#204 Day 23: Kutchan - Clearing Snow For The First Time

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The Road to Hokkaido Tour 2006
Day 23: Kutchan

I didn’t think the mountain would be open today – because there’s not enough show but I thought I’d ring and check just in case. I rang Grand Hirafu. I spoke English because I wanted to check how much English they could speak.
It felt kind of funny launching into English after she’d just answered the phone in Japanese – but this is a resort with lots of English-speaking tourists and I guess that’s what they do.
She answered my first question OK – I asked if the mountain was open and she said that it wasn’t. Then I asked when she thought it would be open and she answered something like: “No, it isn’t open today” ... so I guess that’s a bit of an indication of the level of English. Basic information is available ... and for anything more it probably depends on which operator you get.

Today it snowed in the morning and we decided to clear the snow in front of the shop for the first time. This is what the landlord said we have to do everyday – but before there wasn’t really enough snow to bother.

We went to a shop called Homac to buy a few more things for the house.

Then we decided to go and buy our season tickets. When we got there we found that if we’d booked the tickets on the net in August or September we would’ve got a big discount. Bummer. Ah well.

We also found out that we needed to show some ID when we buy the tickets and I forgot to bring mine. So the whole ticket buying mission failed miserably. Oh well ... it’s not like we need them yet anyway.