Free pass to Seaside!!

I have now visited the Seaside Valley Ski Hill enough times to get a free pass!
Seaside offers a stamp card and after 4 day lift tickets you can ride a day for free! I've actually been to Seaside 5 times already, but one was only a half day so I couldn't count it.

Saturday was another brilliant sunshiny day at my favorite hill. Amy, Kirsten and I packed up the Beetle and headed out bright and early Saturday morning. I hadn't even intended on snowboarding that day because I was meeting friends on Sunday at another ski hill and I didn't think two days was a wise thing to do. However, the lure of Seaside was too much to pass up.
So Friday evening was nice and relaxing -a visit to 'An' (my favorite spa) and pigging out at Kito Kito (my favorite sushi restaurant) with Kirsten and Amy.

We went strong all morning long, checking out as many of the runs as we could. The snow wasn't great, but that didn't stop us from having fun! We met up with a some of the boys from Koshi in the afternoon and picked up a few pointers from these much more experienced riders.
We left the hill around 4 - exhausted and totally satisfied with our day.

We all decided we could do it again on Sunday! ...but only a half day.

So, another early night, another early morning.
We watched the sun come up from behind the mountains, illuminating the snow-covered trees and valleys as we made our way to Raichou Valley - a very popular ski hill for those who live in and around Toyama City -it's right in their backyard.

On the lift before 9:00, we got in a warm-up run before meeting up with Owen -the skiier in our group (we tolerate it....). A few more runs to warm up and we were off to the gondola lift to meet up with my friends Ai and Kazu whom I met while working at NOVA. Ai is a pretty hard core boarder and Kazu follows her lead as she blasts down the hills. We had a great morning with them, stopping for a hot chocolate break and a tan line check before heading back down the mountain at 1:00. Lunch in Owen's home town and a blizzard on the way home....it was another enjoyably exhausting day.

I'm addicted.