shiretoko

A BLOCKBUSTER Chinese romantic comedy has put Hokkaido on the map, making Japan's northern island an instant tourism hotspot for Chinese travellers.

Tourism operators are already offering weekly trips to locations featured in the Feng Xiaogan-directed movie If You Are The One, a coup for Niseko ski resorts, which have China in their

AS we approach the middle of the season, it has become apparent that the shift towards growing numbers of Asian visitors to Niseko is a firm reality. Australians were the initial impetus for the globalisation of Niseko, but with the current weakness of the Australian dollar, Asian visitors are beginning to make their presence felt. As the Chinese,

THE Japanese archipelago was once a part of the Asian mainland. The connecting bits have vanished over countless millions of years, but if you look to the north of Hokkaido, the island of Sakhalin – whose northern tip is just off the coast of Siberia – stretches to the south to fall just short of Wakkanai, Japan's northernmost town.

So highly regarded is Shiretoko as a unique wilderness area that in 2006 it was formally designated a World Heritage site - only the third one in Japan to be so recognised by UNESCO.

Shiretoko in the language of the native Ainu inhabitants of Hokkaido means ‘the end of the earth’. And once experienced, it is easy to imagine