Another amazing day in the backcountry! There is nothing like it! If you are fit enough to hike with pack, and are an advanced level skier or boarder, I highly recommend heading out into the backcountry to earn your turns.... with a qualified backcountry guide of course!!!! There are so many risks you may not be aware of. Knowledgable guides will be able to choose the terrain that suits your abilty so you can have your best day out ever! Moreover, you will need avalache saftey equipment to minimize the risks. I suggest you contact Evergreen Outdoor Center for more information about backcountry tours, avalanche awareness training, and equipment rentals. You will not regret it!

If you are craving some western food while on the mountain, you might want to try Pizza House Luis. They are conveniently located just below the gondola station at Hakuba 47.  Luis Pizzas have 3 different sauces to choose from; garlic sauce, basil sauce, codroe and mayonaise sauce, and your standard tomato sauce. These thin crusted Italian style pizza pies only come in one single serving size and cost ¥1200 - ¥1500 each. They also offer snacks like hashbrowns, fried chicken, curry buns, and saugages for ¥200 - ¥500. And serve draft beer and Italian wine to help you wash it all down and work up a bit more courage for your afternoon on the mountain.

After a long winter of snow-filled skies, I must admit I do look forward to a bit if sunshine, and Obinata-no-yu is my favorite place to catch up on my vitamin D. It's closed in the middle of winter but re-opens just as the days start to get a little longer and the clouds give way to more bluebird skies. When there is snow on the ground the taps and showers are also covered up so you have to wash the old fashioned way by sitting next to the hotspring and splashing yourself by dunking a bucket into bath. Don't forget to get wet, lather up with soap, and rinse yourself clean before lowering your (now goose-pimply) body into these alkaline-rich mineral waters.

Open: 10:00 - 17:00
Closed: November - February
Price: ¥500

道 (Michi) means road, の (no) is a possessive like our 's, and 駅 (eki) means station. Together you have "Road Station", which have all of the conveniences of train stations but is made for drivers and their cars. All michi-no-eki are organized by the government, and provide basic travel needs like free parking, 24 hour restrooms, and tourist information. Michi-no-eki is also the hub of many small towns providing them a place to promote tourism and trade. You can often find locally grown veggies, food stalls and restaurants with local specialties, souvenirs, hand-made goods, and sometimes even onsens! Michi-no-eki's merchants are carefully selected to represent the town so you can be sure to find the best food and the most welcoming folks at the road-side michi-no-eki.

Hakuba's michi-no-eki is an easy walk from Lodge tabi-tabi, check it out on our walking map here. They have a soba shop, oyaki shop, and in the summer, a gelato stand. They sell local veggies and souvenirs, and provide free parking and restrooms. If you have a car, I highly recommend visiting the Otari michi-no-eki. Otari is the next town if you are driving towards the coast. If you are driving to Nagano City, you will pass Poka Poka Land, Miasa's michi-no-eki, which has a spa with powerful jet-baths, sell cheap local vegetables, and has a great restaurant next door called Miasa Shokudo. Japan has close to 1000 michi-no-eki scattered throughout rural Japan so take note of the michi-no-eki symbol below and you'll know where to take a break the next time you are on the road.

Gu~ Steak House in Goryu has tender juicy steak to fit every budget. Set menus with slabs of sizzling meat on a hot plate and a bit of corn start at ¥800. Customers can help themselves to rice, soup, green tea, and water.  They have a picture menu making it very easy for anyone to order. The above meal is a 150 gram steak alongside a 230 gram chicken fillet which comes with a side-salad, and all-you-can-eat rice and soup for ¥1000. If you go there for lunch, you can take ¥100 off each set. They also have minced meat paddies, rib steak, and if you want to best, their wagu beef is ¥4000 for 300 grams.

Gu~ is about a 15 minute walk from Lodge tabi-tabi, you can also find it on our walking map here. It's very close to Genryu-no-yu Onsen so many of our guests like to do both.

Lunch: 11:30 - 14:30 (last order 14:00)
Dinner: 17:00 - 20:30 (or until the meat runs out)
Closed: Wednesdays

It's International Woman's Day today so this one is for the laydeez! Women have come a loooong way, so long in fact that women are now able to pee standing up! That's right Freud, time to scrap your male-centered penis envy theory. With the right gadget, women too, can relieve themselves anywhere anytime. Find yourself in a dirty john? Behind a skinny tree? A urinal? Or in the back-country above the tree line without a bush insight (and not wanting to reveal yours)? All you need is an FUD (female urination device). This season I have started using P-mate, a very simple origami-like funnel that catches your stream and sends it off away from your pants and shoes without the need to drop your drawers.

