Skiing and Japaneseing- Our 6 Weeks in Niseko.

We arrived at Sapporo airport on 11th January and took the train in the dark to our new snowy home. Because it was dark, we didn’t realise how spectacular our surroundings were until we arrived in Kutchan town, about 5km from Niseko ski resort and our home for the next 2 months. Kutchan is renowned as one of the snowiest towns in the world, with good reason. After briefly meeting our new boss Scott, an Australian who has lived in Niseko for twenty years and built up a monopoly of properties and restaurants, we met our new housemates. They were a mixture of Australian, English, Taiwanese, European, Korean, Canadian, Singaporean, Kiwi...the list goes on. 

We went to bed early that night as we were exhausted. The house in Kutchan was a typical Japanese house we were told...what this means is that it is made of paper thin walls and is very very cold. Luckily our room had a kerosene heater - Bex's new best friend. We were lucky to have our own private room, most of Scott's staff lived in dorms or on the floor in the attic. 

From here, we slowly but surely settled in to our new routine. We were to work in one of the restaurants called Wabi Sabi - a self proclaimed Japanese home style cooking, 40 seater restaurant. To begin, Bex worked on the floor serving customers and I put 23 years worth of education to good use washing dishes.

The restaurant was staffed mainly with other backpackers like us, all working 6 evenings a week in exchange for accommodation, food and ski passes. The other workers were Japanese paid staff. They were very friendly, had mixed English abilities and were all happy to help us practise our Nihongo (Japanese). 

The shifts were fairly laid back but quite long and dull. The best part of work was getting to eat and drink the entire menu and speaking to the other workers. We made good friends with the majority of the people we worked with and ended up travelling with some of them in Taiwan (see the next instalment for more details). Being in the kitchen in particular was helpful for 'nihongo o renshu shimashita' (practising Japanese).

As time went on, Bex soon became the host/manager of the restaurant. 

Whilst after a week of dishwashing, I got fed up and became a chef instead. 

(Reservations are available from September onwards.)

The other side of life was of course the skiing. As mentioned, in return for work we were given access to a free lift pass. This was a pretty good deal as they are expensive in Niseko, around £30 a day. What we didn't have was a set of skis or boots to use. We quickly found what we needed for the reasonable price of 30,000 yens each and we hit the slopes.

For the skiers amongst our readers, the average day's snow in Niseko is equivalent to a very good day's snow in Europe. On a powder day, the snow is unrivalled. What Niseko lacked compared to European skiing was comfort and ease. It was relatively hard to work out the best way to get around on the slopes, pistes weren't marked very well and the restaurants on the mountain were like school canteens. All this doesn't matter however when you are rewarded with one of Niseko's greatest gifts on a clear day; a rare spectacular view of the iconic Mt. Yotei.

For all intents and purposes, Bex started the season as a beginner skier. The grading of slopes in Niseko goes Green, Red, Black, Double Black, the latter being the hardest. After a week Bex was confident on the greens. Two weeks in reds were no longer an issue. By the end of our time, Bex could ski every slope on the mountain confidently, in control and looking like a pro. This included a small bit of off piste skiing and some ventures into the powder and the trees, which she didn't like. She is the only skier I have met so far who was upset when it snowed, as the powder 'gets in the way of her skis'. 

This busy routine didn't leave much time for extra curricular activities. Here's a few things we did do:

Made the trip to Sapporo for the annual snow festival which was great. The highlight was a gigantic snow sculpture of Darth Vader.

Picked up a new skill - hitchhiking. 'anata wa Niseko ni ikimasuka?'

Spent Valentine's Day at Niseko Pizza - a nice break from rice and noodles. 

Went for a night out to the karaoke bar; hearing our Japanese friends rocking out to Living On A Prayer will be a tough memory to forget. 

I had a haircut at a supermarket for 1,000 yens (£5).

Taught Japanese people how to play beer pong. 

With the busy schedule of skiing in the morning and working at night, the weeks flew past in a blur. It was tiring, fun, rewarding and mostly exciting. Towards the end the work began to become a bit of a drag and I think we were both happy to see our last shift arrive.

