What is the best/ cheapest/ quickest way to get from Furano to Niseko?

Is there regular transport between the places?

Cheers in advance.

Al, this is prob a serious question for the Hokkaido peeps.

The best I could search was TAXI, ski tour operators, rental car, or Furano -> Shin Chitose -> Niseko. Sounds ridiculous to me but that's the only sutff on the net.

Personally, I'd take the taxi. Good luck dude.

I'll try and get more info on this, but right now I'm thinking train from Furano to either Asahikawa or Sapporo and a bus from there. There are timing issues, like the ski buses usually leave in the morning, so you'd have to arrive early enough at the midpoint to get one, and if you were to leave Furano on a bus, most of the outbound buses don't start going until later. I'll post what I find.

I believe the Whiteliner Bus can pick you up in Furano in the morning and get you to Chitose by lunch time. The same bus company also operates a line which goes form Chitose in the afternoon to Niseko. This method is relatively inexpensive and you only have to change buses once.

Never imagined it would be so difficult.

Okay, like Markie said, there is a Furano-Chitose "White Liner". You have to book this a week in advance. The earliest one (8-ish, #802) will get you to Chitose airport at Noon. From there, you can catch the 12:30 (Chuo bus co.), the 13:30 (Donan bus co.), or the 14:30 (Chuo bus co.) to Niseko.

Either that, you can catch any of various Chuo buses that leave hourly from 07:00 from the Furano bus terminal to Sapporo station, and then catch the 14:50 Donan bus to Niseko. There are 2 eariler buses from Sapporo to Niseko, but both of those leave before 09:00, so it would be difficult/impossible to get to Sapporo in time.

The Furano-Chitose-Niseko route sounds more convenient, but if you do the Furano-Sapporo-Niseko route, you can probably catch an earlier bus to Sapporo, grab lunch in town and do some shopping, then catch the 14:50 to Niseko. There are snowboard/ski sized coin-lockers in the Sapporo station on the North side, and a bunch of shops and restaurants right there, including 2 big electronics/camera stores.

Yeah, if you're into cameras and electronics, there's Bic Kamera at the Esta centre at the Sapporo station mall. Even if you're not buying anying, that place is great for just looking around. Personally, I would do the Chitose route because I love the restaurants at that airport. That is actually my favourite airport in the world....despite their incredibly slow immigration and customs processing.

Stellar Place is worth a visit Markie. I love this place: secret always have to bum wait before opening.

The airport has some fantastic food. I wish I had the stomach for 4 meals for the number of places I want to try.

So these camera shops are they likely to be cheaper than Tokyo? Im keen to pick up a crazy tiny video camera to document my trip - would i be better in Tokyo or Sapporo?

Anyone got any idea how much a taxi would cost? If it was in Aberdeen (my home town) it would cost about 200,000yen i recon! they are an f'in rip off!!!

I'm pretty sure the taxi fare would be around what plane fare to Japan costs!

I'm not sure what prices are like in Scotland, but I find the prices for the same electronics products are lower in the States than in Japan. Part of this is from price controls on products levied by the manufacturers on retailers in Japan - in many cases, the MSRP is the "street price". Is Scotland a PAL video format country? If so, you probably will have to look specifically for an "export model" as Japan is a NTSC format country. If you're going to use the video in a PC, it shouldn't matter - only playing back on a TV.

You'll have equal luck in Sapporo or Tokyo. Besides, you don't want to waste your entire time in Tokyo wandering around Akihabara looking for a camera.

ahem, aren't all TVs multi system now?

I don't know if all sets are.

My new USDM Sony TV doesn't support PAL, but my friends 1990's-vintage HK-market Sony TV can switch between PAL and NTSC, but needs an adaptor for the US cable standard. My crappy, cheap Philips DVD player can play a PAL-encoded disc or a NTSC-encoded disc on a NTSC TV, but I don't know if it can be switched to output to a PAL TV.

If the end-use of the camera will be working with the videos in a PC, then it just doesn't matter.

I run a mac and would be using the camera solely for video editing via my mac purposes so its all good either way - i can plug my mac into my tv and watch it that way if i do want to preview my stuff before I burn it.

Im not too bothered about stuff being super cheap, more just getting some crazy technology that i wont see in the UK for another year or so. You get meh??

I figure cameras in the states are cheap as fook, the pound is stonger than the dollar! HOLLA

You should be able to pick up 1 for a decent price because you are travelling on the pound.

Yes, then I'm sure you'll find something, "yet unseen in the West". Lots of tiny flash-memory or HDD camcorders coming on the market now. Should be no problem with the Mac.

very useful thing you won't find in Scotland. Nose hair trimmers.