Hokkaido 107 - The Green Leaf Niseko Village • Sassy Urbanite's Diary

Best Hotel for Couples in Niseko – The Green Leaf Niseko Village

We moved to The Green Leaf Niseko Village Hotel (Part of the Malaysian Luxury Group, YTL) after 2 nights at Hirafu, which is about 15 minutes away by shuttle bus. It is located in Niseko Village, an exclusive part of the Mount Niseko-Annupuri slopes (Hirafu and Annupuri are the other 2 famous parts of the mountain, connected at the top by gondolas).

For about ¥22,000 per night, we got ourselves a nice deluxe room on the 2nd floor facing the slopes. Our room was quite spacious and the bed was large and comfy. I particularly love the large window pane in the room with almost floor to ceiling view of the snowy slopes outside. I could literally sit in the room all day just watching snow falling, which didn’t really stop throughout the 6 days in Niseko.

Since The Green Leaf Niseko Village is quite isolated with only the Hilton Hotel, Kasara Townhouses and The Village (some shops and restaurants) nearby, we ended up spending most time within Niseko Village, and only ventured out 1 out of the 3 nights to Hirafu when we were staying here. There’s only 1 restaurant in the hotel serving casual dining food, other choices are mainly in The Village of The Hilton hotel few minutes down the road (free shuttle bus is provided if you don’t want to walk in the heavy snow). I’ll write more about the other places in Niseko Village in following posts (link here).

Top Tips: Ask for a room facing the ski slopes if you are a snow bunny like me and love watching falling snow!

I also took a whole day 4 hours group lesson with Niseko Village Snow School for ¥12,000 which included the lift passes, hence with the 1-day rental of ¥5,500 (directly available at the hotel), it was cheaper than Hirafu’s Niseko Base Snowsports. The slopes at Niseko Village was much less crowded than Hirafu’s, and my afternoon session turned out to be a private session since my other group mates bowed out from the 2nd session. It was great to have 1-on-1 attention from my ski instructor, a girl from Canada, she gave me great tips to improve my skiing, and I hope I could remember it when I go skiing next time. Just a tip for beginner skiers, most of the ski lessons would start at The Hilton Hotel next door so planned properly on how to get there. I skied from The Green Leaf Niseko Village, and it wasn’t an easy ride down The Hilton Hotel next door….

What I loved most about The Green Leaf Niseko Village were the ski-in-ski-out facilities, and its outdoor hot spring was the best I’d ever been! Imagine dipping in hot spring water naked (compulsory in Japanese culture) with snow falling down all over you… It was so heavenly! I’ll write about that heavenly experience in the next post here. However, the hotel is isolated and located far away from the buzzing Hirafu nightlife, hence limited dining choices (more expensive than Hirafu as well). So if you’re looking for a more quiet winter holiday and less crowded ski slopes, this would be the perfect place for you. Else, you might be better off just stay at Hirafu, although the hotel’s free shuttle bus is quite reliable to get around. All the staffs spoke good English hence service and communications were none issues, probably because the hotel is part of a Malaysian luxury boutique hotel chain, YTL Hotels Group which had mobilised some staffs from Malaysia just for winter peak season.

Overall, it was a good stay at The Green Leaf Niseko Village as we wound down our winter ski holiday before heading to Sapporo…