To sum up, it was a busy couple of weeks. We learnt a lot, met many new people from across the world and will take many happy memories away with us. 

Next stop - Republic Of China a.k.a Taiwan!

Our Brief Tour of Japan

2015 got off to a cracking start as we landed in Tokyo on New Years Day. During the flight a friendly Japanese man taught us how to use chopsticks properly and went through our Japan guide book with Alex and gave him his suggestions of the best places to visit. He slightly underestimated the taxi fare from the airport though, telling us it would cost 500 yen yet it set us back 10,000 yen.

We spent the first four days in Tokyo. Having arrived very late, waking up the following morning was a little disorientating so we spent our first day getting our bearings and wandering around in bewilderment. We went to Shibuya crossing, supposedly one of the busiest crossings in the world, saw Shinjuku and walked through the shoppings streets of Ginza which basically resembles Oxford Street. We tried to embrace the Japanese culture and sampled different foods throughout the day including noodles, curries, Japanese green tea, broths/soups and horrific hot coffee in a can sold in vending machines at almost every corner.

On our second day in Tokyo we went to Senso-ji Temple and the hectic surrounding markets. It was unbelievably busy as we found out that the Japanese people visit a number of temples in the first few days of the new year to say thanks for the previous year and to pray for the year ahead. Part of this ritual included throwing coins into grids on the floor of the temple; we bowed our heads and throw our coins too. We really enjoyed the buzzing atmosphere here and it was certainly a highlight of our time in Tokyo.

On day three we escaped the busy streets and went to Ueno Park. We enjoyed a walk through the park and went to Ueno Zoo seeing two Giant Pandas there. In the evening we went to the owl cafe; this recently opened and people line the streets each day to try and get in. This 'cafe' was actually a very small room and no one there spoke any english. The encounter was pretty strange but we enjoyed holding a number of different owls whilst there.

Next we headed to Hakone on the Shinkansen bullet train. We bought a sightseeing pass and experienced spectacular views of Mt. Fuji via 5 different modes of transport, the mountain railway, cable car, ropeway, a pirate ship and finally a bus.

The following day we arrived at Kyoto and checked into our Japanese style room at a capsule hostel near the station for the next two nights. During our time in Kyoto we went to the bamboo forest and Nishiki food market. The highlight of Kyoto was our visit to Kinkaku-ji temple, known as the Golden Pavilion. The temple consists of three stories and the top two stories are covered with pure gold leaf. Here I purchased 'good health and a long life' for the very reasonable sum of 400 yen in the form of a small hanging purple ornament, much to Alex's amusement. 

Our next stop was a very chilly Osaka. We wrapped up and visited Osaka castle, one of the more famous castles in Japan and we could see why. It consists of 8 levels, which have been made into a museum and an observation deck. The following day we sidetracked from our culturally rich trip and spent a fun-filled day at Japan's Universal Studies, and the recently opened Harry Potter World that they have there. This was an excellent idea until we queued for our first ride only to discover that obviously it was all in Japanese. Nevertheless we drank butter beers at the three broomsticks and tested our imaginations on Japanese simulators. We topped off our day by devouring two full racks of ribs at The Outback Steakhouse. How very cultural indeed.

The final destination of our 10 day tour of Japan was Hiroshima. Having studied history I was particularly looking forward to visiting Hiroshima and learning more about the devastation of the first ever dropped Atomic Bomb. We went to the Peace Park Memorial and found the museum there to be both heart wrenching and highly interesting. We saw the Atomic Bomb Dome; the ruins were preserved when the reconstruction of Hiroshima began and consequently serve as a memorial to the people who were killed on the 6th August 1945. Our stay in Hiroshima was a highlight for both of us. 

Safety checks were taking place on the
Atomic Bomb Dome hence the scaffolding

So, what have we learnt from our first 10 days in Japan?
1. Japanese Katsu Curry is a safe food choice, 
2. The Japanese people are very friendly and happy to help you if they can, but they understand written english much better than spoken,
3. The rail network is excellent
4. The donuts here do not contain delicious jam but rather cold, mushy red beans, much to our bitter disappointment,
5. Do not play with the buttons on the toilets in Japan because you will get wet...



