Our Family Travel Logs: Skiing at Nozawa Onsen Japan

On Boxing Day 2017 we flew to Tokyo for a week long skiing holiday at the traditional ski resort of Nozawa Onsen, famous for its many natural hot spring public bath houses or Soto-yu. The bus took about 5 hours and deposited us in the village square which was blanketed in a foot of fresh snow and it was still snowing heavily. The village has a lot of small narrow streets lined with traditional houses, small restaurants, steam bun shops and a lot of atmosphere not big enough for a bus to drop you at your hotel door. It was hilarious dragging our large travel bags through the streets trying to find our Ryokan for the week - a common spectacle for the locals.

We stayed at the gorgeous Sakaya Ryokan in traditional tatami mat rooms looking out onto a central snow covered court yard, with traditionally manicured trees and koi fish floating around in a freezing pond. The entry lobby ritual meant taking off our shoes and storing them on racks before selecting slippers arranged in various sizes on the floor, and then vis versa when going out we could borrow the gumboots neatly arranged in size order too.
Eating at Sakaya was amazing the morning breakfast was traditional, served with discipline. We ate out most nights but for a treat we had a meal in which was so beautifully presented, little edibles are displayed and consumed in a ritualised way.

Skiing was great, lucky for us the ryokan was a short walk to the moving walkway which delivers people from the village to the top of the slopes (Hikage and neighbouring Nagasaka). We'd pass the hot foot bath and O-yu bath house, hike up the narrow walk way winding through the traditional guest houses, pass the Kenmei-ji temple and Yuzawa Shrine to get to the beginning of the moving walk way each day we went skiing. We left out ski's etc on the mountain at the hire place so we just had our selves to carry home at the end of the day. Nozawa has a skiing mascot 'Naski' the large green happy vegetable which is modeled on the famous pickled vegetable grown in the area. The other thing Nozawa is famous for is the large hairy antelope that look like a cross between a bear/wolf/goat with devilish horns, we spotted some emerging from a cave when going up the gondola I initially thought they were bears.

Lucky for us the Sakaya Ryokan had an in house onsen, which was beautiful. A timber lined internal bath room with two hot thermal baths and an external natural bathing area surrounded by rocks and trees exposing you to falling snow - you could image what it would be like to be a snow monkey. In Japanese onsen you must follow the rules which are to wear traditional robes, scrub yourself clean outside the bath on little stools with buckets/ladles/condiments provided then use the minuscule cloth to cover self. No eye contact is made so you get used to the experience quickly in the steamy hot houses and at the end of the day its an amazing way to relax.

We had a days break and went to see the snow monkeys at Jigokudani Monkey Park about an hour away. The walk through the forest is about 30mins but on icy paths so I found this really difficult as I wanted to avoid an injury having torn knee cartilage in the past we ended up buying throw away crampons. The snow had melted so the monkeys were enjoying the sun shine with only a few in the water.

We had 3 days in Tokyo at the end, we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market (one of the largest in the world) post the morning trade to see the discarded enormous tuna heads and plethora of products from the sea, Tokyo Skytree, Ueno park to visit a tea house and shrines, and the colourful Omoide Yokocha with its narrow laneways lined with tiny barbecue stalls selling a variety of yakitori - this is near Shinjuku station.

Love Japan, and now on to our next adventure India!