Snowboarding in Japan

Last weekend Mr X was fortunate enough to be able to go snowboarding in Japan. He had to wake up bright and early at 3:15 am to catch his bus to get to the mountain in time. The bus stopped at a decent time to let everybody get out to get some breakfast. Luckily Mr X had eaten before he left his hotel so he didn't have to brave anything shrimp or seaweed flavored. Anyway, here's the lodge at the base of the mountain. (Mr X didn't tell me what the name of the mountain was, so I can't tell you...sorry.)

Apparently the snow was really wet and slushy as you can guess from the photo below. But that's better than icy, right?

After a quick check on the snow report, Mr X headed up the lift.

If he looks confused in this picture, I imagine it's because he's still trying to figure out what the snow report said. That or ...

...maybe he's trying to figure out which run he should take.

Here are some of the views from the mountain:

On the way back to the hotel, the bus stopped again for dinner. This is what Mr X told me about dinner:

"We stopped at the travel center for dinner. I ordered this thing and well it turned out to be a giant bowl with rice, soy beans, green beans, lettuce, some fat nasty meat and a barely cooked egg to top it all off. So I ate what I could and then I went to the bakery there to top off and got a slice of pizza and a delicious looking pastry with walnuts. I took one bite of the pizza and threw that crap away. Then I sat on the bus and bit into my pastry and it was full of those damn beans."

BUT - he did say that overall he had a great time and he's really thrilled that he was able to go. He's just a little hungry after six weeks.