Snowboarding

Four of us managed to get an incredibly cheap package deal for five days of snowboarding in Niigata Prefecture, and despite my (typically neurotic) fears that this would mean no clothes, no hotel, or no snow, in fact the reality was very positive indeed! Our hotel was right by the bottom of the lift, and even if not all of us appreciated the preserved fish part of the breakfast, the food they provided was very filling...

I fell over for the first couple of days. A lot. But then I got better! The weather was amazing - it snowed from the second day onwards, and reached the stage quite quickly when there was actually too much powder to go off the edges of the piste, as I discovered when I gradually slowed to a halt, ending up buried to the waist... There were also hardly any people (especially during the week, as everyone (except us) was Japanese enough to be at work. All the more snow for us! Piccies here, fortunately not including one of my bruise.

The overnight bus also showed that it would certainly be possible to get out of town for a weekend's decent snow - it seems a pity not to, so I'm planning on heading North at least a couple of times in the next two months or so.