Tubby Beaver

Sounds like fant-ABE-tastic abenomics in action right there

Congrats!! I take it your humble bow was tip top!

Having only been to both on the odd weekend trip, perhaps isn't the best to decide on BUT here's my tuppence worth anyway....both are great places to ride, both have bars and restaurants and club nights. Niseko, specifically Hirafu village, is more compact.....most of the bars and restaurants are clustered in Hirafu and an easy walk....Hakuba seemed much more spread out but there were buses and taxis around so it wasn't a problem. I would say that maybe Niseko has more young people hanging around but they are of the Aussie variety and it seemed to me most of them were on some Club 18-30/Spring

Overcast in Sapporo

Teine highland this morning

There was also unexpected problems with falling ice in winter time, due to its height any water condensation freezes, large chunks of it was flying into the residences in the neighborhoods below

I like the chopper Pete

yes Furano did get a little covering of snow. Teine Highland got its first snows as well

Noticed the other day that Kirin's Hop version of Ichiban Shibori is out so went and grabbed a few today..... Another favourite mass produced lager of mines

1st snow on Teine today.....Niseko got its first sprinkling as well with snow falling in hirafu and kutchan. Sapporo city got a little bit but it was mostly rain

Nice one Pete, good to hear from u again! Where are you headed to?

I'm not a park guy at all, and it seems a long way to come to just (or mostly) ride park. In terms of the extra stuff you're looking for.....have you considered staying in a city like Sapporo? It's got Teine and Kokusai resorts in the city, and I seem to recall someone telling me that Kokusai usually has a decent park. Rusutsu is easily accessible as is Kiroro and Niseko isn't that far away. If you hook up with a crew of people then Furano, Kamui and the like are a bit further by car the other way.

The older mum n dad style liquor shops usually give u money back for the big glass bottles

Halloween is an old celtic holiday, from Scotland and Ireland. It's a day when the spirits come back to the living world. In an attempt to scare away bad spirits, people would carve lanterns and leave them in their windows and to stop the bad spirits grabbing the children (like was believed to happen), kids would dress up as demons and ghouls, so that the bad spirits would think that they were bad spirits too and leave the children alone. The were in disguise......which is why in Scotland kids didnt go "trick or treating", they went "guising". And when guising, it simply wasn't enough to show

Same here.....colder this morning (yesterday was warm n sunny)....we have a chance of snow tonight even to lower elevations although it'll be very very wet snow if it does reach city level

Another snowman on the forecast for Sapporo on Tuesday night.....this time precipitation looks likely

Real Halloween or the Yank version of it?

Was out n about tonight, seems most places are having their Halloween party tonight.....um.....it's next week!! WTF?!?

Big Sam really working under the radar this year

Nice Snowdude! Not brown at all

Ah ok......gotcha

So it's the same then cos u get the 500¥ back, eh?

From a week or so ago... Is that up from last year?

then go skidding past the test centre, wobbling and giving them the V?

Oh….Ex-NOVA…..are those bikes you use provided from the test centre or do you have to buy a bike first? silly question perhaps, but….