Gaijin Snow Day
Written in 2005 and kept as it was, so some of it will have aged.
Our branch is closed for a day every few months for cleaning which means that occasionally we all have a day off together. Because of our differing shift patterns, that’s a rarity. Usually, we end up wasting the day, but this time in a rare feat of preparation and forward-thinking we managed to arrange a day trip today to Ciao Ontake, a resort up near Nagano Prefecture. For the bargain price of ¥4500 (that’s about £22) we got the transport, board rental, lunch and lift pass, which is a pretty unbelievable price. 13 of us went in total, which was cool because it meant there were a variety of skill levels, ranging from Kiwi Dan (previous seasonal worker at Whistler in Canada) to Holly (Briton from Bolton, probably never seen this much snow in her life!)
The rest of this post was tragically caught in an avalanche.