Anniversary

Just came back from a very relaxing weekend away in the ever increasingly popular area of Niseko, in Hokkaido, Japan. We'd previously only ever been there when it'd been completely blanketed in thick powdery snow (the reason for its popularity), but this time everywhere we looked was lush and green, and the sky even came through for us with varying shades of blue, blue, and blue.
Ange and I went away to celebrate the first completed year of our marriage, sounds like hard work when you put it that way, but it really hasn't been at all.
We rented a car from a site called tocoo cos we found that they had a great weekend rental deal, which gave us a zippy little Mazda 4 door hatch from Friday 5pm til Monday 11am, all inclusive for 11500 yen. Sounds like a bit of a sales pitch, I know, but it's just that I'm so happy with how the whole thing went, especially when a whole weekend of driving it around only came to 3000 yen of fuel as well. If we don't end up getting this car, insert grumble grumble grumble, then we'll definitely be taking advantage of this deal again. Another thing we'll be doing is renting one of their cheap vans for about 6000 yen for a day and using it to move house by ourselves in the next couple of weeks, rather than paying the exorbitant rates for a moving company.
Niseko ended up being a pretty pleasant place in the summer too. Not anywhere near as busy a place as it is when the snow is around 4 metres thick, but we still had a great restaurant or two to try out (the only two not closed during the spring/summer). One restaurant we ended up liking was the well touted place above the NAC (Niseko Adventure Centre) building called Jo Jo's. As far as I know NAC is one of the original companies in Niseko that was started to get people into a few adventure sport activities in the summer as well as the winter. They are most famous for their white water rafting, but also take people climbing, canyoning, mountain biking, snowing shoeing, backcountry riding etc.
The only thing I really know about them however is that the food served in their restaurant is pretty tasty. Great hamburgers and the pizzas are pretty tasty too. Definitely worth a try if you're in the neighbourhood.
We stayed in a fantastic little apartment, which was part of the Hokkaido Tracks group. The place was completely decked out with Australian style furniture and even Aussie whitegoods. Including an oven (Shock!), and a full size dishwasher. I want one of these places!! We had a fantastic view, a loft bedroom, and a feeling of space that's not available in our own cramped quarters.
All in all it was a great weekend, and I'd love to repeat a bit of the same every weekend in the future. Either that or get a job in Niseko myself, but that's for another post.