Hakuba Highlights

On our second trip up to Hakuba this year, we stopped on our way back to Matsumoto Castle. For me, a non-skier, non-snowboarder, sightseeing and relaxing were the highlights of the three trips we took this winter. Every trip, though, Blake said it was the best snowboarding of his life.

One of my favorites was the alcohol cooler Claire, Megan and I made with our own six hands.

The bottom is cut off in the picture, but we made that sucker from the bottom up. I packed so much snow with my hands that I had bruises on my palms. Not a joke.

Another favorite: Mon Pigeon. It's a fabulous, amazing, freakin' delicious French bakery. It's filled with a hodgepodge of candles and figurines, comfortable furniture, and two of the cutest golden retrievers ever, and two cats who are more of the lurking type than the rub against your feet type. Their pizza is the stuff dreams are made of, and it's hard to resist their cake case, full of fussy, fruity, glaze-y, cakes.

On one of our trips, it warmed up a bit and ended up raining instead of snowing. On that day, the dogs wore wetsuits. WETSUITS. FOR DOGS.

Once again, this is a dog in a wet suit. I mean, come on people.

We probably won't make it back up to Nagano this winter. Blake just left on another deployment a couple of days ago. This summer, though, we may go up and see what all those beautiful mountains look like in the summer.

We'd have to bring our own cooler, though.