It’s almost impossible to only visit Niseko once. If you’ve ever spent time skiing here on a family holiday during the peak season, you’ve undoubtedly had the urge to come back and visit the following year – and then again the year after that. Everyone does.
For Thai actress, Vicki Jett, and her husband, Chartayodom Hiranyasthiti, they made that a reality.
“We love it so much here. Our first time visiting was last year and we fell in love with Niseko. As soon as we got back to Thailand, we booked our flight for this year,” remarks Vicki.
Having just finished up a week of skiing on the ‘Ultimate Family TRIP’, the Jett’s spoke about what makes Niseko such a special destination for a family holiday.
“The kids love it! Both times we’ve been, they’ve had the time of their lives in Niseko.”
“The whole year my son has been waiting to come and since being here it’s been the highlight of his year, especially because of the Kids Week program. They have so many activities, like climbing trees, high ropes courses and a lot of different physical activities.”
“He did the adventure part today and loved the zipline,” states Chartayodom, “He loves skiing and loves being outdoors and doing activities. Skiing is definitely his favourite thing to do right now – I don’t think seven days was enough for him,”
“After the class finished, he still wanted to ski more!” adds Vicki.
“I had to take him back out on the slopes because he didn’t want to stop!” laughs Chartayodom.
Although it wasn’t just the kids who caught the skiing bug during the Jett’s week-long stay. While the groms were out enjoying Kids Week activities, Vicki spent her time in private lessons, battling her fears and brushing up on her pizzas to step up from being a beginner to intermediate skier.
“I’m definitely improving, just not as much as my son.”
“I have more fear, but my instructors gave me a lot of advice and let me know that I just have to trust myself and go for it – I just have to let go of that fear.”
“So it was great to learn more about the techniques of doing long turns, keeping the skis parallel and not just pizza’ing my whole way down.”
“Both of my instructors were incredibly patient. Over the week I had both Olly and Lane, and they were both very patient and tried to teach me the same thing – that speed is actually my friend – and that really helped me to push myself.”
Reflecting on the help that she received from Olly and Lane throughout their Niseko family holiday, Vicki stated,
“I think it takes a very special kind of character to instruct. A lot of people can ski, but not everyone wants to teach. I think at Rhythm, you guys have instructors that actually care and want to share their wisdom with their students, which really helps to create a comfortable dynamic.”
When asked if she was just being humble about her abilities given we had seen the reels that she uploaded, Vicki laughed and clarified,
“Oh, I only edit the good bits!” she laughs.
Alongside the help of Vicki’s instructors, the Jett’s also found a lot of the newfound confidence due to comfortability of their gear, with Vicki stating,
“I felt that my equipment was actually really comfortable. As a beginner, I’m not used to ski boots…. I actually hate ski boots, I feel like they are all made to hurt, but with Rhythm I didn’t find that. I’m not sure if it was because of that machine you have that measures the exact size of your feet, but my boots were very comfortable.”
“It’s all new and updated to keep up with style and quality and we really loved that.”
But for the Jett’s, the powder is only one facet of what makes Niseko such an enticing holiday destination, with its primary draw card being its extensive and luxurious eating options.
“We have been burning money at restaurants,” laughs Vicki.
“All the food is so good!” backs Chartayodom, “anywhere you go, you’re guaranteed to get a good meal. It’s such a great food scene here, and there’s so much diversity, you can get Thai food, Indian, of course Japanese – you have so many options. Even the convenience stores have amazing meals, amazing snacks and so many ingredients, making it easy to cook. Because sometimes when you’re here for a week you don’t want to eat out every single night so it’s amazing to have the convenience to go and get ingredients to cook yourself.”
While the Jett’s aren’t ready to commit to being full-on Niseko residents just yet, they have found a second home in Hokkaido that they plan to make an annual fixture on the family holiday calendar.
“We love it here,” remarks Vicki, “there’s a lot of family activities, activities for couples, young people or whoever. There’s a lot of food, a good bar scene, restaurant scene, nice hotels, everything.”
“We’ve heard good things about the ski slopes in other towns, but we love it here.”
“We want to come back every year.”
