Snowboarding and such

Spent the weekend in Niigata with Eri & her friends. Me & 4 Japanese girls... sounds better than it was, unfortunately I couldn't get any male support so I was the minority for the weekend. Eri's parents have a 'sports mansion' which is basically an apartment with a pool, spa & onsen. Very tidy.

Saturday I tried my hand at snowboarding for the 2nd time and found I actually enjoyed it a little. The first time I spent the whole time on my ass being laughed at. This time is was still on my ass, but people were nice enough not to laugh. The conditions were not good by Japanese standards, but still good enough to practice my turns. Eri is a bit of a snow bunny so she gave me some good advice. In the evening we had a nabe party at the mansion which was tasty, but the combination of food, alcohol and excessive heating put everyone to sleep pretty quickly. But we got up to have a soak in the private onsen.

Sunday it was raining and bad conditions for skiing so we stayed indoors and went for a swim in the indoor pool and soaked it up in the spas & onsen again. Didn't do so much, but it was exactly what I felt like, recently I've had no time to chill out, especially with the lady. Hopefully conditions will pick up soon and we can make another weekend trip out there.