Today was a play day at our favourite resort so far - Goryu. The snow had stopped falling and it was another bright blue sky day.

On Saturday we went to Iwatake resort in the hope that it would be the least crowded of the ski resorts in Hakuba, as it seems to be the least promoted.

On our third day in Hakuba, the snow gods smiled down upon us and we had snow showers for most of the day - not classified as a big dump, but enough for a fine day of boarding.

Hi snowbunnies! as I write this, I am having my traditional post snowboarding beer, straight from the vending machine of course.

Niseko and Hakuba are quite different, like chalk and cheese. Of course we did visit both in different seasons, and Niseko was our first trip to the snows in Japan, whereas we had a lot more experience by the time we headed to Hakuba.

Hakuba was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics and this comes to mind when you arrive here. There are plenty of cute Alpine style buildings, and a little village, but it is eeriely quiet.

On our second day, we awoke to beautiful blue sunny skies, a welcome sight after huddling under umbrellas the day before in the miserable Tokyo downpour.

Well what an eventful 24 hours we have had. Here we are in Tokyo, and so far we have had V being interrogated by Japanese customs officials, then finding out our hotel was in the heart of Tokyo's gay district, and then Chucky made another guest appearance but this time not due to too much alcohol - it was food poisoning from a sushi lunch.