Welcome to Hakuba

Well, here we are. Japan. Land of anime, pokemon, godzilla and samurai. And awesome mountains. Hakuba is a small town about 1 hr from Nagano, where the 1998 winter olympics were held, and in fact, some of the events were held here. There are 3 big resorts around town, and a whole bunch of other smaller ski areas, and it's all connected by free buses which is nice.

The journey here was eventful. Firstly, our friends at Jetstar decided to cancel our 8.30am flight while we were already on the way to the airport, and said we could come again the following morning. Instead we successfully managed to change to a Qantas flight that was leaving that evening, and flew direct into tokyo rather than via Cairns, with meals. So it wasn't all bad. And i got to sneak in a quick trip to the beach in the afternoon before we left. On arrival, caught a bullet train from Tokyo to Nagano, and a bus to Hakuba, and settled in to a small lodge run by a family friend.

The whole trip is filled with emotion, as it is my Dad's first ski trip since his back operation last year. Plenty of anxiety was quickly replaced with joy when our first run was completed successfully. We spent the first morning skiing together lapping up some gentle runs to warm up before he decided to call it a day, and i was let loose for the afternoon.

Here's a shot of Dad, looking confused; myself, looking confused, and the town from half way up Happo One mountain.

Apparently, it snows almost every day here, and a sunny day is very rare. The last 2 weeks before we arrived its been dumping, which is awesome. But just my luck, our first day was filled with sunshine, which i guess is great for photos and cruising, but with more sunshine to come for the next 3 or 4 days and no new snow expected.... i'm rolling my eyes. This is my whister trip all over again, where it snowed a few cms once in 2 weeks, and then slammed down metres of fresh stuff continuously over the 5 days after i left. Let's hope this trip turns out different.