The next chapter of our travels gets a little snowier....

Sydney and a spectacular NYE

We were very excited to be spending New Years Eve and my birthday in Sydney and had been eagerly waiting to see the glamorous city.

Having driven 1200km from the farm to Sydney, a 'road-trip' that we had idealised but turned out to be just long and draining as our journey was made more difficult by pouring rain for the first 1000km,  we were pretty exhausted when we arrived. We were staying in the QT hotel which is centrally located, luxurious and wonderfully quirky. That evening we took a picnic and went to Sydney's moonlight cinema.

The next day was MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! After opening my presents, we went to spend the morning at Bondi Beach. We started with a large breakfast at a beachfront cafe, before spending an hour sunbathing alongside thousands of others.

In the afternoon we met Steve and Della, Megan and Finley (Alex's friends from home) from home at the Opera bar, where we got our first glimpse of the infamous Opera House. The bar was very busy but boasted a great view and we stayed there until dinner. The most appropriate place to eat that night turned out to be the 360 revolving tower restaurant, with views over all of Sydney city. Alex ordered kangaroo loin tartare, and sent it back when he realised what it was. After that we both ate pate for starter and pork belly for main.  The restaurant finished off by bringing out a small birthday cake.

Our third day in Sydney was spent on a trip to the Blue Mountains, so named because of the blue mist created from oils in the trees. The mountains were beautiful and we spent a few hours walking through forests to get to different view points, walking past waterfalls and small caves on our way. A ride on the world's steepest railway was also included.

'The Three Sisters'

That night we had to decide on a plan for New Year's Eve. Sydney effectively shuts down with so many people flocking to the harbour, camping out to get the best spot. Originally, a boat trip seemed to be the best idea. However we found tickets online on Gumtree being sold for an event called Wonderland. We had never heard of it and couldn't find out much information on it, but it was advertised as being in a prime spot, directly under Harbour Bridge, with a great view of the Opera House. We bought them and crossed our fingers.

On the last day of the year we took a trip to Manly to see Steve and Della for lunch. They had just had a surf lesson and judging from their faces weren't going to be entering any competitions soon. Manly beach was very pretty, nicer than Bondi probably, and the food at the hotel matched. 2 towering burgers later, we took a ferry back to Sydney city to join the rest of the world there for one big party.

We went to Wonderland in the evening, the event turned out to be a VIP ticketed arena. The original tickets had been issued through ballots, won through competitions or, apparently, sold for $600 each. We paid $150. The tickets however would have been worth $600, the view from the arena was amazing and it hardly felt packed at all, compared to the surrounding areas. Various firework displays and entertainment was put on throughout the night until finally midnight came. The bridge, sky and opera house erupted with fireworks for 12 minutes. The show was brilliant and we couldn't believe how lucky we were.

Once the New Year had arrived, we quickly headed for the exit and back to the hotel. We were kicking off 2015 with an early flight to our next destination; Tokyo, Japan.

Fraser Island and Noosa

Having left Brisbane we headed North to a very rainy Rainbow beach. Nevertheless we embraced the bad weather and walked along the beach that got its name because of the 'rainbow coloured' sand-dunes surrounding it.

The following morning we began our 3 day tour
of Fraser Island. This was a a 4WD tag-along tour, meaning that 8 strangers were put in a Toyota Land Cruiser together and expected to trust each other's driving abilities. Throw in the fact that we were learning to drive on sand without any real guidance and I've described the adventure tour that we found ourselves on. Initially we were a little disappointed as we were placed in a group with other couples yet they were all at least 10 years older than us. They turned out to be a lot of fun and consequently reminded us 'not to judge a book by its cover'. At camp the evening ended in a competitive game of 'goon ball'. Goon being a 4 litre box of 'wine' costing a very reasonable $11. Alex's invention of 'goon ball' meant that once the 4 litres of 'wine' are drank, the goon bag is then blown up and used like a volley ball. Genius.

