Nozawa Onsen (The town)

                                     Nozawa Onsen 

    Have you ever been to Japan? Since we are living in Taiwan we thought it might be fun to visit the northern neighboring island of Japan! Japan has very close ties to Taiwan given it militarily occupied Taiwan for 50 years. At just under 3 hours, the flight from Taiwan to Japan is quite short. As skiiers, we researched different Japanese ski areas and decided to stay in the snowy ski resort town of Nozawa Onsen. 

                                     

   Nozawa Onsen is accessible by taking an express train from the Tokyo airport to the main Tokyo train station. From there you can catch the Shinkasen bullet train. That train will take you to liyama station in 1 hour and 40 min. From there you can either take a 20 minute taxi or bus ride into Nozawa Onsen Village.

                                     

    The snow in Nozawa was crazy, it was piled up to 6 feet high in some places. On our first day there, it snowed about a foot. The second day it dusted and the third day it snowed about 8 inches. The city has an elaborate infrastructure to run hot spring water under the streets and melt the snow and ice. My mom didn't have snow boots and could still walk around in sneakers comfortably the whole time.

             

    One of our family's favorite activities was soaking in the one of the numerous onsens located all around the village. Ansel wrote a separate blog dedicated to the onsens.

                                             

    The village is filled with little places to eat. Our family found a nice food hall that we used for several dinners. They had sushi, udon, and other good food. For breakfast we frequented a Swiss bakery that was right around the corner from our hotel.

             

                                               

    The other tourists in Nozawa were mostly from Australia and New Zealand. Our first day on the mountain, we kids attended ski school; as we were the only Americans in our group, we got complemented on our accents. Unfortunately, after our first day in Nozawa, I came down with the flu and spent the next couple of days resting in our hotel room. It definitely wasn't fun feeling sick, but the hotel beds were warm and cozy, so I was able to get a lot of lot of rest and reading done on the clean and comfortable tatami mats.

    Our family would definitely recommend Nozawa Onsen as a great place to stay and/or go skiing.