Ahh the perks of being an ALT in highschool .

Being in high school, it's a beautiful thing. Surrounded by people in the "springtime of their youth." But being on a big snowboarding school trip is even better!  About 60 kids from my highschool made the trek to Minenohara Kogen, Nagano for 2 night and 3 days of early winter snowboarding fun. This year has been really warm so they only had 2 runs open. On the brighter side of things, because of the lack of people at relatively unpopular small resorts like Minenohara,  it seemed as if half of the people on the slopes were from my school. Maybe 50 of the students were first time snowboarder/skiers. Watching all the kids learn to snowboard & ski, was hilarious! High-school girls just have this way of screaming and laughing at the same time, that is just so entertaining. Everywhere I went I'd hear people yelling "Ricky!"  and waving profusely, snowball fights galore, it was great. It was like the highschool snowboarding trip in Hawaii that I never had.

Another little bonus during the trip, I met a Japan snowboarding pro. Nobuko Okamoto (岡本 信子) She was coaching the upper level classes that some of my kids were in, so I boarded with her group for two days. Too bad she went through a knee operation about a year ago. I woulda love too see her ride a kink or BS540 off a 20 meter kicker. She was SO nice and such a well... a pro. I woulda never guessed that she was only 21. I guess being a world traveller really does make a person more mature.

Nobuko Okamoto