Fraser Island was a very beautiful and unspoilt place and we were able to visit Lake Mckenzie, Lake Wabby, Eli Creek, the champagne pools and enjoy the stunning views from Indian Head during our time there.

Our next stop was Noosa.

We stayed in a hostel called Flashpackers which, true to its name, was the flashiest hostel we stayed in throughout Australia. During our time there we went on a great coastal walk around the Noosa Heads peninsula, met Charlotte (my friend from home) and her boyfriend, Derek, for dinner and most importantly went on a 3 day canoeing trip through the Everglades. In a group of 14 people, we took our canoes and set off down Noosa river to our campsite and home for the next 2 nights. All our food was there ready for us, as were our tents. Aside from a lot of canoeing, we also went on a long trek to the Cooloola sand patch, a desert in the middle of a forest. We got back from the trip pretty exhausted and very hungry, so treated ourselves to giant burgers that evening which we enjoyed with Charlotte and Derek's company once again.

After leaving Noosa we travelled back to the farm to spend Christmas with friendly faces, before driving over 1000km south to our destination for New Year's Eve and our finally stop in Australia, Sydney.

The Best of Brisbane

Our time in Brisbane has come to an end and we are very sad to be leaving a place that we have become very fond of.

Here are some of Brisbane's best bits...

During the G20 Brisbane held a coloured light festival. All the grand buildings in the city were lit up with bright lights along the river. It was quite spectacular to see and we followed the trail around the landmarks of Brisbane. At the beginning of the trail there was a large screen where we were able to choose colours and a pattern for the lights to appear in. Our selection then instantly appeared along the CBD's buildings on the opposite side of the river.

We have enjoyed exploring Brisbane, going on the city ferry, bike riding to New Farm Park, breakfasting, lunching and basically dining out at any given opportunity, as well as gazing at the story bridge, which is lit up each evening.

Brisbane has thrown some pretty crazy weather our way including sticky humidity for weeks on end making our 1.5 mile walk to work each day fairly unbearable and a number of storms including a frighteningly destructive hail storm which we believe made the news at home.

In order to truly make the most of our time in Brisbane we decided to explore the surrounding areas as much as possible. We returned to Byron Bay with Brook and her sister and barbecued at sunset. This was a very lovely idea until the sun actually set and we were left without any light to cook the food with.


We rented a terrible car from 'rentabomb.com' and ventured to a number of the surrounding National Parks. We went south to Mt Tamborine where we walked the 'sky walk' and ate scones in a tearoom located high up in the rainforest. We drove the lengthy scenic route to the Glass House Mountains. Here we trekked a number of the trails and had lunch at the Glass House Mountains Lookout cafe. We also explored Nightcap National Park with Brook and her sister hiking the stunning 8km Minyon Falls loop.

We ended our time in Brisbane by dining on the Kookaburra Festive River Cruise, feasting on turkey and delicious Christmas puddings whilst cruising under the Story Bridge, which was perfectly lit up in Christmas colours, past the Kangaroo Point cliffs and along to South Bank. It was a great way to finish off a wonderful chapter in our travels.

The working life in Brisbane

Our first two weeks in Brisbane have been great. We moved into our ultra modern apartment and it's safe to say that we are hardly 'slumming it'. Our room mates are a couple called Brook and Rhys, they are about 4 years older than us and have been really welcoming and friendly.

We are staying in Bowen Hills and are approximately a 25 minute walk from the CBD and thus from where we are working for the next 6 weeks having bagged ourselves internships at Morgans, Australia's largest stockbroking firm. This sounds relatively fancy yet, as I'm sure is the case for most internships, we spend our days doing admin based tasks, filling in forms and data entry. We interweave these tasks with plenty of tea-drinking and clock-watching, willing the day to go quickly. Either way its exciting to be working and earning some dollar. The office is located right on the river front so its really lovely to be able to spend our lunch time enjoying such a great view. I decided to comment on this saying to Alex 'I really like the fact that Brisbane has a big river running through it'...he turned and replied 'Do you mean just like London Bex?' Yes I suppose I do.

