I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Trip planning was heavily facilitated and tracked using an app called WanderLog.

The 8th was a day of travel. We had our breakfast at the Tokyu Stay hotel in Sapporo and then started the journey to the airport to fly to Kyoto. This involved a subway ride to the JR line. Airport security was slow but we got lucky (? haha) in that our flight was slightly delayed so we weren’t too stressed about missing boarding. The flight from Sapporo to Kyoto is also only a few hours.

Today we had breakfast at a really cool spot called Sapporo Pancake & Parfait Last Mint. The vibes were amazing and it was very quiet and empty there when we arrived. We ordered the apple caramel pancakes and the mixed berry with cream and they were both amazing! While they weren’t fluffy pancakes like on our first day, the texture and flavor was still really good and I didn’t feel sick from too much sugar either.

Today’s plan was to head to the Yoichi Whisky Distillery. From where we were staying it was probably an hour and a half to two hour train ride all said with walking and transferring. The terminus of the train is a very short walk to the distillery in Yoichi and it’s a really pretty ride that goes along the Sea of Japan. The distillery is this big compound with really cute architecture and it was extra pretty with all the fresh snow.

We had a nice chill Sunday in Sapporo. We kept it simple and paid for the breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby. A friend of a friend was coincidentally also in Sapporo and she speaks Japanese fluently so she was able to find us and book us an all day onsen experience that included lunch and a massage at a hotel called The Grand Blissen Hotel. From where we’re staying in Sapporo it was roughly an hour bus ride but that went pretty smoothly for us, no complaints.

Today is the start of the Sapporo Snow Festival which we did in fact plan the timing of this trip around. It lasts a week and features tons of snow sculptures in a park spanning several blocks. The Sapporo TV tower is also in the path of the festival, which you can go into and do some shopping or ride the elevator to the observatory. It’s pretty funny that they have a cartoon character mascot for the TV tower and each level of the staircase features him in different scenes and “did you know?

Our cab ride back to Sapporo was about 2 hours from Niseko and all went off without a hitch. We’re staying at the Tokyu Stay Sapporo which for better or for worse is back to the small, utilitarian city hotel room. What it lacks in roominess or luxury it makes up for in practicality and location – we were able to leave the hotel, turn a corner, and be in a main mall drag.

To get from Tokyo to Niseko we flew to Sapporo and then took a chartered cab the 2 or so hours drive. Flying domestically in Japan was pretty painless although it was a long day of taking the JR to the Skyliner to get to the airport, then actually flying, then doing the drive. You can take the Shinkansen but as I understand it it’s a pretty long train ride.