LVT: Japan - February 2017.

This month has by far been the best month of our time in Japan and I am so sad that it is over already. The famous Japanese powder arrived with full force after weeks of hoping and praying and boy was it worth the wait. We have had the best days snowboarding not only of this season - but of all of our seasons combined. According to locals this is the worst year for snow that Niseko has ever seen, but it is by far the MOST snow that we have ever seen - and Danny has done 12 seasons! The powder that we have had over the past week is what they are used to getting here every day - if that were the case this year I think my legs would have given up weeks ago. I've never snowboarded as much or as full on as I have the last couple of weeks and I feel like I have improved so much, but there's still a long way to go. But before I get into it all too much, I'll start at the beginning.

February 8th - off we go with a group of our friends to go and explore Sapporo's annual snow festival. It was a pretty early start - a cab and three trains but the excitement to get out of resort made it all worth while. As well as to check out all of the snow sculptures I also had to go to the immigration office to get myself a new residence card. Being the generally useless person I am in terms of keeping important things safe, I managed to lose it within two weeks of being here and it's a pretty important piece of ID to have whilst travelling around Japan so I had to get a replacement. Once that mission was over and done with we could enjoy the rest of the day. We did a loop of the festival, having a brief look at what was going on but had been told that it was better to go at night when everything was all lit up so we didn't spend too long doing so in daylight.

There was a snowboard and ski jump show going on so we stayed and watched that and then hopped on the subway and made out way to the Asahi Brewery. Of course Danny was super interested in the process of making the beer and getting to go on the tour around the brewery - the rest of us were more interested in the free beer at the end of it. We had 20 minutes to try as many of the beers as we could and then we had to leave. It was pretty fun and the snacks were really tasted too - from there we continued to wander around Sapporo rather aimlessly, popping into convenience stores on the way to pick up cans of beer and just explore the surroundings. After a lot of walking around we eventually found a really nice (and cheap) Japanese restaurant to eat in. Ramen, fried chicken, rice - the usual over here so it seems. After that we headed back to the snow festival and had a look at everything all lit up in it's glory, it was pretty impressive. The fact that people had managed to make such huge structures in incredible detail out of snow is amazing; but it just didn't quite live up to expectations. I think the episode we watched of Joanna Lumley's Japan just made it seem bigger than it was; and due to the fact that we went only a couple of days into the festival, a lot of the structures weren't quite finished yet. Overall we had a great day out and it was so nice to spend it with our friends out of resort, plus we got the most delicious doughnuts so I definitely shouldn't complain at all!

The middle of the month was filled with working to enable us to have the week of when Danny's brother Tom and our friends Rich and George arrived. Daycare has been relatively quiet this month now that all of the holidays are over and it's only going to get quieter as the season goes on. Danny on the other hand has had his busiest month of work yet. He has now started to teach skiing too and has been doing a lot of night lessons to help get his hours ready to do his level 3 instructor course when we get home. He is really enjoying his job and loves all of the interesting people he has been able to meet through teaching this season and it's made him more patient with my snowboarding too which is always good! Danny has booked on to do another aspect of his level three course in Hintertux just after we get home so he is one step closer to achieving the next step in his career. As for me, my job here might not have been quite what I hoped but it has enabled me to experience living in Japan and getting to be able to ride in the best snow I have ever seen. I have had lots of emails this week from my teacher training alliance and have also secured myself a weekend nannying job too, so lots of exciting things on the horizon for me too!

But back to this season and the best part of it so far - Tom, Rich and George finally arrived for their holiday. Danny and I were very lucky to get the time off from work to spend it with them and we have had such a blast. Snowboarding first lifts every single day, in every single weather condition and going out for some of the best meals that we have had during our time here. The boys were so worried that they were going to come out here and the snow be terrible. The last couple of seasons that they have been out to visit we seem to have had a curse on us that means the snow just doesn't come, but this week was different. Somehow they managed to book their holiday to coincide with the biggest and best dumping of snow that we have had all season and we had a hell of a lot of fun with it. George was a first time skiier and was going down double black diamond runs and through backcountry gates by the end of the week - and the rest of us were doing pretty well through thigh deep powder too. I mean we fell over a lot. One time Rich managed to flip himself into a hot spring and get stuck; that was a highlight for me. Sorry Rich.

