Hokkaido II Day 6: Hanazono Tube Park & Kobetei Niseko

We woke up a bit later this morning and went to wash up at the onsen as per our usual practice.

View from our bedroom window in the morning

We headed to AYA Kitchen at Level 1 for breakfast.

AYA Kitchen

Hokkaido cheese platter

We got booth seating

The food was generally good!

View from the restaurant's window

After breakfast, we prepared to head out and explore the neighbourhood. We can finally see Mount Yotei!

View of Mount Yotei from AYA Niseko

There were four resorts on Mount Niseko-Annupuri known collectively as Niseko United: 1) Niseko Tokyu Grand Hirafu (the largest), 2) Annupuri, 3) Niseko Village and 4) Hanazono. There were complimentary shuttle buses that linked the resorts.

We decided to take the complimentary shuttle bus to Hanazono as it was the only resort that offered snowtubing.

We walked to the bus stop at the hotel opposite of AYA Niseko
(The kids made many snow Kuromi with the snow maker the hubby had bought in Toya for ¥1000!)

The Hanazono shuttle bus

In the shuttle bus

We arrived at Hanazono Resort after travelling for about 20 minutes.

Niseko Hanazono Resort

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We rented 3 tubes at ¥4200 per tube for 1 hour at the Hanazono Tube Park.

Travellor up the slope so that we did not have to climb!

Inside the travellor glass tube

The real thing was way better than the artificial snowtubing we had done at Singapore's Snow City! 😆

Super excited for our snowtubing!

We took turns going down the slope

Double tubes were allowed! 😄

We initially wanted to ride the gondolas but were informed that they were one-way only. With nothing much to do after our snowtubing, we left Hanazono.

Hanazono shuttle bus route

We boarded the complimentary shuttle bus to the Hirafu Welcome Center at the Tokyu Grand Hirafu Resort.

Welcome Center

Grand Hirafu

Base station for one of the gondolas

We were there because I had originally planned to catch a bus to Kutchan Town. However the timing wasn't right so we decided instead to walk back to our hotel, which was just 10 minutes away by foot.

Walking downhill to our hotel, with Mount Yotei in the background

I know it was such a shame that we were so near the slopes but could not go skiing. The ski classes were full and the Littlest was still too sticky to me. On hindsight, the Eldest and I should have taken ski lessons in Singapore so that we didn't have to take lessons in Niseko (can just rent the gear and hit the slopes directly).

In any case, we spent time together as a family and I probably avoided getting injured (people have been known to break legs when skiing you know 😅).

Our family hung out together in our beautiful hotel room until it was time for dinner (I managed to squeeze in a 30-minute workout). The Hubby booked a table at Kobetei Niseko for our very extravagant beef yakiniku dinner!

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Family photo outside Kobetei Niseko, taken by kind passerbys

Group selfie

The hubby is a foodie and willing to splurge for quality food! We ordered three KAZE Courses at ¥19,800 and one Kids Course at ¥13,200 (Littlest dined free). Each course consisted of 10 food items!