Hakuba is a ski resort in Nagano prefecture where ski events of the 1998 Olympics took place. We didn’t see much that day because of the bad weather but we went all the way to Happo Ike (Happo pond) and shared a nice snack of cucumber and miso. We finished the day with a peek at the ski jumping facilities used during the Olympics. Athletes can practice their jump in summer on the special green surface but sadly nobody was practicing while we where there (would have made a nice video!).

The next day, we went on for some hiking on another summit of mount Shirane. We were in the middle of the clouds for the greatest part of the day but we enjoyed the hike nonetheless. As a testimony that mt. Shirane is still quite active, there were numerus fumarol, those vents from which volcanic gas escape. The air was foul-smelling (like rotten eggs) because of the high sulfur content (H2S Hydrogen sulfide).

Mount Shirane is an active volcano of 2160m in the prefecture of Kusatsu. Close access to the crater was restricted, perhaps because of hazardous amounts of sulfur in the air. Despite some cloud cover, the view was quite impressive.

The monkeys in Japan, similarly to Japanese people, love to bath at the onsenHot springs. SaruJapanese macaque park,located in Nagano prefecture, is the host of a group of Japanese snow Monkeys where they live in complete freedom near their beloved hot spring. At the park you can walk among the monkeys as they enjoy their daily activities without caring too much about your presence.

A short clip of the peaceful Japanese snow monkeys.

The host city of the 1998 Olympics was Nagano Japan. A short bicycle ride brought us to the stadium of the opening ceremony. Here I am taken in picture with the Olympic torch and the “Snowlets”, the olympics mascots. The Olympics were a profoundly marking event for the people of Nagano. It created an accelerated development of the town with a sudden increase of the infrastructures and also a cultural opening to the world.

As an anecdote ,the people of Nagano,all Japanese they are, and especially the mayor of the time, wanted to greet so well the athletes that they were offering free beverages in vending machines. This led to a lot of abuse from the athletes who took great amounts of unnecessary drinks.

I also heard of some fight between American and Canadian hockey teams after perhaps some abuse of alcohol…