Golden Week (GW) is a week-long holiday from late April to the first week of May. Most Japanese workers can take about 5days off. We stayed in Hokkaido during our GW vacation. First, we visited Niseko to ski and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. We ate the local food and relaxed in the natural hot springs.
Then we visited Furano, Asahikawa and Asahidake National Park. There was a lot of snow in the mountains. My wife’s mother joined us from the 3rd and we visited Kurodake snow resort near Asahikawa. There was an over 2 meters of snow in the mountains and it was deep enough to ski. It snowed a little and the temperature was minus two degrees. We felt like it was really winter there and we needed to have snow equipment.
Unfortunately, the next day we had a terrible storm and every ropeway and chair lift were shut down. Instead of skiing, we visited Otokoyama Museum which is a very famous Japanese Sake brewery in Hokkaido. Then we went to the Daisetsuzan national park Asahidake visitor center operated by Ministry of the Environment. We had a great time there and learned a lot about Otokoyama’s sake and the ecology in the Asahidake area.
The final day was perfect, because there was a blue sky and no wind, so we headed to the top of the Asahidake mountain by ropeway. It was an amazing landscape. The mountains were covered with a lot of snow. Hokkaido in the spring was a very nice place to stay, so I’d like to visit again next year!
