Best Snowboarding destination in Japan for Beginners?

Question

I am planning a snowboarding trip to Japan in 2009, we are going to get a air and ski package from Australia to Japan, and then stay extra nights in Tokyo after the snow. We have all had snowboarding lessons, but are definately beginners, and have not snowboarded since our lessons (christmas 2006!) so we are looking for somewhere that will have SOFT snow, and hopefully plenty of it, with lots of easy slopes for us to try and conquer. We are looking at spending about 7 days on the ski field.

We would like to know which ski destination in Japan you think would best suit our needs?

A couple that have been suggested include: Hakuba, shiga Kogen, Myoko, Zao, Appi, Niseko, Rusutsu, Furano. - Are there any in this list that stand out as best for us??

Thanks for your help :)!!

Answer 1

Hi. Niseko for sure!! For lots of reasons:

The snow is incredible and there are lots of runs for all levels so if some of you are learning faster they can find steeper runs as they get better. They have night riding so you can have a long lunch and then ride right through to 8 or 9 at night.

There is lots of other stuff to do if you want to have a day off - Onsen tours, a trip to Sapporo for shopping sprees, Rusutsu resort is a day trip away, you can even go horse riding in the snow. The restaurants are awesome and all have English menus, there's heaps of crazy little shops and bars and Karaoke and more....

And the views, oh my god, the views are something you have to see for yourself to understand.