Boxing day snowboarding

Little bit of snow over night. When we headed back to the beginners slope in the morning it was freshly graded. We continued our practice, in the afternoon i was finally brave enough to try a couple turns but pretty tired by then. Snowboarding must use completely different muscle groups to cycling :p

Over the course of boxing day there were times when there were silly amounts of kids tobogganing.. not really sure they should be in the same area – there was a “Furano Kids” area that none one used at all…

Oh well we survived with no major injuries – since we helped each other each run we got away with no real bruises or major stacks.
Lunch on the 1st floor we ordered a hamburger – worst hamburger in history – anemic meat patty, stale bun, weird tasting tomato… everything was just wrong with it.
Just go to the 7-11 down the road if you ever come here – can always find great food in a konbini 🙂

After waiting forever in the ski shop for someone to acknowledge us to return our gear i finally just started dumping the gear on their counters. ($260 for 2 people, 2 days full kit hire i’d think some better customer service was in order – it was very un-japanese customer service)

The owner of Mone gave us free tickets to Furano Kan Kan Mura – a little snow playland near new prince hotel. Opened on the 20th so i don’t think they have finished building the snow buildings and sculptures that appear on the flier… free bus ride there and back tho too :p
A quick run round for some pics and used the free go at the tire tube snow slide.
Damn it was cold without our snow gear :p
Heading into the New prince hotel lobby for hot cocoa can and then checked out their “souvenir and convenience shop”.  My god it really was both. Got some Royce chocolate popcorn, rum raisin blocks, Furano cheese factory cheeses ( one of which tastes like the camberts we’ve made ourselves but not a gooey as we make it lol), some Hokkaido milk for brekky and some soda water to got with the whisky back at the hotel 🙂

T was pretty tired – asleep by 8:30!!!

Xmas snowboarding

Light snow this morning. Most of the foot paths are mostly clear of snow now but it’s quicker to take the under ground walk rather than wait for pedestrian crossings

Rapid express train thru white fields and towns. Then at Takikawa switch to a ワンマン. This is where the pics are from. Once we got to Furano and got ski gear rented and what not it was time for the lesson and I wasn’t taking my phone or camera there….. so we’ve actually got limited pics of our white xmas 😦

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The snowboard teacher was from NZ – her first time in Japan. Skiing and snowboarding since a kid. Thought she would be fine with no Japanese coz all her lessons would be in English – now realized she needs to be able to order food and stuff 😛

I think me and T are pretty bad at snowboarding lol. I got bad knees and T has a bad back so we are probably pretty hesitant. I can’t stand up from the heel edge coz my knees are so weak. We’ll go back to the practice area tomorrow and take turns being the support and the practicer. I don’t think we’ll head up the lift this time. (might go to Melbourne next winter to try again – or NZ)

After the lesson we wandered down to the 7-11 for drinks and saw a shop selling Royce stuff… so got some more chocolate potato chips – the sales girl said merry christmas and have us a gift of 4 rice biscuits :)… oishii

Staying at Kitanoyado Mone – almost directly across from the ski area. Tatami room and public baths…. barely any foreigners here. I’ll never go to Niseko!!

Noticed the cheese factory we visited last trip is only 3 km away… might go for a walk after a practice in the morning…

This is Google maps with the hotels I’ve starred

Well that’s a first… drying myself off with a towel that smells like second hand cigarette smoke (asked at the front for towels and they came from a cupboard there… the owner smokes heavily in his office….)