Last weekend was my second attempt at snowboarding, and we elected to head up to Nozawa Onsen, about 1 hours drive from Nagano. If you haven’t heard of Nagano, the 1998 winter olympics was held there. As you can imagine the skiing is excellent, unfortunately I’m not.

The trip started with the 6:09 Shinkansen to Nagano, approx 2 hours, then a $100 cab rid to the ski town. Once we had arrived and dropped the bags in the room, we headed back down for a few drinks. As usual it turned into 5 bottles of wine and some good laughs.

Living in Japan gives you very easy access to a myriad of snow fields just a couple of hours out of Tokyo on the Bus or Shinkansen. Last weekend I had my first attempt at snowboarding. Me and a mate headed up to Gala Yuzawa.

Where is GALA Yuzawa?

Gala Yuzawa is located in Yuzawa Town, Niigata Prefecture - about 200km to the north of Tokyo - and each season sees huge amounts of snowfall and excellent snow conditions. You can leave Tokyo early in the morning and actually be on the slopes riding the powder snow by 8am!