An ordeal

Sat morning everyone was all packed up ready to go, half the crew were on a 9 am bus to Sapporo to meet flights and half at 10am. Half of the first crew were going to Tokyo for a few days and half thru to Aus or NZ, same in the 2nd crew. It was still snowing heavily and the wind was blowing hard with most of the lifts on hold. The 2 hr bus ride was slowing going with the conditions, and one car that attempted to overtake our bus spun out and off the road into a snow bank right in front of us. We arrived at the airport and checked in to find out that most of the first crew had got out on the last flight before the weather window had closed. Pete was the only one left from that crew who was on a different flight, which had been cancelled. the rest of us were on a JAL flight to Tokyo. We boarded the plane fairly late, then sat on the tarmac with snow dumping down. I was keen to get on our way, but was a little worried about the weather. After an hour or so, they pulled us off the plane. we had to wait at the gate, as the flight was delayed, not cancelled. After waiting for 3 hours with out eh flight being cancelled, the call was finally made. During this time we had been desperately trying to find hotel rooms, with no luck, the whole place was booked out due to flights being cancelled all day. It looked like we wouldn't get out till Monday. So, we heard from the crew who made it to Tokyo that Pete had booked on the train to Tokyo, sweet. We get down to the station and get tickets and wait. The station is actually closed due to the snow so there loads of people piling up in the station. When they opened the platform we all rush down and cram onto a commuter train to get to Sapporo station to get the first train of our journey. We stand on that train for an hr or more, waiting for snow to be cleared. we end up making it to the next station where we can meet our train. That train gets cancelled, but another train comes thru that some Japaneses people tell us is going half way to where we want to go, so rather then get stuck in this freezing train station we go for it. Stomping thru 3 feet of snow on the platform we jump on the train. It's full, fi and i manage to score seats at the very back of the train, the boys , Adam, Tom and Pete are in the compartments between carriages. We go about 4-5kms and stop. And there we stay, for 13hrs. No food, no water. 20 below outside, the wind rocking the train side to side( it was a tilt train) we all spent the night sleeping fitfullly and dreaming of food and moving trains only to wake up and find ourselves hungry and in the same spot. We finally moved at around midday on Sunday, 20mins later we stopped again, for an hour. Eventually we got moving and got out of the wind that had kept us stuck for so long. At a station and hour or so along they loaded on a pile of drinks and started handing them out along with space food stick type snack bars. When we got to the trains final stop, we had 5 mins to make our next connection, there were TV crews on the platform trying to interview people as they came off. The crazy thing was none of the Japanese complained, on the train or to the TV crews. If it had happened in a western country, there would have been a riot on that train, for sure. So we make the next train, but still no food, we get drinks from a cart on the train and some snack foods. After another 3 hours or so( lost sense of time along here somewhere) we change trains again, only just making it to meet a Shinkansen( bullet train) for the final leg to Tokyo. Pete points out after 1 1/2 hours that we had already traveled further then we had to meet this train, it did go over 350Kms/hr. After what seemed like eternity we arrived in Tokyo at 11.30 pm Sunday night. We had left Niseko at 10 am Saturday morning, so we had been going for 37 1/2 hours, and it had been 34 hrs since we had eaten a proper meal.
We all took cabs to our hotels and crashed out. Lesson learned, be careful what you wish for, more snow can be great while you're on the hill, but once you start traveling it can shut down your whole world.

Back to Wanaka tomrrow, looking forward to my own bed.

Matt