We caught the bullet train from Tokyo station, past Nagano to a little village called Nozawaonsen. Nozawa is a picturesque little village at the base of a large ski resort, and our accommodation was a small Ryokan about 10 mins walk from the ski lifts. Our room and futon beds were very good, except the pillows were like bags of rice.

We arrived in rain which wasn’t a good sign but the forecast was for snow during the week. The girls were very young when they last saw snow and have never skied so it was all very exciting for them. So after dropping off our bags we went straight up and got our ski gear all sorted out.

The first day skiing was a beautiful bluebird day, it was something like 8 degrees and the girls sweated. They took to skiing like ducks to water, so we thought we better get them a lesson to give them a good foundation to work off. By the end of the second day Ella could turn both ways and Abbie could ski on her own and snowplow. By this stage rain had turned to snow and there were good falls across the resort and in the village.

On the last 2 days we were all able to go up the gondola to a place called Uenotaira, where the girls could ski a nice long easy run and I could sometimes duck off to the top for some more challenging stuff. Ella was able to ski the run all by herself, but Abbie still needed to ski in between Amy’s legs.

On our last skiing day the conditions on the mountain started deteriorating and snow falls turned to blizzard. The girls headed down at lunch and I stayed a bit longer. By mid afternoon up at a section called Yamabiko, the wind was too strong and little branches started blowing onto the runs. I got a couple more runs in and called it a day.

On the morning we were leaving the snow storm had well and truly set in, with 50cm falling right across the region and still going. The bus ride was interesting as the snow was very deep everywhere. Cars in front of us were skidding around, graders and snow plows were working hard, but the bus was rock solid in the conditions and we made it to the train station just fine. This is a place we will definitely come back to go skiing again. The town is beautiful, heaps of accommodation, and best of all the snow is second to none.

This was our last leg of our trip, we are back to Tokyo for the weekend then home. See you soon!