This product has been a goddess-send for a woman like me, who wears bib pants and spends most of her back-country days hiking with the boys. It's even easier if you wear boys tights underneath and make good use of the hole in the front.

P-mates are only $4.95 for a pack of 5. Although they are disposable, I re-use each one a few times by giving it a rinse before placing it back in the zip-lock bag.  I ordered mine online direct from their website. International orders have a $15.00 shipping fee. Which is not bad at all if you stock up and buy some extra for your female friends.

Go Grrrrlz!

True Player's Skate Park will have its grand opening in April, but they're already letting skaters ride the ramps. True Player's is an excellent indoor park with big well shaped ramps and other street skate items, and for ¥500 a day you can't go wrong anyway. True Player's is in a gym on the same road as Mimizuku Onsen near Happo. I will add it to our recommendation map here.

Open: 12ish to 9ish (everyday-ish)

You know you love powder but do you know Powder Love? According to their facebook page:

"Powder Love Hakuba is a yearly, live-music, DJ and festival style event held both inside and outside of Tracks Bar in Hakuba. The Event will feature a nightclub in the basement of Tracks with a top international DJ line-up, while the first floor will feature live music and performance artists. To add to the good vibes of the event there will also be food stalls and a huge bonfire outside with an icebar , more music, Fire shows , Jump / Jib course and a video projection snow display." ...and plenty of prizes to be won!

Here is a video of last year's jib stars in action:

Live Floor:

デリシャスウィートス Japanese wild show
Swell - Dub Reggae with Jazz infusion
Semi-on - Gypsy Punk Funk
Rawshana Belly Dancers
Anbassa- Reggae
Sabunyuma -African drums and dancers
Very Special Guest
And More ( to be announced )

Club Floor:

 Aron-T . dbi-UK
Mitch 4-the Love ( Australia )
D J Paul T
DJ Mike McKenna from U.K / Dj Seeb from Italy
DJ Dave B　/ DJ Dom Pang / DJ Hirro / DJ HSK
Drew Moon from Australia (Rendered SPACE records)
Big Ted from NZ / DJ Chris Edmeads / DJ DR Juan
Soulza from Brazil
Yanbe Giant Swing - Dance hall Ragga
Jimmy- Techno House

Chill Zone:

Ice Dee Jay set / Snow Bar / Maxime Fire show
VJ show by HEADFUL
Jib and jump course
International Food Stalls

There are soba shops all over the Hakuba Valley but my favorite sansai soba is from Yamato Soba. Sansai means mountain vegetable, these wild and nutritious plants are loaded onto a plate of cold soba noodles along with some grated daikon, green onions, shredded nori (seaweed) and wasabi. You have to pour over the soba tsuyu (sauce) yourself. It comes in a ceramic flask, make sure you mix up your plate well then dig in and slurp away. Yes, it's OK to slurp your noodles in Japan. In fact, the locals feel that you will be missing out on some flavor if you don't. 

If you get zaru soba (plain noodles in middle pic below) you will get a small cup of soba tsuyu where you can add your desired amount of wasabi and daikon. Then you load up on noodles with your chopsticks and dip it into the cup, slurp, chomp, and swallow. 

Yamato Soba has cold and hot versions of all of their dishes. You can also order udon (a thick white noodle) instead of soba (brown buckwheat noodles). 

There are always a few specials to choose from like the seasonal tempura and okowa (sticky rice mixed with beans, see pic below). Today they also had kurumi soba which is a walnut dip instead of the usual soy-sauce based dip. Oishikatta (It was yum)! 

Yamato Soba is about a 10 minute walk from Lodge tabi-tabi. You can also find it on our walking map here.

