Snowboarding Revival!

THE FATED DAY HAS COME AT LAST! Finally I can go snowboarding again!!! We decided to go to a ski field up in Minakami (called Hōdaigi), which was about an hour and 15 minutes away. Woke up at 6:00am, packed everything into the car, and set off to pick up another ALT friend. Set off from his house at 7:00am and arrived at Hōdaigi at the perfect time of 8:15am! Finally a snowboarding day where I can actually start snowboarding on time! The other times I’ve been snowboarding have always been delayed by others getting rental gear, or traffic, or just something. Anyway, met up with two other ALTs, got our lift passes, and hit the slopes! It was super icy at first, but the great thing was that there was hardly anyone around so a lot of the steeper slopes were all empty! Felt great to be able to snowboard freely without having to bother looking around, since there was literally no one around you. We all got hungry really fast though, so decided to have a bit of a snack first (fried chicken) before hitting the slopes again. It started snowing perfect powder snow by this time so we were getting fresh snow as we rode! It was so much better, and also with more people riding the slopes throughout the day the ice started to unpack a bit and turn into what felt like dry slush? So it turned out to be a really good day!

We had lunch around 12:00, and after we went back out at 13:00, the powder had really gathered and it was almost like we were in the middle of winter and not spring! Snowboarded all the way till closing time at 16:30 and then went to a nearby onsen to relax. It was a lovely little onsen, quite small but very spacious and the outdoor bath had a gorgeous view of the mountains and red bridge and waterfall! Had dinner at the onsen because I was absolutely starving after snowboarding and onsen! Set off for home after that, dropped off my friend, and got home at around 20:30 which was perfect! Unpacked everything and went to bed.