Happy New Year!!

One of the Japanese traditions for the New Year is visiting local shrines. At the stroke of midnight we piled into the car and went to two Shinto shrines and a Buddhist temple. The following day, we went to the Buddhist Temple, Natadera. The following shots are taken from there.

Skiing (or trying to)

Sorry, there are are no photos of me on the mountain; with my skiing skills, I spent a lot of time flying out of my skis and landed in a messy heap in the snow, so having a camera on the slopes was not a good idea! However, the snowy mountains were beautiful.