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Hi all. Not that I want to rub it in y`all faces but just wanna politely announce that I`ll be heading up there for the first of my three planned trips this season. My package this time is "Sapporo city stay." My mate and I will be up at Sapporo International on Wed, Teine Highland on Thur and Kiroro on Fri...gobbing up all the pow. If any of you SJ memebers happen to be riding up there too please don`t hesitate to send a shout-out our way! ;\) I`ll be wearing a Seattle Mariners beanie(I know, very unboarder- like...but I dare to be different). Don`t eat too much Xmas cake tonight!

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Alright folks, didn`t get a chance to tell y`all about my fantastic trip right after I got back so here`s a jist of what happened... Day One(Wed 25th): Caught the first ski bus from Shin-Chitose Airport and headed directly to Sapporo International. It was a beautiful day...almost too beautiful that it made me worry(didn`t see nearly as much snow on the way there compared to the same time I was there last year). Fortunately all of my worries disappeared as soon as I arrived at the ski area. After no more than a couple of runs lo and be hold the sky changed completely and it started snowing as predicted by the weather forecast, HEAVILY. Man did it snow...it was dumping tons of my favorite Hokkaido variety! My buddy, being his first time in Hokkaido and all, was way too moved at the sheer volume and top notch quality of the snow he was witnessing to blurp out more than a few words. I myself also had almost forgotten just exactly how divine Hokkaido snow is. Within the span of an hour or so the entire ski area transformed into any boarder`s wettest wet dream! We had so much fun riding&plowing through them freshies we totally lost track of time. It was pure bliss!(mental note...I did the right thing this time by bringing a neck warmer with me) We wanted to board til the end so much that we ended up changing on the ski bus. :p Day Two(Thur 26th): Went to Teine Highland and once again we had beautiful weather. The snow condition couldn`t compare to the kind we had the day before but that still meant it kicked ass. Unfortunately it seems this ski area is a very popular destination for Hokkaido school kids taking their winter PE classes(same thing I ran into last year). There were ski school groups everywhere and at times it was a pain in the butt to avoid them. \:\( We spent most of our time on the top part of the mountain and it started snowing by about 1pm. The newly fallen snow did wonder for us as we tried out a "semi" off piste run that I had discovered the last time I was up there...it was thoroughly fun! Day Three(Fri 27th): Didn`t know til we got out of our hotel that it had been DUMPING serious amount of snow since the early morning. Because of this even the ever tough Hokkaido highways were forced to shut down. As a result our ski bus had to slowly make its way to Kiroro by local roads...it took more than 3hr!(precious time wasted) mad.gif Kiroro is famous for shutting down half of its operation due to snow storms but luckily on this day only the gondola was stopped. We had a blast right away by going through untouched powder even on the lower, more popular runs. I was pleased to find out that Kiroro has finally gotten serious with setting up more kickers but due to bad weather condition they were all closed(but that didn`t mean it stopped me from trying out a few jumps :p ). We started heading toward the back side of the resort and my oh my what a different world we had discovered! There was so much pow ON THE COURSE if you were to fall or stop in the middle you`d be SOL`d. I mean, it was at least knee deep everywhere and waist deep in many places. I was so excited I did not take a break that whole day...I was determined to mooch up more pow than I could`ve possibly ridden(me greedy bastard). In the end my buddy and I left Hokkaido exhausted&sore but EXTREMELY satisfied. I think on a few occasions I even yelled, "this is better than doing the nasty" while I was blasting down the powdery slopes. This had got to be the BEST Hokkaido trip for me so far, and I`ve been up there quite a few times(but I`m sure my Niseko trip in a couple of weeks will top that)! If someone asks me to sum up this trip, I`d have to say, "powder overload!" \:D Well, I`m off to Tohoku tonight. Have a happy New Year everyone!

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