Hakuba 1

So when people plan to go to Japan for skiing, I believe the majority of them will choose either Niseko or Hakuba. There are so many other nice resorts in that country such as Shiga-kogen, Zao, Nozawa, Yuzawa.

Niseko is in Hokkaido, the northern most island, 2 hours south of Sapporo, which is the capital of Hokkaido and 2 and half hours away by bus from the Chitose International Airport. Normally the flight is around 20,000 Yen from Tokyo=Haneda domestic airport to Chitose, at the moment 1 NZ$ is about 75 Yen, you do the math. Of course there are discounts and cheaper flight, especially if you purchase the ticket 4 weeks prior to your flight. Some of the domestic airline has English website as well.

Niseko is a group of 3 skifields next to each other on the side of the mountain, Annupuri. there are more than 30 chairlifts all combined and covers a spacious area.

The snow is awesome, the town of Hirafu is small enough to get around on foot, lots of bars and restaurants with english menu, nice place if you are looking for some convinience in terms of the language.

But, hey, we are going to Hakuba, in Nagano prefecture. It is about 4-5 hours away by bus from the centre of Tokyo called Shinjuku, the place that never sleep with so many bars, restaurants, shops, gangs, mafias, prostitutes, drug dealers, pimps, well, I’ll get to talk about this place in a later post…

Hakuba is situated in the part of the Nortern Japan Alps. these photos were taken in 05, Mid-April when I went to Tsugaike-Kogen near hakuba for a hike one day, still plenty of snow as you can see.

Hakuba is known as the venue for the Winter Olympics in 90’s, once you get there you see the big jump course and stuff which reminds you of the times. By the way Hakuba means “White Horse”. Don’t know where that comes from, maybe able to find out along the way, I’ll let you know.