The downside of my job is that I have to do 13 extra days cover work a year on top of my normal shift but the positive points are that I get so many more holidays than I did during my year with N#va. I had two days off this week on Tuesday and Wednesday and returned to Hakuba for another snowboarding session.

Its getting nearer the end of the ski season and so the snow was basically ice in the morning which was certainly enough to deter me from falling over (obviously that can’t always be helped!) as it bloody hurts when you fall on your ar*e or knees on such hard ground.

I left this time with my colleague Asif on Monday night. Having only done day trips I wasn’t sure what we had to do regarding our accommodation. I thought we would just go there after the first days snowboarding. However, we were taken there beforehand at about 5.30am. Being immune to most Japanese announcements and also being asleep (as well as not expecting it in the slightest) it is thought that the bus was stationed for one hour before someone woke us to tell us to get off. Not sure why it took the drivers so long to work out that White-San was obviously a foreign name and that it could surely only belong to the only gaijin on the bus!!

Asif hadn’t snowboarded before but pretty much took to it like a duck to water. In fact he reminded me at times of a terminator who just kept getting up after every fall. On the other hand I just tended to lie there laughing in pain.

The weather was mostly fine for the two days but did get very blizzard-like on the afternoon of day one and on day two I went home with a nice ‘rudolph’ (or even Peter Schmeichel) red nose from the days sun.

Our accommodation was pretty special given that we only paid 3000 yen for it included in the package (about £15). We had access to the public baths for another nude-fest which was much needed after a long day on the piste. An amazing tabe-hodai (all-you-can-eat) dinner was also provided which included so much nice Japanese food and after that I went to bed at just before 8:30 pm before rising the next morning (with not much pain in my body either) at 7 am where we were treated to another free meal.

Overall, another great trip north and I am now just sad that the season is over.