Japan and Hakuba, first impressions

It is a long way. Especially if you get sick on the way! I think I spent like half of the time in the toilet, and the stuert asked a doctor to come and have a look at that sick girl. The last hour I got some sleep though, and once I saw the "quarantine" area at Nagoya airport, I had to try to look healthy because there was no way I wanted to end up there. And I made it! Guys had to carry most of my luggage though =) On the plane I was impressed to have my own tv, movies and music in front of me. It wasn't like that back in those days when I flew to USA.


First mountains that we saw from the train and the guys are already skiing it (I know, there's no snow). Most of the time on the train I was just sleeping and having no idea where we were =)


Hakuba and Happoone, our home and home resort for the next 5 weeks. That is the "south side":


People here are super friendly. For example at the airport everything went really smoothly and efficiently, but still everybody was smiling and being extremely polite and friendly. In Austria there would have been angry looking man yelling to you =) No offense, I like Austria though.

Everything is smaller. Except snow comes in larger portions! But the cars are small, people are small and oh the ski busses, they are small! Imagine trying to fit inside with tanker or fat skis, there's no way to make it look smooth =)

Kalle and tiny ski bus

Everything is technical. Things like doors and ski lifts are talking and I have problems to figure out how to use toilets.

It's really beautiful! But no wonder, everything is covered with snow!
Rabbit tracks on a rice field where we end up after skiing some great pow:


Shopping is difficult because everything is in japanese! I had to search quite long just to find body lotion and joghurt. And because everything is in japanese it looks funny!


Our Lodge (Hakuba Powder Lodge) is great! Everybody is just talking about skiing and powder, checking weather forecasts, talking about yesterday's skiing, today's skiing, tomorrow's skiing and then again checking the weather.

Great snow, great company and I'm looking forward every new snowday that'll come!