Woke up to close to a foot of snow falling in Happo One, and expectations and morale were high. It snowed all the way as we walked to the Mominoki Hotel, where we waited for the shuttle to Hakuba Goryu.

We went to Hakuba after Nozawa Onsen and stayed at Resort Inn Alupu again. Quite a lot has changed, and I am writing this as an update.

Yesterday was Day 3 - hump day for me - and the old legs took a beating, but seemed to recover a little after a soak in a very nice onsen at Taro hotel.

The snow kept falling... and falling... and falling last night... and continued until this afternoon.

Woke up to the sight of falling snow, which was a sight for sore eyes after riding ice and slush yesterday in summery conditions.

Bec recommended this place and it is AWESOME. Firstly, Nozawa Onsen is a fabulous little ski village in itself, but more on that later.

24 hours to reach Nozawa Onsen from Melbourne, which started with a traffic jam on the Monash freeway, flight to Sydney, overnight flight to Tokyo, Narita express train to Tokyo, getting lost trying to find the boys' hotel, (saved by a friendly traffic inspector who had about as much english as i did japanese.

Only 2 sleeps to go until I get on a plane to Tokyo and then on multiple buses and trains to Nozawa Onsen.