Sunday 31 January 2027 · Lake Shikotsu, Hokkaido
We come down off the mountain at Furano on the Sunday morning, and the flight home isn’t until Monday night. So there is one night sitting in the middle that we have to book somewhere for either way. I think I’ve found the right somewhere.
A suite on the shore of a frozen lake with our own hot spring on the balcony, open to the sky. Steam coming off the water in the snow. Dinner brought to a room that’s only ours. And, because the dates happened to fall this way, a festival of lit-up ice a few minutes down the road.
I know the four thousand dollar one was a no, and fair enough. This is a thousand under it, it covers a night we’re paying for regardless, and we can cancel it free until December. So it costs nothing to say yes now and think about it for a month.
Lake Shikotsu Tsuruga Bessou Ao no Za. 支笏湖鶴雅別荘 碧の座. It opened in 2019 on the lake shore at Chitose. Twenty-five suites, every one over 100 square metres, and every one with its own open-air hot spring bath looking out over the water.
The spring is bicarbonate, the silky kind the Japanese call a beauty bath. Guests rate it 9.2.
There’s no communal bath on site, which is deliberate. If we want one, the sister hotel nearby opens its whole bathing complex to us.
What I’d book is an adjoining pair: 100 square metres and 120 square metres, side by side, with a door between them that shuts and a separate key for each. Two private open-air onsens, plus an indoor bath in each room.
Which means Beatrice and Gilbert get their own suite and their own key. At 13 and 9, that’s what they’d want anyway.
Only one of these is released per floor per night, so there are three in the whole building on any given evening. We choose the floor. The fourth is the Suite Sky Resort with a sun room, the second and third have balconies.
Arrive after 7pm and they may not serve dinner, with no refund, so we’d leave Furano early afternoon. Allow three hours in snow.
Kaiseki at Mizushiro, built on Hokkaido produce. The entire restaurant is private rooms, so a birthday dinner is private by default rather than by request. Wine and sake pairings if we want them, and the non-alcoholic drinks are free.
If a long formal meal sounds like hard work with a nine-year-old, they’ll swap it for teppanyaki at Seisui at the same price, cooked in front of us, which Gilbert would pick every time. Seiran is the bar lounge for after the kids go down. Proper Japanese breakfast in the morning.
The Chitose-Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival runs from 30 January to 23 February 2027. We’d be there on night two, before the February crowds turn up.
They build it by spraying water from the lake onto frames, over and over, letting it freeze layer on layer for weeks until it forms whole caverns and towers of ice. Shikotsu water is famously clear, so the ice comes out translucent and blue. After sunset the site is lit in shifting colour and the sculptures glow from the inside. Around 200,000 people come each season.
It’s a few minutes from the front door of the hotel. We didn’t plan the trip around it. The dates just landed on it.
All four of us, one night, both suites, both private onsens, kaiseki dinner and breakfast. That’s the whole thing, not per person.
| Rate | Yen | AUD |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | ¥409,200 | $3,720 |
| Early Bird 30 | ¥388,740 | $3,534 |
| Early Bird 60 | ¥368,280 | $3,348 |
| Early Bird 90 | ¥347,820 | $3,162 |
| Early Bird 90 plus free membership · what we’d pay | ¥330,429 | $3,004 |
A$751 each. For all of it.
The suite, the private onsen, dinner and breakfast. Converted at ¥110 to the dollar. Registering for web membership on their site is free, takes a minute, and is the last A$158 of that.
Their photographers are better than mine. Start with the rooms.
If you like it, I’ll lock the rate in and we can still walk away until December. If you don’t, tell me and I’ll go and find something else. There’s only one night on this trip where we get to do something properly for you, and this is it.
Happy fiftiethMatthew