A couple of months before Christmas, Brandon came to me and said…I just want to see some snow for Christmas! Living on a beautiful tropical island is amazing, but you do really miss all the seasons. So we made plans to go find the snow in Japan. We decided on a little village called Hakuba which is near Nagano where the 1998 Winter Olympic games were held. Hakuba is known to have some of the best powder in Japan for skiing and snowboarding.
While searching for a place to stay, I came across The Green Plaza Hotel which is located in the Hakuba Cortina Ski Resort. I fell in love with the unique European style of the hotel with its beautiful red roof that stood out against the mountains covered in snow.
After leaving the Snow Monkeys, we drove straight to the ski resort which was about another two hours away. We reached the resort after dark and it was beautiful to drive up to the hotel at night with snow falling all around us.
The inside of the hotel was beautiful. However…the hallways kind of reminded me of the movie The Shining!! I loved the elevators…I have found that in Japan they have some of the neatest elevators. Every morning it snowed, and Colt loved to watch it out the window while we got ready to go down for breakfast.
Every morning, the boys would wake up, eat breakfast, and snowboard until the ski lifts closed for the evening. They did not even stop for lunch. They asked if they could just pack a Snickers bar for lunch so they wouldn’t have to stop snowboarding. They had the most fun and there was hardly anyone at the ski resort so they had the place almost to themselves.
While the boys snowboarded, Colt and I hung out at the kids play area. He spent everyday sledding, making snowballs and having snowball fights with the Japanese workers. They just loved him and thought he was so cute!
One evening we decided to explore the town of Hakuba and find a new restaurant. We ended up at Lucky Pete’s! It was run by an Australian man and had the best burgers! We had the most fun exploring the town of Hakuba!
It definitely made it feel more like Christmas with the colder weather and the snow! I am so thankful we were able to take the boys to ski in the Japanese Alps! The next day we made our final stop at the villages of Shirakawago….
Colt’s Snow Angel!