PART II: SKIING WAS NOT AS EASY AS WE THOUGHT!
[Music] my sister and I flew to Nico Japan with one goal to learn how to ski with little to no experience and a whole lot of excitement we signed up for ski classes eager to guide through the legendary JPAL but on day one reality hit there was pain frustration and moments when we questioned our decision entirely did we have fun was it harder than we thought did we make it down the slopes the 6 days trip is documented into three parts it follows our journey of trying something new together and also exploring the quiet snowy charm of NCO in winter let’s dive in [Music] our plan for the trip was to take half day ski class on the first day followed by skiing on our own on the second day and on the third day it will be a full day snowboard class and on the last day was to either practice skiing or snowboard depending on our interests yep it’s very ambitious however we only stuck to our itinary for day one because we were faced with challenges we chose half day ski class cuz we heard skiing was easier to pick up and we both frequently ice skate when we were younger so we thought they might be similar but day one proved us really wrong and you’ll find out shortly this video shares about our first two days on the slope it is day one on the slopes and we will be skiing so right now um we are preparing um having breakfast in our room afterwards we will be taking the shuttle bus to Grand Hafu um area and that’s where we will be learning skiing with go so continue preparing and see you in a bit [Music] [Applause] [Music] we are already about 10 it was a struggle getting all the equipment i think it’s like and then it was also another struggle just getting the train [Music] so many things are [Music] [Applause] [Music] just from here i got water [Music] we paid $120 for a half day class which is about 2 and 1/2 hours and because I had a 30 minutes crash course in Beijing so this was my second time skiing and I could stop so I was in level two class it was my sister’s first time skiing so she joined the level one class she was taught the different part of a ski how to put on a ski balance and ski on one leg pizza break and putting it all together on the bunny slope for me in level two we did some basic drills on the bunny slope for an hour and off we went to the chair lift for the green slope [Applause] the green slope were disastrous cuz I barely knew how to ski properly i actually lost control twice on the slope and rammed into the barricades and that was super traumatizing for me on the first day of class we were so caught up with learning how to ski and barely captured what we did during lessons after a half day ski class we had lunch in a restaurant near Grand Hafu [Music] [Applause] [Music] we have just finished our So tired so tired like dehydrated so now we are at the restaurant here having lunch waiting for food now after a 10 minutes walk uh we are here at the family run i guess uh it’s set to the beginner side of slope but we’ll see how it goes so okay dawning our uh gloves and skis we were told family run had gentler slopes which we could practice but because we were still novin it’s still steeper than we could manage it didn’t end well and together with the trauma experienced from the green slope we were totally demoralized by this time we plan to head to Kuchan village which is about 20 minutes of shuttle bus away from our accommodation we arrived at a bus stop about 15 minutes earlier but the bus did not arrive even after 1 hour of waiting we might have missed it or because it was full and it drove past our stop hence we then went to the convenience store to grab some ingredients to whip up a simple dish alongside our ready-made food we started our day with excitement to learn skiing but was baffled by not being able to ski well by the end of the day our plan was to actually to ski on our own in Anapuri on second day which we heard is beginner friendly but we couldn’t even manage family run and were not confident on going onto another slope also we have already booked ourselves a full day snowboard class the day after as we were still struggling to ski well we decided to cancel learning snowboard altogether and focus on learning how to ski so we brought forward our snowboard class to tomorrow and change it to a full day ski class instead we were so grateful that Go Snow could accommodate our changes at a very short notice after a warm meal we went back to the room our bodies were exhausted our minds were well challenged and our hearts were demoralized we both slept by 900 p.m [Music] it’s day two on the slopes and today we’ll be attending a full day ski class with Go Snow so we are preparing uh to take theana roll shuttle bus that will pick us up at 9:10 okay let’s see uh what we can learn today hopefully uh little improvement a full day ski class was $150 and it was 5 and 1/2 hours including an hour of lunch break my sister continued with level one and I also stayed in level two to brush up our foundations after our ski class we plan to head to Kuchan village for dinner and do some exploration yesterday we missed the bus did we make it today let’s see what today unfolds very ste [Music] yesterday my sister spent most of her time at the foot of the bunny slope and only a short while skiing down the slope today she was taught more skiing basics of pizza break and had more time on the body slope for me in level two it was more drills of doing big and small turns familiarizing with ski control soon it was lunch break and we were back at the restaurant near Granny Rafu we were clearly happier than yesterday enjoying our lunch today both of us felt a little bit more comfortable with the skiing posture our bodies were capturing more muscle memory and we enjoyed the class more today [Applause] class now we are heading back to uh the bus stop at kind of in continue class tomorrow we have booked our for um our new friendship yay it’s a few of us together not only it’s a afternoon class but also a twilight class so we’ll see how is it like skiing at night skiing in the dark
yeah and then it might be very cold
yeah much a new experience
can’t wait for dinner for dinner no
I can’t wait to reach the last [Music] We are back in our hotel room quickly put our stuff we got about 15 minutes to change out and then change in change out for our ski and then change into um another set to go to Kuchan so we’re going to have dinner and supermarket so the plan is we are going to take the Hanazo bus to Hirau welcome center and then from there change to the Kuchchan um night bus so yesterday we actually supposed to take the coocha night bus but I think it was already full so it actually just drove past our stop so this time around we are going to the first stop instead ready ready we’re waiting for the night yeah and it will arrive at 6:30 and this is the first stop so now it’s only 6 and there is a queue let me show you we are still in line and apparently um many people left the line and seek a shelter in the welcome center over there and so now we are first in line
now we are first here [Music] we have reached Kuchan town and we are now looking for the sushi restaurant [Music] after a full day of ski class we were famished the sashimi was great and it tasted even better with all the hard work we put in during the daytime [Music] we’re done with our meal it was great [Music] now we’re heading to Coupe Coupe supermarket cold dark and it’s quite empty yeah [Music] oh sure [Music] kuchchan night buses have a maximum seating capacity of 20 people so again we went to the first stop to board the bus we took the last bus and it was probably filled by the third stop another tiring day but we were both satisfied with our little improvements tomorrow will be exciting we booked a private afternoon and twilight ski class with a new friend we made the day after we will be exploring other parts of Nikko including a snowshoeing excursion stay tuned for the last part of this series [Music]
A trip to Niseko with my sister to learn skiing, explored Hirafu and Kutchan, try snow-shoeing, consumed loads of sashimi and found our love for milk ice-cream.
Part I: Arrival to Niseko, exploration and equipment fitting
Part II: First 2 days on slopes
Part III: Last day on slope, exploration of Niseko (Scheduled on 13 July 2025)