Mike and I were fortunate to be able to get away for a couple of days to go skiing up near Nagano. We left the kids with April and John Money and took the Shinkansen up to Nogawa Onsen to go skiing for a few days. We had been there during the summertime to explore but everything looked so different in the snow. It was fascinating to watch the weather change as got closer to Nagano. By the time we got to our station it was like we had entered a completely different place. The ground was completely covered in snow and our taxi not only had snow chains on his tires but a ski rack on his car. It's a good thing too because the roads leading to our inn were snowy and hilly. We staying at the Honey Bee Inn which was run by a Japanese couple who were good friends with the Australian owners that we had rented the Nozawa House from this past summer. The rooms weren't anything special but that was ok since it was just the two of us. We shared a common area that had sinks and separated bathrooms and had access to the showers in the basement. It was a typical Japanese style inn with futons to sleep on in the rooms, however, every morning we ate a delicious western style breakfast instead of the unpleasant fish breakfast you normally get at a typical Japanese Inn. Thank goodness for the delicious breakfast.
We spent two days skiing on the slopes at Nogawa Onsen. The first day we took the Gondola up to the main area on top and skied down this awesome trail through the trees down to our favorite run. We went up and down this run all day because it was not crowded and it was easy enough for Mike to practice and fun enough for me to ski. When we got hungry we got back on the Gondola and headed back up to eat lunch. It was a little snowy the first day and quite windy so we welcomed a longer than normal lunch to warm up. Margarita pizza never tasted so good. After lunch we did some other runs but it was getting harder to see. We skied a few more runs before trying to head down on the far side of the resort. We thought that maybe we could ski down via the green outer trail but soon realized it was really hard to ski down this narrow path with other skiers. We did get to a point where we hit a blue and thought it would be ok but once we looked over the ledge we quickly changed our minds. It wasn't blue at all but full on black just to get to the blue. No thanks. Plus, we were tired so trying something more challenging was just out of the questions. We headed back to the narrow green trail and finally made it down to the bottom. We skied across until we made it back to where we had started. We made a quick note to ride down the gondola at the end next time. For dinner we walked in town and had a hard time finding the restaurant we were looking for. We found something suitable but made reservations to eat the awesome Japanese dinner at our inn the following night. You had to sign up to eat there 24 hrs in advance and we just didn't have the foresight to do it the night we arrived.
The second day turned out to be a super sunny day. The snow was awesome and very powdery after two days of full on snow. We ended up going down the same fun trail run we did the day before but we actually spent most of our time on the Discovery Run. It was easy with jumps in between the trees and the most beautiful terrain ever. It was the most beautiful weather. We even ventured up the blue run and did that small one as well. I did that run a few times without Mike while he waited for me at the bottom. Today we ate Tonkatsu for lunch and then went back up the Discovery run the rest of the afternoon. We were smart and finished our day with a ride down the Gondola to the bottom. Unless you wanted to ski black runs or ski down some icy narrow trails the gondola was the way to go. Dinner tonight was delicious. We had heard great things about the dinner and we were definitely not disappointed. We ended our trip by walking around the town looking for a few souvenirs. We found some great fresh apple juice and apple baked treats and some stickers and pins for our future ski bags. It was just so much fun being together. I can't wait for our next ski trip together.
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