08 Aug Snow Country?

Snow Country, or 雪国 (yukiguni) in Japanese, is any area that gets masses of snow, but it is also the title of a famous book from the Nobel Prize winning author Yasunari Kawabata. The book Snow Country was written and set in the town of Yuzawa. The author stayed at the ryokan Takahan while he was writing the book and they have a special museum dedicated to Kawabata and his work. The town is dotted with references to the Snow Country novel which about the tragic love story between the Tokyoite Shimamura and the geisha Komako.

Yasunari Kawabata

More recently Snow Country has been adopted as the regional name for a tourism initiative involving several neighboring towns (Uonuma, Minami Uonuma, Tsunan, Tokamachi, Yuzawa, Minakami and Sakae)  right on the borders of Niigata, Nagano and Gunma prefectures. These towns have clubbed together and are trying to promote tourism across the area, encouraging people to get out of the big cities and discover the beauty and charm of rural Japan. Check out the snow-country.jp website for a great overview of the area.

Yuzawa is the base for Snow Country Instructors but as we work all over the region, we thought the name fitting.

If you need any advice on anywhere in the region feel free to ask us anything. It is an amazing area and well worth checking out.