Tuesday when they arrived we headed straight over from work to their apartment in Hirafu and out to dinner at Bigfoot which is one of my favourite restaurants that I think I've mentioned in a previous blog. Basically they do the best burgers in Hirafu and we all sat there in almost silence and demolished what was in front of us before Danny and I got the bus home ready for a big first day of snowboarding in the morning. First lifts was hectic. The queues were absolutely huge but it was well worth it. The fresh groomers in Hanazono were an absolute dream to ride on and perfect for George's first day of skiing. That evening the boys went out for ramen and I had to go and babysit at the Hilton. After a late night and an early morning I pretty much spent the whole evening fighting to fall asleep whilst watching cartoon network (the only English channel I could find). I rolled into bed at 1am, excited at the prospect of four more days off of work. Thursday was a complete white out - we could barely see anything but it meant that there was fresh snow and that was all that mattered. We continued to explore Hanazono and Hirafu and this was the day of Rich falling into the hot spring. It still makes me laugh every single time I think about it. We all fell a lot that day. We then went to Tamashii for apres, stayed for more apres, had a kebab and went to bed. Day two over much too quickly.

Day three was the powder day. We were up and out super early for first lifts but it was that snowy and windy that the ended up not opening the lift that we were waiting at and so we had to go and get in the ginormous queue over at the gondola instead. But it did not matter, there were plenty of fresh lines to be found and we hiked up behind the gondola for probably the best powder run I had done up to that point. Tom and Rich were bloody awesome too - Tom must have the same carefree attitude towards injury as Danny does because he will just throw himself off of anything Danny tells him too which is usually pretty amusing to watch. Max 10 hey Tom... We took a short break in the afternoon and then headed over to Annupuri for some night riding. It is such a nice resort there, I have no idea why we don't go more often - especially as it is so close to where we live, I must make an effort to go riding there more often as the runs are so lovely. When we were suitably exhausted we dropped into Choi Choi which is basically a shipping container with 6 chairs in it that sells lots of deep fried foods. We had some gyozas, fried chicken and deep fried oreos which were so flipping delicious. I found out that they are just oreos, dipped in pancake mix and then deep fried - maybe not to most Japanese dish I've eaten out here but definitely something I'm going to give a go when I get home.

Saturday morning was the big one. I went out with the a couple of the girls who we live with for first lifts in Niseko Village and up to G11 which is an avalanche controlled back country area. The snow was ridiculous, it was so deep I could barely move in it and once I could I was falling over every time I tried to make a turn - it was absolutely crazy. I actually really struggled and found it insanely frustrating. I felt like i'd been really improving with my snowboarding over the past few days but that morning I was just rubbish. So I went back over to Hirafu and met the boys and went back to the tree runs that I much prefer. We went out for pizza for dinner and the boys shot off for some more night riding whilst I opted for an early night as unfortunately I had to go to work in the morning. From the pictures it looked like the boys found some awesome powder runs on the Sunday so I spent the day trying not to be too jealous and then met them at Loft Club for dinner along with our friends Lucy and Dave. Loft Club is a DIY BBQ basically and they are well known for the local lamb that they serve. You have a little coal BBQ for you and then you order the meat and veg you want and then cook it in front of you. It was absolutely delicious. The lamb melted in your mouth and came with some really good dipping sauce and we washed it all down with a few bottles of red wine - perfection. I hit the hay, a little blurry headed and hoping all would be well for the last day of riding with the boys. They all went out and stayed up until 2am watching rugby in a bar so at least I knew I would be the best out of a bad bunch in the morning.

I was right. Monday morning was a bit painful for all involved but we still all got up and out for first lifts and met up with our friends Matt and Zoe who we did a season with in France. It was a glorious blue sky day and we stuck mostly to nice groomed runs but did go through Gate 1 in Annupuri which ended up down in a really nice gully which was pretty much a halfpipe and was really good fun to practice on and do something a little bit different. We managed to ride in all four resorts for the last day and on just about every terrain which was pretty good going if you ask me. We certainly made the most of this holiday that's for sure. We spent our last evening with the boys out for another lovely DIY meal at Kabuki 1. This was the first restaurant I had been in where you had to take your shoes off before you sit down at a big communal table. Like Loft Club, you just order what you want and then cook it yourself. Here though there were a fair few different meals that you could make and you were given an instruction leaflet with a step by step guide on how to make each different thing. Danny, George and Tom went for okonomiyaki and Rich and Zoe had yakisoba. It all looked delicious and a really fun and different option for a group dinner. Such a great way to end the holiday and see the boys off.

And now I sit here in bed after rambling on for God knows how long, absolutely dreading going back to work after so much time off in the last 10 days. But also excitedly counting down that it is officially one month until we go travelling and I for one cannot wait....