My trip to Hakuba - Day 1

In this series of four posts, I am going to be writing on my amazing school trip to Hakuba, where I tried my hand at skiing for the first time. The trip commenced on 4th February and concluded on 7th February 2020.

As a part of my school curriculum, every year we go for two four day trips, one each in the summer and winter. As I had a fantastic trip to Moriumius, Oshika and Kinkasan in the summer, I was eagerly looking forward to my sojourn in the winter. When I got to know that we were going to go to Hakuba, a village in the Nagano prefecture in Japan, I was on cloud 9!! Nagano is situated north west from Tokyo. Not only was I going to stay with my friends for three nights, I was also going to try skiing for the first time ever.

 As the Northern Alps(one of the best mountain ranges for skiing) is situated in the Hakuba village, it is Japan's largest ski resort. We could choose between skiing and snowboarding and the reason I chose skiing was because I was thrilled by the idea of just gliding on the face of the Northern Alps and outracing everyone else. Still drooling and gaping about this utopian dream, I boarded the bus heading for Hakuba.

We boarded the bus at 9:00 a.m and learnt that it was going to be a five hour journey. Sighing silently, I struck up a conversation with my friends and looked at the beautiful surroundings outside. As our bus chugged through the picturesque countryside, I started noticing a few specks of snow scattered on the mountains.  Finally, after passing through many mountain ranges and stopping at many service stations, we reached Hakuba!!

Oh, just a glimpse of those snow capped mountains were enough to make me wonderstruck. Oddly enough, the shape of those mountains reminded me of Toblerone's(which is my favourite chocolate brand) logo.The image of the mountains which are the epitome of whiteness blended in with the electric blue sky was just mindblowing. Padding myself up with all the jackets packed from home, I stepped outside as our bus lurched to a stop. Feeling the snow crunch under my boots, we trudged up to our hotel, Sunplaza Tsugaike, an old cosy building which looked like it stepped straight up from the 1950's.

After checking into our rooms, we headed downstairs where were given a tour of the hotel. After the tour, we were briefed on the day's schedule. While we were disappointed that we were not going to ski today, we were going to be recieving our skiing equipment which we had rented online.

We boarded the bus again and after a thirty minute ride, we arrived at the ski company's office where we recieved our skiis, poles, helmet, jacket and ski pant. I was thrilled when I recieved my skiis and poles, my reliable companion over the frosty mountains.

We proudly re-entered our hotel, hoisting our skiis and poles above our shoulders as if it were some long seeked treasure. After keeping our equipment inside the hotel's storage room, we were lead to the dining hall, where were treated to a delicious dinner. We then headed back to our rooms, where I took a relaxing hot shower and lay down on my bed reflecting on my day. My thoughts were interrupted by the call of "lights out". Saying "good nights" punctuated with yawns to my roommates, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

In conclusion, my first day in Hakuba passed interestingly and if you want to know all about my first experience trying skiing, please check out my next blog😃