In the snow

During half term we had a fabulous holiday in the stunning, quaint village town Nozawa Onsen. Not only were we really excited at the thought of our first family ski trip in Japan but this was also our first journey on the world renowned Japanese bullet train, the 'Shinkansen'. We took the Nagano Shinkansen line to Nagano - a town famous for hosting the 1998 Winter Olympics 90 minutes from Tokyo station followed by a local train through numerous snowy country villages to Togari Nozawa Onsen. Our luggage was sent in advance (seems to be the popular way of travelling around the country) so there's little hassle using the trains with minimal hand luggage. 

While most of our school friends tend to ski at Hakuba during the winter season, the well known ski resort with strong Australian and international influence including an English speaking ski school, we chose to try Nozawa for its more authentic Japanese experience. Our girls attended ski school in Japanese but fortunately skiing is a sport you can learn by watching and by the end of the week both were confidently moving (& stopping on skies.) 

We stayed in a traditional Japanese hotel called a Ryokan where the whole family sleep together on futon mattresses on a tatami-matted floor. The kids were super excited with these sleeping arrangements. Jonah was rolling around from mattress to mattress screeching with delight. We were given yukata (gowns) to wear around the hotel and experienced the most amazing hospitality from Ko, the owner at Ryokan Kiriya. Ko spoke very good English and we felt like we were staying in her home.

We opted for a western style breakfast in a communal dining room and every night at 6pm we were given a private dining room and served an elaborate 7 or 8 course Japanese meal. Starters were sashimi, omelettes, soybeans, udon and and lots soups (tofu/ miso etc) and then dish after Japanese dish we tried it all. Our favourite was shabbu shabbu where you dip the raw meat into a hot soup with vegetables on a small gas stove on the table to cook it. The kids would run riot and by the end of the meal the dining room was chaos. We wrapped up every meal with green tea, the girls loved that together with dessert (usually another kind of soup!)

The village itself was gorgeous. Spectacular mountain scenery being in the Japanese Alps, with steam rising from the hot waters on the streets and obviously lots and lots of snow. The town Nozawa is well known for its 13 natural onsen which means 'hot springs' in Japanese. This is extremely hot water rich in therapeutic minerals. There were 13 public baths and one in our Ryokan. We soon discovered there's nothing more rewarding than an onsen for an apres ski. Perfect combination! 

On our second day I took the girls to an outdoor onsen next to our Ryokan. The girls kept dipping from the indoor to outdoor bath, and got a kick out of the fact that we could bath outdoors in the snow! We even collected snowballs and cooled our faces down with it.  That night I saw a local Japanese woman bathing her 9 month old baby and that was all the reassurance I needed to know it was ok to take Jonah into 39/40 degree waters.  So every night we took our baby into these amazing therapeutic baths for his night dip - he has never slept so soundly as he did those nights in Nozawa!

Skiing with young kids is not a very relaxing experience. The mission to get everybody dressed (fetching all our ski gear from the drying room in the hotel) took about half an hour. We had a short walk through the snow to the travelator and had to collapse our massive buggy to get up to the slopes (a 7 minute ride) as being a Japanese size travel system it wouldn't fit! Once finally at the slopes we then spent another hour getting ski's, boots, ski passes, childcare sorted for J and getting ready for ski school. Phew....

Ath and I took a few ski lessons but soon realised that even though we hadn't skied for about 7 years it's a bit like riding a bike, so luckily picked up from where we left off. Nozawa has lots of green slopes (the more gentle runs) high up the mountain so we could take the Hikage  gondola for about 20 minutes and then enjoy a variety of runs using the lifts at the top of the mountain. A favourite for me was the forest trail ski path through amazing scenery about 7 kms down the mountain. We used the gondola most days up to the Uenotaira station via the most breathtaking scenery, white forests and snow covered peaks - just one of those sights that no pictures can do justice.

Rach needed a break from ski school in the afternoons, so we'd spend some hours sledding and playing on the doughnuts. They had a kids snow park and the girls enjoyed it. I didn't really get to watch the kids ski, perhaps that was for the best, but on the last day after we were told that Anna had progressed to the 4th level, Ath promised to take her up for a ski. She had little intention of traversing the mountain to control speed or making turns, this kid just flew down the mountain using a snow plough (what her Japanese sensei referred to as 'pizza') she fell a few times but absolutely loved the exhilaration that comes with skiing. 

We figured despite the effort of taking 3 young ones to the snow it was definitely a tick on the bucket list for us, and Nozawa is highly recommended as a brilliant skiing destination in this wonderful country with its incredible scenery, onsen and amazing powder.  Here are some pictures. I have about a thousand more....