It was Monday the 12th of January, and after heading off to bed with plenty of snow falling, we woke up to another lovely sunny day. It was still about minus 4 degrees, but the sun was shining and we could see how much snow had fallen in the last snow storm. Anto had cleared off our bin and porch about 7pm and so much snow had accumulated overnight in just a few hours!

Yes that metal thing in our bin and it was entirely cleared off about 15 hours earlier!

Off skiing….

The kids and Anto head off on the 9am shuttle to Goryu (no private lesson pick up today as they were doing group lessons). I was feeling pretty sick so was staying in trying to stay warm, so I waved them off from inside. The bus stop is conveniently directly across the road.

Our roof snow pile was growing. We were wondering if it would reach the eaves before we left. Snow was constantly sliding off the sloped roof so the pile would grow every time more snow fell onto the roof. We could see all the cars in the street were also going to have to be dug out that morning.

Everyone had group lessons booked at 10.30am but they got there early so did a couple of runs while waiting. Zinnia had been nervous about a lesson without mum and dad, but apparently had a wonderful time with her Aussie instructor Sam.

Soren was also booked into a kids lesson but one level higher than Zinnia. He did not like the 5 year old boy in his lesson who was mucking around resulting in them not doing much. Unfortunately for him you can’t do the adult lessons until you are 13.

Meanwhile, Astrid was in an adult lesson as she was too old for the kids lessons. She was at the same level as Soren and had a good time, despite being the only non-adult. Anto was a level higher than the kids so went off to do what I consider scary chairlifts. By now he had remembered how to ski so was zipping along in no time. He went to a different area today and saw snow monkeys up the high bit of the green run.

After their lessons they all had some lunch in the restaurant. Astrid discovered that what was claimed to be poutine, was not poutine. Zinnia had some form of fried chicken sticks. The bigger kids complained it wasn’t as good as the Japanese restaurant, they’d gone to the previous couple of days, but they’d had to placate 7 year old Zinnia.

Despite Soren not even wanting to go out in morning for his lesson and claiming to be feeling sick, he now wanted to do ‘one more run’. It was a nice sunny day so they went and did some more skiing. Anto defied my request to not take them on the scary chairlift with no bar, especially with Zinnia in tow. The kids did see the snow monkeys though, which made them exceedingly happy. In the end they didn’t even want to get on the 3pm bus and Anto was out with them all skiing until the 4pm bus when at least he decided he’d had enough for the day.

Sunny snow walks

Meanwhile, I was trying to stay warm and rest a bit so I’d start to feel better. In true mum style, I did still have to spend half the day cleaning up after the little grots and doing their washing.

We were running low on supplies so I decided to walk to the 7-11 which was the nearest convenience store. It was minus 1 out but pretty sunny so I quickly got warm walking.

It was obvious how much snow had fallen in the past day, so many cars and roofs with snow piled high. The snow clearing machines were busy today.

I got to check out the many interesting and impressive hotels, chalets and apartments around Hakuba Valley. It was a glorious day to be out in the snow and sunshine.

The river I walked next to was entirely under snow. That’s the river behind that tree line in the photo above.

The walk to and from the convenience store was over an hour, trudging through the snow, but very scenic so enjoyable. I’d come back a slightly different way, and on the way back I did spy a restaurant about 200m from our place, that Anto had also seen (but couldn’t find online). I checked the menu out the front and it had vegetarian options and was walk-in only. This looked good as a dinner option 🙂

So much snow!

Once the skiers returned everyone warmed up and we decided to head down the the restaurant early to make sure we got a table.

First we had to move even more snow off the porch….. If only Astrid would do more chores at home!

There was snow piled up everywhere around these parts!

Dinner time….

The restaurant was already filling up despite us being early, but we got a table and it was pretty good food.

Zinnia had her favourite edamame and fried rice. I had a spicy veggie ramen, Astrid got her Takoyaki (fried octopus balls). Soren had gyoza and Anto had a Karaage ramen. I was excited to get hot food that was marked as actually vegetarian. They like to sneak fish into everything here!

It was very good and much cheaper than the Mexican from a couple of nights earlier. Lucky we were in early as there was a line by the time we left and we may not have gotten a table.

It never made it past about 1 degree during the day but with the sun out it had been quite a nice day out in the snow. Everyone was weary but ready for another day of skiing the next day.

A snowy Tuesday on the slopes…..

