Ramen is the food of the gods. Not crappy cup ramen, tiny little ramen-house ramen.
You can get ANYTHING in a vending machine. Most beverages are available both hot and cold. Cold bark tea sucks badly. Boss Coffee is Boss. Also Real Gold pineapple energy drink is the shit.
There are 2 kinds of beer. They tax hops-based drinks heavily so a lot of brewers make a legit proper beer and a funny beer with some sort of hops alternative, I think they call it hoppon or something. It's like 100 yen cheaper for a can which is the only way I could spot it. Avoid the alternative stuff, if you have a few you a. won't get drunk and b. wake up feeling like a sewer.
Spirits have virtually no tax on them so are cheap as. If you want to get drunk, drink spirits. Or sake. Sake will mess your shit up.
Take the biggest pow skis you can find. When it snows hard in Japan, it snows like 4ft overnight.
Don't piss on the side of houses when you're staggering home drunk. 1, the japanese dude inside is liable to kill you with a samurai sword if he notices and 2, if the snow on the roof falls off they won't find your body until spring.
The Japanese are generally super polite and respectful. Respect them back. Around Niseko they already think westerners are drunken louts and we don't need that spreading elsewhere. Learn some real basic japanese. Just hello, thank you, excuse me, sorry, goodbye. It will go a long way. They mostly speak pretty good english but they'll like you more (and put more pork slices on your ramen) if you make a bit of effort. Bow everywhere and at everyone. You can get in a bowing war if you want because they always want to have the last bow.
That's all I can thing of right now. It's a really cool place.
