Enjoyed our time at Rusutsu Resort in Hokkaido. Pkg included breakfast and dinner and we had noodles every day for lunch. We also had a lot of yummy soft serve cones. We bought a four day pass, but actually skied about 3 days since the first day was only the afternoon and one day cut short due to rain - kids went to the pool for that afternoon.


Time for a little break and snack. Hot chocolate, cold Coca Cola and a warm pork bun... Hits the spot!

Didn't take nearly as many photos as last year and only a couple videos on the aim and shoot cam since I didn't carry the video cam with me. The kids did great though - we hit a couple of intermediate runs and some were fairly long.




One of the evenings we had BBQ for dinner and they gave us bibs to wear protect our clothes from splatters.


We stayed for one last night in Sapporo before departing Hokkaido back home. We hit the malls and had a nice dinner with the other two families in our group. Last year there were five families that went to the ski resort and another that joined the city tour. Is this turning into an annual trip?

Uploaded a couple videos to You Tube to try it out...




Snowplowing (aka 'big pizza') to a stop



Can't catch up to Maggie here...



We had one rainy morning where we skiied until soaked, then hit the wavepool, waterslide and onsen; staying soaked the rest of the day!

A belated Christmas present from Uncle James was a hit! It was a plug'n'play minigolf video game. Great entertainment for the whole family...


But not as good as the real thing since Paul was off to the range after a round to try out his new club. (He was coerced into getting a new one after a couple of rounds in unusually freezing SoCal weather with Jake).




Frustration with the plug'n'play minigolf game...



Does overswinging work?

Mom and Dad visit and ski trip

It has been a busy last couple of months so here's the big update! My parents came for their first ever visit from mid-Nov to mid-Dec photos here. Every weekend was booked and during the week we did some touristy things (Stanley, Sai Kung, the Peak) 

and went out to eat and shop at markets, local stores and malls as well as the normal kids' after school activities (including Thurs evening gymnastics and dinner, too). I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff we did, but here are some highlights... Over U.S. Thanksgiving weekend we went into China and drove around the whole Pearl River Delta from Shenzhen to Zhuhai. We went to where my father's ancestors are from - Tai Shan. 

We located the village and a cousin brought us to his grandfather's burial site. 

That is near where my mother's ancestors are from - Jiang Men, but we didn't go look for any relations there... On the way back to HK we went to the Splendid China attraction - famous sites in miniature from all over China. 

We found my father's grandmother's burial site in a local cemetery. On my mother's side, we got together with an uncle who lives in HK and ate at a restaurant he is part owner of for dim sum and dinner. That's all of the 'family' business we did. We went to Macau one Sunday and Paul took my folks through Sands while I took the kids around a new area called Fisherman's Wharf. After, we went to St Paul's ruins and a nearby fort. We walked through Leal Senado and ate at the Wynn before catching the ferry back. Long day! Maggie had her tap dance performance and school Christmas performance the same weekend and we went to Taipei together for our last weekend together before they returned home. Time flew by and then Christmas was fast approaching. School let out on the 22nd, had an all day fete the 23rd with lunch and gift exchange for some of Alex's friends and some families over for hotpot dinner. 24th for last minute shopping and packing and Christmas day we flew to Japan for the week to go skiing. 

We got back new year's eve and managed to stay awake to welcome 2007. Spent all this week recovering - washing clothes, etc and Maggie's friend came over for a sleepover and visited the whole next day. Christmas vacation almost over for the kids and then Chinese New Year right around the corner! Click icon to see more ski photos on