Of course that is if you are in the mountains! We were pretty excited to get to see some real white stuff this year during the Christmas season. This past weekend we headed out to Nigata which is about 3 hours Northwest of Tokyo for a snowboarding trip. Nick said snowboarding would be just like 'riding a bike' and would come back easily after the 2 times I went last year, but it wasn't so. While my ass isn't as bruised as I remember it being last year, this snowboarding thing still isn't coming very natural to me. I'm doing okay at it and like it, it's just that with skiing I can relax a lot more and cruise down the slopes. Whereas with snowboarding I am so tense and concentrating on every turn as Nick flies by me with such ease. Regardless we had a great time, my body still hurts, but at least no broken bones! Still haven't decided if I will retreat back to skiing for our big trip up north to Hokkaido in February. I know my body wants to as it's screaming please please ski...ski...ski!

We went with a group of mostly foreigners, called 'gaijins' in Japanese and met some great people from all over the place. It's funny because you get people who have traveled all around the world and you're always bound to meet someone where you find out you were in the same place at the same time, lived in the same town or those constant moments of 'wow, what a small world!' For instance this guy form South Africa had been working in Auburn Hills for a couple years and living in Birmingham.

We stayed at a small lodge with the entire group and had some great food cooked for us. The best part was the snow! When we got to Nigata there was enough snow to go snowboarding, but it wasn't great. At night it snowed and snowed and when we woke up in the morning about 10 inches had fallen!