money in the most (including restaurants, lockers, ski/board shops @ the resort) as opposed to out-of-town families? Wouldn't make much sense to piss of your local customers by charging them more!

Mr. SKI, why do u think it such a stupid phrase??

Buy the kids some snowshoes....no need for Lifts and teach them from a young age the importance of 'earning your turns' !!!!!

Thanks for all the valuable input! The mrs has put a million¥ cap on my budget, meaning finding something under ten years old and with under 60,000 kilometers on the meter is quite hard to find at the moment. I'm guessing April might be a good time to find something perfect (taxes due, work transfer season), but I want to try find something before the winter kicks in, and according to the weather forecasts, that'll be next week (start of the ice age??). What's the average Shaken for a car older than 10years? It's a shaken every year after its ten years old right?

Hope it does! Otherwise the two hours spent putting up snow defenses in the garden with the father-in-law was wasted this afternoon!

Sounds good! ...but Rusutsu is pretty sh*t though and should be avoided, for guaranteed knee deep powder and lots of 'gerende Magic' then one should look no further than Niseko on the island of Japan.

Rusutsu has introduced a new *IC Chip card* system from this season, with a returnable deposit of ¥500 for the card. A day lift pass is ¥5,500

Hello, Am trying to look for a used car in Hokkaido and was wondering if anyone had any experience buying a used car in Japan? I'm looking to buy an SUV (enough space for me, the Mrs, the dog, the boards and gear). Any advice on good / bad car dealers? Any advice on good / bad used SUV's? Any advice on what documentations i might need? Any advice at all? Would love a Landcruiser...but out of my price range at the moment.... looking at Xtrails, Airtreks, Pajeros.... Thanks