The view from work

Having experienced my first proper 'Friday feeling' we have been making the most of our weekends. We've explored various areas in Brisbane, including a very cute market called 'The Finders Keepers Market' and having drinks at a lesser-known roof top bar with gorgeous fairy lights. Brook and Rhys drove us to the Gold Coast where they attempted to teach us to surf in a very strong current. Alex handled this well, whereas I nearly drowned. To top off the surfing experience I then majorly freaked out when a big jellyfish decided to hang out next to my surfboard and I. Thankfully Alex came to my rescue! We also went for a great lunch and then explored Byron Bay, watching the sun set at Byron Bay's iconic light house, which we've been told is Australia's most eastern point.

With G20 being held in Brisbane, this Friday was declared a bank holiday for those that live or work here, so we spent our extended weekend enjoying the Gold Coast theme parks with Brook and some of her friends. Friday we went to Sea World, which sadly was rather disappointing in comparison to the Sea World in Orlando. Nevertheless my highlight was patting the sting rays, this was amusing and they are surprisingly both soft and slimy. We best described them as 'squidgey'.

Today we got 'Wet & Wild', enjoying a great, yet exhausting day at the water park. Our favourite ride was a bit of an adrenaline rush; the rider is locked into a small standing pod, a timer counts down and then the floor quickly drops away and you fall, fast!


Tomorrow evening we plan to check out the 'Colour Me Brisbane' light show.

The remaining part of our stay on the farm

Remembering that our stay on the Rackemann farm is an exchange, our hard work for accommodation and food, a vast number of our days were filled with fence building (,with many barb wire cuts and grazes a long the way,) and cattle herding. It is calving season on the farm currently so every few days a new calf was born. They named a calf after each of us so they'll be able to remember us when they see them grazing around the farm, until they end up as hamburgers anyway :/! During our stay we helped out when the vet came and preg tested the cattle. As I'm sure you all know how this procedure plays out I decided to take a backseat role scribing the cow's ID number and recording the results from the vet. This put me safely out of the firing line for the amount of cow poo that was flying around... Alex wasn't so lucky.

Other than 'farm work' we went to the local Wondai horse races and won a staggering $6.70. I also went and volunteered at Tommy's school for a morning helping the children with their reading and literary skills.

For Alex's birthday we drove to Australia Zoo for the day, which was a scenic, 3 hour drive from the farm. This was a lovely way to spend Alex's birthday. We saw the otter show, the tiger show and the big 'Wildlife Warriors' show. Our favourite part was 'Roo Heaven'. Here you can purchase 'roo food' from a vending machine then are free to approach the kangaroos and wallabies to feed and pet them. Alex also spent a good half an hour trying to get the kangaroo selfie below.

Pam and Greg are an elderly couple, both still keen travellers and outback farmers that currently live in their crazy caravan on the Rackemann's land. Greg helps out on the farm so we saw a lot of him, yet Pam is pretty immobile so sadly spends her days doing crosswords in the caravan. We figured it would be nice to invite them over for a 'birthday tea' for Alex. Pam loves quizzes so we asked her to prepare a quiz for the evening as we knew how much she would like this. This led to an eventful games night including bingo and a number of quizzes that were actually really good. The quiz question that has really stuck in our minds follows:

True or false?
In Japan they grow square watermelons because they are easier to stack.

TRUE. Crazy.



To end our time on the Rackemann farm with a bang and also as a nice surprise for Maddie and Tommy, Alex and I planned a secret halloween party. We got creative and made, painted, drew and fashioned a number of decorations and some very budget costumes with bin bags and sheets. We created games including 'pin the tale on the witch's cat' and a mummifying game involving lots of toilet roll. I wrote rhyming riddles and hide them over the house which led to a very messy obstacle course and set of challenges created by Alex. Overall it was a great success. At least if all else fails in life we know that we'll make excellent children's party planners.

In further when we look back on our stay at the Rackemann farm I know that we will remember it fondly.


Next stop, Brisbane. Next chapter in our journey, WORK.