Hakuba / Nagano (Japan)

After the "heaviness" of Hiroshima, we kicked back in the Japanese Alps around Hakuba, near Nagano where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held. The scenery was breathtaking, although a tad bid chilly at about 15 degrees Celsius or so.

Here is a picture of the ski jump at Hakuba that was used for the Olympic games. We marveled at how similar the scenery was here to that of the Rockies.



Okay, well similar to the Rockies apart from rice paddies in the forefront!





We stayed in a sleepy little village of about 10,000 people just outside of Hakuba. When I say sleepy I mean that pretty much everything was closed for the season and there wasn't even a single restaurant open. Good thing we had a kitchen at our disposal.

We had no idea that the weather would be as cold as it was and unfortunately did not bring the appropriate clothing. We were surprised to learn that ski season ended only 10 days prior to our visit at the end of May! Wade of course used this to his advantage and accurately aimed a couple of snowballs into the back of my head. Here is a picture of Wade shivering in his windbreaker on a little hike that we did at the top of the ski runs (one gondola and two chairlifts later). I'm glad he didn't have any mitts or a few more snowballs may have been lobed my way.

Back down at the bottom the weather was a little nicer and we enjoyed a walk around the village. We also enjoyed some hot cocoa to warm us up!