Snow has finally hit Japan! Well, northern Japan at least. It had been carpeting the mountains for the past few weeks but it's only just recently reached the ground (without melting). We got 20cm of snow in one night with a forecast for a whole lot more. Look!

So yeah, I'm pretty excited because it means my love Yuki-chan is back and I can ride her all Winter. No you sickos, "yuki" means snow in Japanese, and yep, that means snowboarding! This year I'm especially excited because I've decided to squash the travel bug that's been nagging at me for the past year and stay in Hokkaido for Winter vacation. First, I've decided to become more financially responsible so I'm cutting down on my overseas trips. Secondly, this is possibly my last year on JET *sad face* and thus, possibly my last chance to get carve up Hokkaido's sweet, fluffy powder. So, I've booked off days for my holidays and have an unadulterated, unprecedented 24 days off for Christmas vacation! That means over 3 weeks of wandering the island in my trusty Shuttle, 24 days of traveling to whatever ski hill I fancy, and 576 hours of potential snowboarding (barring lack of sleep and ski hill hours of operation). I already have a backcountry snowshoeing trip planned, a trip to some ski hills for opening day, and a few days in a cabin in Niseko... oh man, I'm drooling just thinking about it :P* I apologize ahead of time if my blog becomes a snowboarding travel blog over the next few months.. but I don't plan on doing much else!

Happy Winter! Let's have enjoying snow!