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Home » Powderlife Magazine » Issue 8

Powderlife Magazine - Issue 8

Sat, March 29th 2008 - Fri, April 11th 2008

Editor's note

  • Full moon Yotei
    Editor's note
    What a season it has been. Niseko continues to go from strength to strength. I came to Niseko for the first time in 1994 and I can say without a doubt that the Niseko of today is a much better resort...

Niseko News

  • Cash reliance continues
    NOTE: An ATM has arrived in Niseko since this article was written. The ATM is located in the Yama Shizen building. Many visitors to Niseko can’t understand why, in one of the most tech...

Irasshaimase

  • Rakuichi Soba, Annupuri
    Rakuichi regulars might be a little disappointed we’re exposing this hidden Annupuri gem. But it’s just too good not to, and we wanted more foreign visitors to Niseko to experience this fantastic litt...
  • Pedenki hirafu horumon restaurant and bar
    Nakaya / Pedenki, Hirafu Lower Village
    You’ve heard of the world-famous Kobe Beef. Well now try Kobe ‘horumon’ (offal). Nakaya Izakaya (an izakaya is a casual dining Japanese pub/restaurant), which turns into Pedenki Pub late in the evenin...
  • Snack Bar Eddy Shoko Arakawa
    Bar Eddy, Kutchan
    When most people see Bar Eddy in Kutchan they imagine it’s owned by a guy. But it’s actually a ‘snack bar’. A snack bar is generally a small bar staffed by a lady who stands behind the bar and chats w...
  • Cliffside Pension Satoshi and Toshiko Makabe
    Cliffside Pension, Hirafu
    Niseko wasn’t always the ski Mecca it is today. When Satoshi and Toshiko Makabe moved to Niseko from Sapporo and built Cliffside Pension they had to pick bamboo shoots in summer and sell them to the l...
  • Rakuichi Soba Tatsuru and Midori Rai
    Rakuichi Soba, Annupuri
    Rakuichi regulars might be a little disappointed we’re exposing this hidden Annupuri gem, but it’s just too good not to, and we wanted more foreign visitors to Niseko to experience this fantastic litt...

Features

  • Niseko early season skiing sasa girl skier
    Season wrap-up 2007/08
    While 2007/08 was a great season for a whole range of reasons, once again Hokkaido’s default abundance of fresh, fluffy powder snow was the star. If you look at the stats it won’t go down in the recor...
  • Kealan Clarke reader story pic
    A 12 year old's view of Niseko, Hokkaido and Japan
    Recently we got a fantastic email from 12-year-old Kealan and nine-year-old Neesha Clarke from Sydney. They’ve been travelling Japan with their parents and stopped in at Niseko. The youngsters are ver...

Page Seven

  • spring sakura cherry blossoms
    Spring is back
    After a particularly cold winter with some huge storms across the country, it has come to an abrupt end the length of the archipelago. Tokyo has recorded unseasonably warm temperatures as high as 17 d...
  • Spring rafting in front of Mt Yotei
    Rivers set to rage as rafting co’s gear up
    With an early start to the melt, Niseko outdoor adventure companies are gearing up for an early rafting season. While the official start to the season is generally April 12th, or a week later in late...
  • Google earth image of the world japan
    Niseko the snowiest on Latitude 42
    The latitude 42 north passes smack bang through the middle of Niseko. It also passes through Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, France (Corsica), Italy, the Adriatic Sea, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia (Kosov...
  • Andrew Caldwell snowscoot
    Winter mountain biking
    People usually ask two questions when they see local Canadian expat Andrew Caldwell with his snowscoot: 1. Is that thing fun? And 2. Why don’t you ride a snowboard? Obviously it’s fun or he wouldn’t d...
  • ipod eye pod
    Eye pod... wink!
    You can always rely on Japan to invent something really cool that’s probably not really necessary. Now a university researcher has invented a system that allows people to operate electronic devices li...
  • Name a Niseko Village ski run
    Return visitors to Niseko this season may have realised Niseko Village’s ski runs have been completely renamed. When new owners Citigroup came in they decided they’d give the runs fun names rather tha...
  • Niseko website's 5000 hits a day
    Want to expose your product to a whopping 5000 potential customers a day? The Daily English Show is looking for sponsors. Produced in Kutchan by a talented young Kiwi, Sarah Lilburn, TDES gets 5000 vi...
  • Best of Niseko 2007/08
    One of the most popular sections of Powderlife this season was ‘Irasshaimase’, the catch cry meaning ‘welcome’ that staff in Japanese businesses greet their customers with. In each issue of Powderlife...

In Focus

  • Full Note brothers Brothers Toh-san and Toshiosan
    Full Note brothers in focus
    A well known ‘secret’ among people who have been coming here for a few years is the Half Note Jazz bar. Complete with pool table, table tennis table and stage, you could well find an impromptu jam ses...

Powder Tools

  • Salomon Burner powder board snowboard
    Salomon Burner
    Salomon is the only ski brand to successfully enter into the snowboard market and achieve credibility. They did it by spending their dosh on R & D and making great quality products. The Salomon Bu...
  • MSR Lightning Ascent Snowshoes
    MSR Lightning Ascent Snowshoes
    There are many products in life you can skimp on. Snowshoes are not one of them. So if you must bypass the designer label jeans to save your pennies for a pair of MSR Lightning Ascent snowshoes. Mount...
  • Salomon Malamute Snowboard Boots
    Salomon Malamute Boot
    My mate from Tokyo Stuart Flanders (aka Spoggo - see the for sale section on the powderlife.com Community Noticeboard) thinks and talks more about snowboard gear than anyone I know. He reckons he’s bo...

Kutchan

  • Sarah Lilburn studio
    kutchan’s worldwide english class
    The world’s first online English teaching show – attracting a massive 5000 hits a day – is broadcast out of a small, nondescript, Japanese-style apartment in Kutchan. At first, The Daily English show...

Real Estate News

  • Kutchan view from Yotei
    Kutchan property
    LOOKING at the rise of major ski resorts across the world and property prices in the service town always rise a few years after the prices in the main village. Kutchan’s prices have been falling along...
  • Sub-prime crisis hits Niseko
    With the recent fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage debacle, financial institutions across the globe are putting a premium on having cash in their coffers rather than loans on their books. Financia...
  • Hirafu skyscraper halted
    The 42 metre, 14 storey building planned for construction in middle Hirafu by Nishin, a Tokyo based company has had its approval revoked. Nishin were believed to have received approval from the Hokkai...

Real Estate Articles

Four Seasons

  • Shakotan Peninsula
    Shakotan Peninsula
    Hokkaido’s modern Japanese history is very short. The Japanese Government formally annexed the island and introduced a policy to boost population from the mainland only in 1868, mainly because of fear...

Last Word

  • Lower back pain
    QF 21 – 8 hours or so from Sydney to Tokyo. You nod off during the flight with dreams of 7 days straight of thigh deep powder, hot spring baths and delicious Japanese food. You make your way to Niseko...