Impressions of Zao Onsen
February 2009
Snow monsters in the making - a bit more fresh snow and the trees get completely covered, shaped into bizarre figures by the wind
Funnily, Zao Onsen is the partner community of Kitzbühel, Austria, which is our usual weekend skiing destination from Munich...
...and one of Zao's slopes is named after the famous "Hahnenkamm" (frankly speaking, the thought of comparing any of the slopes at Zao to one of the most difficult runs in the ski world cup seems very amusing, indeed...)
My "state-of-the-art" rental skis...
...and clearly the latest cablecar technology
The view from the slopes was pretty impressive and different to what we are used to - as opposed to Austria and Switzerland, where mainly conifers grow in the mountains, there are a lot a broad-leaved trees, which let the snow shine through the bare branches, making the landscape look like a pencil drawing
A hot spring in the middle of the slopes (so this is where the sudden sulfuric smell came from...)
Before taking a bath in our "own" hot spring at the ryokan we went for a stroll through the village...
...which is traversed by a steaming creek, providing for the numerous hot spring baths