Tuesday 13 January 2026

It was the last day of skiing and there was a plan for the skiiers to go on the 8am bus to make the most of the last snow day. Everyone woke up to grey skies but constant flutters of snow. It was a nice minus 4 feels like minus 6 outside.

Broken Zinnia…

Unfortunately, Zinnia woke up with a sore wrist that she couldn’t move. She didn’t fall at all the previous day skiing, so we weren’t sure what the problem was but we decided no skiing for her to be on the safe side. The others set off on the 8am bus while Zinnia and I watched the workers come and hand shovel the snow off the building site next door.

Of course after some panadol and an ice pack (which we conveniently made by scraping some snow from the front porch without even going outside) she was fine. Two hours later she was moving her hand normally, but by now we’d cancelled her lesson, which was a shame as she’d been making excellent progress skiing. Instead of tearing up the slopes, she watched a lot of Bluey with me and we played Skip-Bo card games.

A cold and snowy walk……

In the middle of the day we rugged up and went for walk to the other Hakuba convenience store in Happo, the Lawson, that Anto had frequented on many ski shop visits.

It was an extremely snowy walk and Zinnia fell over in the powder a few times and almost got lost. We picked up some food supplies for lunch and dinner, and on request some fried chicken for Zinnia and over-priced fruit salad (she is missing Aussie Summer fruit).

It was nice exploring a different area of Hakuba Valley. We wandered back through Echoland where we’d been for dinner a few nights earlier. There are plenty of places to eat, although most aren’t that busy during the day as the majority of people are out skiing.

Hakuba hosted a number of events in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. We checked out a few of the sites and there were plaques throughout town commemorating the Olympics. We planned to go to the Olympics museum in Nagano city in a couple of days time, for more of our Olympic fix. The Hakuba Ski Jump is visible as you walk and drive around town but there were no photos today as it was a total white out with the amount of snow falling!

It was so cold and snowy during our walk that my hair got frozen. Thank goodness for weather sealed cameras and bags with sealed zippers, as my backpack for supplies had quite the level of snow, just from the walk back from the shops 🙂

Out on the slopes…

Meanwhile the other 3 got to Goryu fairly early and it was pretty quiet on the slopes. They did quite a few runs together before Astrid’s lesson.

Apparently there was so much snow on the runs from the recent snow dump and lots of powder. It was still actively snowing and quite hard to see but the kids were enjoying themselves.

Astrid was booked in for a 10.30am lesson and there was one other teen in her group today. She did some more practice of her one legged skiing across the mountain. Soren refused to have a kids lesson and he wasn’t old enough for the adult lessons so Anto had to go ski with him. They went on an adventure finding even more scary lifts. This included ones that acted like roller coasters and then a 6km gondola up to 1800m elevation for a green run that went for 45 minutes. They checked out some different resorts, that they then dragged Astrid to in the afternoon. Apparently I would not have liked some of the chairlifts or the gondola, with my dislike of heights, so it was probably lucky I wasn’t there.

After Astrid’s lesson they went to the Japanese restaurant for lunch where Soren continued his run of sweet lunches with a redbean fish shaped pancake. While Astrid and Anto had tonkatsu again.

All three of them then did another hour or so of skiing where it got even more snowy and was pretty much a total whiteout and everyone got quite wet by the afternoon. Apparently there were a few crashes today but everyone survived skiing with no major injuries.

Lets build a snowman…

Back at the cottage, Zinnia was entirely recovered from her sore wrist so we played in the snow and built a really cool snowman.

Snowman building involved a lot of playing in the snow but snow is always a novelty for the kids.

I wasn’t sure how easy the snow would be to make a snowman given it’s so light and fluffy but it turns out that Jappow is great for snowman building. It was the easiest snowman of several countries!

We were pretty pleased with our efforts!

Our final night in the snow….

By the time Anto, Astrid and Soren made it back from the slopes it was still zero degrees and everyone was cold and wet. It was time for the ski gear to get returned. Anto actually managed to get a taxi to turn up this time, so didn’t have to walk with 4 peoples gear! This was lucky as it was still snowing heavily…..

Dinner was a rice/noodle/veggie feast with all our left over bits and other purchases I’d made from the convenience stores, including some brulee desserts. The snow was continuing to bucket down and it was always amusing listening to it crash off the roof at pretty regular intervals!

Up next…

We bid farewell to our cottage and all the fabulous snow here in Hakuba and head back into Nagano city. Our first day in Nagano took us to the Jigokudani moneky park for some fabulous snow monkeys, bathing in thermal springs!