All you can drink with some sprinkling of snow

First up is snow!  Not just any snow mind you.  Snow in Fujisawa!  This is a very rare thing for my town.

Poor guy probably didn't expect snow on his Lotus this morning-

After a hard day of work, Yukino met me at the station near my job and joined me for dinner at a local salaryman place.

Yukino and I stumbled upon a restaurant that had a FREE all you can drink plan.  That's right FREE!  You don't even have to order any food!  But, it was full.  Crap.  But, the one upstairs had the same thing! YES!  Oh, and no time limit! AHGJGD.  I had found a gold mine!

Needless to say, I went to both places quite a few times during their week long campaign. 

Just met in the convenience store-

Yukino made some great kimuchi nabe for dinner one night-

We were lazy one day so ordered Dominos for lunch.  Surprisingly, it didn't cost an arm and a leg-

Had some sushi and something that tasted like wax for dinner one night-

I was very excited to see a new beer tap and my friends bar.  Too bad its fake-

Takashi having a strange look on his face.  Could be because that's a transvestite sitting next to him.

The cutest keg I have ever seen-

Saying goodbye to Sorie and Mark-

Nozawa Onsen snowboard trip Part 2

Continuing from my last post, at this point it was finally time for some snowboarding.  Let me say that this place is AMAZING for backcountry riding.  Tons of terrain covered with beautiful snow was everywhere.  Even the normal runs had great snow.  My first run I went out on my own into the woods and had a ball.

Notice the ONE track in this picture?

Notice the lack of ANY tracks in this picture?  The snow was deep and powdery and made for some great soft and silent runs through the forest-

Nozawa Onsen snowboard trip Part 1

My girlfriend happens to be a snowboarder and as willing as I am to get out there an do stuff.  We planned a great weekend up in northern Nagano in Nozawa Onsen.  We started off super early in the morning in our rental car.  I was too timid to drive so she took over for the way up there-

Snowboarding deep snow

My buddy Josh invited me to go snowboarding for a day at some place I had never heard about.  At around $50 for transportation and a lift ticket I couldn't say no.  A week or two later, he offered the same deal.  Of course I said yes.  I didn't know it was the same place however.  Despite the lack of new runs on the second time there, it was sort of worth it.  The first day we went, the weather was gorgeous.  I went with a bunch of his friends and some of mine.  Deep snow and great weather made for wonderful back country riding.  The place was small but had great valleys that always ended up near the main part of the ski area.  The second time going was a different story.  Horrible traffic and horrible road conditions meant it took quite a few hours extra go there.  The bus even got stuck at one point.  We ended up having only about 3 hours to ride and that was with no visibility and ice stinging the face.  Oh, well.  It was fun seeing Craig get stuck in about 3 feet of snow and me doing the same shortly after. 

There is a car under there somewhere-

Tokyo Auto Salon 2010

For the second year in a row I went to the Tokyo Auto Salon.  Some people say that the year before was better but I think this one was.  It seemed that there were a lot less people which definitely helps the whole experience.  It is held at Makuhari Messe just outside of Tokyo.  This year I went with a guy I work with and his little daughter.  He knows just as much, if not more about cars than I do and I really appreciated having him go instead of someone else.

One of the first booths I visited was the Recaro seat corner.  Despite the lack of luxury feeling in these seats, I am still surprised no one was sleeping.  I just noticed you can see my friend and his daughter sitting on the left-

Of course models were there too-

One of my favorites at the show was this beautiful orange Lexus-