Tokyo woke up to white rooftops and snow covered cars today. I decided to keep my bicycle parked and ride the train to the office. It took a bit longer than during a normal day as the trains were going at a slower speed. But I got there, to the office that is, within an hour.
Yet another fabulous snowboarding day. It had snowed the whole night so another 35 cm or so had been added to yesterday’s snow. I was in one of the first lifts up and got out in the backcountry immediately. Whohoooo!!!
I had a few of my best rides ever. It is difficult to describe the feeling of floating on snow in the woods. The only sound you hear is the wind, the swoosh of the board on the snow, and the occasional bird that probably are telling their friends about the crazy creature disturbing their peace.
What else can you do but smile?
As always in Niseko the weather can change in a minute. Yesterday morning it was sunny with just a few white clouds. In the afternoon it started to snow, and it snowed the whole night.
I woke up to 30-40 cm new snow. Whohooo!!! The only drawback was that the visibility was not so good. If you haven’t experienced a whiteout then this is it…
Despite the whiteout the snowboarding was superb. I was riding my board almost exclusively in backcountry area. The powered snow was knee deep in some places, and by the end of the day I was pretty tired in my legs. And the rest of my body as well for that matter.
I was well deserved of a hot bath. Which I also took. Afterwards I had pasta for dinner before I ended the night by writing on my GLOBIS report, and watching an episode of Spartacus. Goodnight!
Yesterday was a national holiday here in Japan so we did not have to go to the office in the snow. But today the snow was still here, though not falling anymore. My bike still had slicks on so I walked to the office. It was cold and, though I was well dress and felt warm, it was great to stop by Starbucks to buy the biggest sized soy milk based hot chocolate you have ever seen… Unless you have visited Starbucks in US that is 😉
In the evening Chie and I met at Yasaka where we had some dead chickens and vegetables for dinner 🙂 Oh, and some dead pigs and vegetables too. And rice. IT was pretty dead too…
Just want to see how you react to facts 😉
Quite an eventful day today. We changed the cover of the sofa from Christmas red back to the normal grey and white striped cover. It felt good to be back to “normal” again 🙂
In the morning it had started to snow. SO after changing the sofa cover it was a real event to go to the gym in the snow. Taking my bike was out of the question as it only has slicks on – totally blank rubber on the wheels. Slicks is perfect most of the time in Tokyo but when it snows it sucks 😉
While walking home from the gym I took some backstreets so I could enjoy the snow to the full. Suddenly I found a house with the whole wall painted with a Sumo guy on it. Turned out it was a restaurant, but I did not have time to check what kind it was so for now it is the Naka-Meguro Sumo restaurant.
I think I forgot to mention that it was a national holiday today. And that besides changing the sofa cover and going to the gym we had time to install a new shopping list tracking system. A stripe of metal glued to the inside of a cupboard door and white magnets “stickies.” The idea is that the most common food like pasta, tomato cans etc. will have a white “sticky” and is placed to the metal stripe when in stock. When we use the last, let’s say, tomato can then we move the “tomato can sticky” to the refrigerator, and when its time to shop you check the fridge for a list of base things to buy. Once restocked you just move the “stickies” back from the fridge to the metal stripe in the cupboard. Let’s see how it works, I try to remember to report on it in a month or so.
