Before we start, let's get one thing straight: Japan is a very long way to go to ski. It's a 13-hour flight from Heathrow to Osaka, then a 90-minute hop to Sapporo on the north island of Hokkaido and then a two-hour coach transfer. By the time I got to the Rusutsu Resort I was pretty exhausted, to put it mildly.
But ski-specialist operators reckon Japan is going to be the next big thing for UK skiers frustrated by European snow conditions, who feel as though they've "done" the US and can't face the cheap and cheerful Bulgarian and Slovenian options.
So w
hat do you get when you ski in Japan?
The Rusutsu Resort Hotel is vast, with 859 bedrooms linked by a half-mile monorail. The dozen restaurants include one themed on a Disneyesque interpretation of the Munich Oktoberfest, complete with life-sized dancing bears and clockwork wenches in dirndls. There's also an indoor carousel, and fountains that light up to the Blue Danube and tunes from The Sound of Music.
The skiing is just outside the door. I was expecting tame runs covered in wet snow or ice and teeming with throngs of people dressed in Day-Glo. Instead I found myself revelling in the kind of thigh-deep fluffy powder usually reserved for Utah.
The pistes are wide and immaculately groomed, with 16 lifts. Despite being the busiest week of the year, the slopes were empty by European standards.
Lunch on the mountain was also delightfully different from rip-off France. A beautifully prepared bowl of noodles or rice with soup, fish or meat costs less than £5 including a beer or flask of hot sake. Dinner at the hotel was sashimi, crunchy green soya beans, rice and tempura.
I moved on to the larger and better-known resort of Niseko, which is a 45-minute drive away and has 30 lifts. This is more European in layout with three separately owned resorts sharing one ski area.
Niseko has superb skiing, with wide pistes reminiscent of Whistler and powder runs among the widely spaced birch trees and bamboos. If you fancy a further challenge you can hike 20 minutes up to the 1,308m Annupuri peak before skiing down in yet more deep, talcum-like snow.
Winter sports started in Niseko in 1911 when the Japanese army experimented with bamboo planks for skis. Recreational skiing began in 1945 when an Austrian instructor visited the resort and introduced Alpine skis.
A good Niseko base is Higashiyama. The main hotel, The Prince, has a chair-lift starting inside it. The hotel is pretty much self-contained with doorstep night skiing, karaoke, and an onsen (Japanese spa). In the onsen, men and women are segregated and wallow stark naked in steaming hot indoor and outdoor pools.
The night skiing is on floodlit slopes, which are almost empty, apart from two inquisitive foxes at the time I was there. After a trip to the hotel's Sapporo Bar where it's all you can drink in 90 minutes for £8, we are fuelled up enough to tackle the karaoke. It turned out to be a disappointment, with only three non-Japanese songs on the menu.
Hotel Nikko at the Annupuri base is the smallest, and ski-in ski-out. Apart from skiing, a small onsen and shiatsu massage (about £20 for 45 minutes), there's not a lot to do here, but it is the best base for families as it has a crèche for newborn to three-year-olds, with English-speaking staff, and a children's ski school from three years.
Up on the slopes, Bouyouso is a basic mountain restaurant serving noodles, tempura and sake at low prices. It was a private house, built 47 years ago before there was a resort.
The best atmosphere and après-ski in the area is found at another resort, Hirasu. It's a ten-minute shuttle bus ride from the far quieter Niseko which runs until 10pm; after that a taxi costs about £4.50. Hirasu looks a bit like a small Canadian resort but with magnificent Mount Yotei, a dormant volcano, as a backdrop.
The village has a choice of restaurants, but if you want to eat on the hoof, a mustard-yellow roadside stall sells shrimp-dogs and beef-dogs.
By night, Wild Bill's bar is full of life - mainly Australians (they've been skiing here for years) - but I preferred Hank's House which is a woody little place with low beams, large wooden tables and an open fire. Drinks cost £2 for a beer or a cold sake cocktail and £10 for a bottle of wine.
The contrastingly cool Fridge Bar has jazz playing and a Cuban look. Benches are covered in colourful striped rugs, the floor is untreated wood, walls are distressed shades of hot spice, macramé light shades dangle, and the wonky wooden bar is balanced on Asahi and Sapporo beer barrels.
No one should ski Japan without taking time out to visit at least one of the cities: ideally both vibrant Tokyo and cultured Kyoto. In Tokyo I headed for the Shibuya district to take in youthful Japan complete with shops, bars, and people wearing fashions that have sashayed straight out of a glossy magazine page.
But it is in Kyoto where we finally found not only the best cuisine at the futuristic five-star Granvia hotel, but also karaoke to equal anything from Lost in Translation; five tonsil-twisting hours of it.
FACTFILE JAPAN
How to get there Flights from Scotland to Osaka start at £554 return from Edinburgh, £594 return from Aberdeen and £516 return from Glasgow, all with
www.travelocity.co.uk Felice Hardy travelled to Japan with Inghams. Tel: 0208 780 4433 or visit
www.inghams.co.uk WHERE TO STAY Seven nights at the four-star Rusutsu Resort Hotel, Hokkaido start from £1,158pp half-board. Visit
www.rusutsu.co.jp/english Seven nights at the four-star Prince Higashiyama in Niseko start from £1,146. Visit
www.princehotelsjapan.comBoth Inghams packages include flights from Heathrow and transfers.
AND THERE'S MORE For a guide to the Niseko Resort visit
www.niseko.gr.jp For further information visit
www.seejapan.co.uk