insights from frontier Japan

“It’s appealing because there are Japanese people who kindly accept foreigners like us.” Taiwanese snowboarder Bonny Wu talks about her reasons for deciding to settle in Niseko.

Progre Co., Ltd. is a temporary staff agency in Kansai Prefecture that specializes in areas including hotel cleaning. It projected an increase in demand for cleaning in the rapidly increasing number of lodging facilities in the Niseko region, and opened up a new local company in Niseko last spring.

Ono Tomohiro, founder and CEO of international IT venture company Kudan, liked the “borderless” Niseko community and relocated to the Hirafu district from Shinagawa, Tokyo last August. He thinks that Niseko is also a perfect base for his technical research facility and investment department.

A "Scenic Night" with candlelight illuminating the winter town was held on February 20 in several spots around the town of Kutchan, which neighbors the town of Niseko.

Takahashi Chisa (34), a web counsellor who is active online, relocated to the town of Kutchan in the Niseko region on November 12 last year. Until then, she lived in Tokyo for two years and, before that, used to live in Kutchan. An attempt to find a new way of working provides the background to Takahashi’s ‘U-turn relocation’.

In Hokkaido we think of winter sports as sliding on the snow or ice. But just half an hour away from the famous Niseko ski resorts, are several great surfing points. In winter the same weather that brings in the snow, also brings waves on the Japan sea side.

The high class ryokan "Raku Suisan" constructed by Shin Nihonkai Ferry (Osaka) group company Authent Hotel (Otaru) in the Kabayama area of central Hokkaido's Kutchan Town opened for business on December 1.

Kabayama, Kutchan cafe "Green saso" and guest house owner Junichiro Watanabe (41) has opened the skateboarding skatepark "Nupuri Bowl" right outside the cafe. This is the first authentic skatepark in the Niseko region.

This is the prime season to view cotton grass in the high moor around the Kagaminuma Marsh on the hillside of Mt. Niseko Annupuri in Central Hokkaido's Kutchan Town.