Our shinkansen pulled into Tokyo from Nagano right on schedule, and we hauled our luggage to the hotel by 1pm. Problem was, official check-in wasn’t until 3pm, and we weren’t about to fork out a surcharge for the sake of two hours. So we dumped our bags and headed out, absolutely starving. Beef had been […]
Time to say goodbye to Hakuba! It has been a really amazing winter trip filled with so many memorable firsts—snowboarding for the very first time, sipping hot Milo by a cosy fireplace in a lodge while snow fell quietly outside, and waking up to fresh snowfall every single morning. (We even got screamed at at […]
Here’s a fun little discovery from our Hakuba trip: Nabura Hakuba. My hubby stumbled upon it on Google Maps when meeting his colleague for drinks (no driving, obviously!). It’s just 600m from Il Bosco, where we were staying. He spotted people tucking into burgers and flagged it as a potential dinner spot. So back we […]
Singapore is a hard place to eat carefully. There is chilli crab for celebrations, laksa on a rainy afternoon, and a zi char stall that stays open long after your good intentions have gone to bed. Most food lovers here are not reckless. They walk, they train, they order the steamed option more often than […]
There’s an unwritten rule in the snowboarding community that no matter how freezing cold it is outside, eating ice cream or gelato after a day on the slopes is strictly mandatory. Haha! So when hubby and I finished carving down the powder at Hakuba Goryu Snow Resort, we stepped back into Escal Plaza hunting for […]
Every Singaporean home has its hiding spots. The gold chain in the bedroom drawer, the property deeds in a fireproof box under the bed, the jade bangle in a bank box nobody has visited since Chinese New Year. Increasingly, there is a fourth answer: a private vault run by an operator with no connection to […]
Some meals stick with you—not just because of the food, but because of the whole experience. That’s exactly how Hubby and I feel about マンガ喫茶 COM, the little manga café in Hakuba we now fondly refer to as “the place with the grumpy boss”. Spoiler: he’s not really that grumpy. But the story? Oh, it’s […]
Remember in my Cafe Cubanos Hakuba post when I said I’d rather go to Starbucks? Well, we did exactly that. We hunted down the one and only Starbucks Hakuba, tucked inside the Snow Peak Land Station complex. Turns out it’s less than a 10-minute drive from where we were staying at Il Bosco. Easy peasy. […]
If you’re skiing or snowboarding in Hakuba and craving something comforting, fresh, and easy on the wallet, Donmaru Hakuba needs to be on your list. We stayed at Il Bosco just down the road, and this little donburi shop became our go-to lunch spot after a morning on the slopes. Less than 5 minutes by […]