Hours: 11:00 to 16:00  (and sometimes 17:00 or 18:00)
Closed: sometimes  

At 3 pm tabi-tabi staff and guests piled into the van ready to experience a little culture. First stop was Oyaki Mura in Ogawa. Oyaki is a veggie filled bun popular in Nagano prefecture, and mura means village. According to the oyaki maker (man in blue), in the old days people who lived in the mountains made these everyday. Due to a shortage of flat land, rice paddies were limited, therefore rice in short supply. The mountain people of Nagano grew wheat for flour, that could be made into dough and shaped and stuffed into oyaki. On this day we got to do the shaping and stuffing ourselves. We all made 2 varieties of oyaki. First, the standard nozawana which is a green leafy vegetable that tastes a little like spinach but is actually from the turnip family. Then, the unohana variety, which is a dry roasted tofu pulp mixed with veggies. We shaped and stuffed, and the the obasan (auntie) helped us close up our little pockets of veggies before the ojisan (uncle) cooked them up for us on the irori (open fire). After we had our fill of handmade (and very tasty!) oyaki, we climbed back into the van and headed off to Nagano city for the Tomyo Festival..... (see part two for the rest of our little adventure).

With bellies full of tasty treats, soba tea, and a lesson in Japanese culture, we headed off  to Nagano city for the 9th annual Tomyo Festival. This incredibly beautiful festival of lights is held every year at Zenkoji Temple to commemorate the Nagano Olympics  "and to pass on to the future generations the Olympic spirit of praying for peace. In this event, the message for peace is conveyed through lights with the aim of reaching out to the world". The main buildings of the temple are lit up in different colored spot lights, while smaller temples (Zenkoji is made up of 41 temples and shrines) put on their own more intimate candle lit displays. There were also streets filled with lanterns crafted by various artists, while another cobble stone road was filled with boisterous vendors selling hot sake and local festival food. I'm already looking forward to the 10th annual Tomyo Festival. See you there next year, and peace be with you until then...

We have passed Kajika Onsen Ryokan a number of times on our way to Takasekan Onsen in Oomachi. Even tried to go there once but because the onsen is only available from 10 to 3 for non-staying guests, it's been a bit hard to catch. This time we were intent on trying Kajika Onsen and I am glad we made the extra effort. Kajika is a beautiful Ryokan surrounded by a peaceful snow-covered forest. They have one indoor and one outdoor bath available for non-staying guests to use before check-in time. The two baths have two different types of natural mineral waters. The indoor bath has simple alkaline clear water, while the outdoor bath smelled more sulfurous and was loaded with yu-no-hana which literally translates as bath flowers but looked more like bits of volcanic ash. Proof that it's a 100% natural mineral water hotspring.

Open: 10:00 - 15:00
Price: ¥800 adults / ¥500 kids
Access: You can find it on our google map here

I've been suffering from a cold so, as advised by my naturopath, I've been turning to all things hot. This week I have soaked at the Yamada Ryokan Onsen for a long dip in healing waters, put extra tabasco on my Tacos on Monday, had a good dose of wasabi on my tofu last night, been drinking hot yuzu tea, and spent a few hours sweating it out at Escal Plaza's Spa. The Spa at Escal Plaza is nothing fancy but has all of the required basics for only ¥600. There is a large changing area with free lockers, showers, a large hot bath, a sauna, and a cold plunge pool for those who prefer to bathe the Scandanvian way (alternate between heat and cold). Their super convenient location on the first floor of Goryu Ski Resort's main building, makes it possible to get warm and clean while waiting for your friends to finish up their day on the mountain.

かまくら　(Kamakura) is not just the name of Japan's old capital, but it also means igloo in Japanese. From February 10th to 19th, you can explore a whole mura (village) of Kamakura at the bottom of Hakuba 47. There is a large Kamakura Bar, a Kamakura shrine (see pic above) and many little Kamakura where you can eat and drink with your own circle of friends. On the weekends there will be shops set up selling Okonomiyaki, chijimi, omelletes with fried noodles, hot sake, freshly roasted chest nuts, and more.... We had a Hiroshima Style Seafood Okonomiyaki. It was fresh, hot, tasty, and only ¥500.

四十七(Yonju-nanna) is Japanese for forty-seven and is one of the best restaurants on the mountain if not in the entire village. They serve excellent traditional and modern Japanese dishes at very reasonable prices. It is no more expensive to eat here than in one of Hakuba's izakaya down in the village. Yonju-nanna is located just behind the main cafeteria at the top of Hakuba 47 in the gondola station. If you like garlic or if you are trying to fight off a cold be sure to try the niniku-maru-age, a deep fried bulb of garlic for ¥400 (see second picture below). To make things easy they also have a good selection of teishoku, set meals that come with rice, miso soup, pickeled veggies, and tofu. I had the deep fried oyster teishoku for ¥1300 (3rd picture below, rice is also served but didn't fit in the cropped photo). Menu is in Japanese and English. Don't forget to say gochisosamadeshita on your way out.