Winter sport in Japan

The valley of Hakuba

Why traveling to Japan for winter sports when you have pretty snowy mountains in your country? I reckon that wouldn’t be worth the hassle, the jetlag, the exhausting travel even if recently magazines have been spreading the word that Niseko is a must destination! But when you live in Tokyo it’s quite easy to go skiing and there are closer places than Niseko. Nagano prefecture and Niigata prefecture offer nice slopes with good snow and welcoming infrastructures. After trying several destinations, our favorite is definitely Hakuba and La Neige hotels, both the “honkan” and the “higashi kan“.

La neige honkan

While the former is a lovely place, a bit retro Japanese-western style (Taisho and Showa period), if your primary purpose is winter sport the latter is really amazing and offers incomparable services. Both are nested in the forest Wada no mori and a 5min walk from the lifts. Great!

Lobby of La Neige higashikan

Hakuba is also a genuine place for delicious local food and restaurants. My ultimate favorite is the Hummingbird, which over the past years has been quite popular and now reservations are absolutely needed!! Rumors say also that summer and autumn are beautiful in Hakuba… Can’t wait to see that too because so far I’ve only seen it covered in white!!
The valley of Hakuba

Coconut-strawberry tart

Coconut ad strawberry tart with a bit of coconut and ice sugar for the decor
I love strawberry tart and I love to make some! Usually the best time starts end of March in Japan, but this year we’ve started to have delicious strawberry for a few weeks already, so I couldn’t wait!
I love to make variations with the dough, with the custard. This year I added some grated coconut in the dough and made the custard with soya milk and a lot of vanilla. I also wanted to try making the dough in circles and just top it with custard and strawberries. I need a little more practice but the result was not bad at all!
For the dough I used flour, brown sugar, one egg, butter, and added some coconut (I always make the dough without measuring anything, I like to “feel” it).
For the custard I used 2 egg yolks, a little can of soya milk, vanilla, a spoon of flour and brown sugar.

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