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Wednesday and “no overtime working day” A Japanese government invention to decrease the work hours of their employees. That has now spread to private companies too, like Sony Ericsson.

I left the office at 6 pm, which is an hour earlier than when we absolutely should leave the office on a “NOWD”. Yamanote-sen (JR commuter line) was more overcrowded than usually. One reason may be that I went in the opposite direction than I usually do when I go home.

Pulling myself out of the cart at Yurakucho station along with what felt a thousand other passengers I could not do much else than follow the slow pace of everyone else. My destination was easy enough to find. Just walk along the rails back towards Shimbashi.

At the Coca restaurant located under the rails of Yamanote-sen I found Mash-san and Chie. They had started eating and drinking, waiting for me.

We had a good time and after a while we were joined by Saito-san. Continuing to eat spicy food, drinking and talking. We had a good time

At around 10 pm we finished and continued to Tori Ichi just around the corner. It’s a yaki-tori restaurant, though our purpose tonight was not to eat but have a last drink before going home. And of course to speak Swedish with the owners wife

I had managed to convince the other (most of them) that we should try the slopes today as well. Just before 8 am we were on the first lift up under a blue sky

At 1:47 pm I was on a Shinkansen back to Tokyo. The only fun thing about that was to meet Chie again.

At 7:55 am we were all waiting at the lift. We were on the second lift up and could have a wonderful ride on an untouched slope

The first 2 hours were great. Then it got a bit crowded and you had to slaloming around slow skiers and snowboarders. It was still good, but more because of the good weather. Most of the time the sun was shining on us… Except for 30 minutes or so before lunch time.

Once we had lunch all wanted to take a rest from skiing, except me. I continued skiing by myself. Exploring the area. It was great fun. Fresh air. Great weather. What more can you ask for?

Well you could ask for it tomorrow as well

Friday morning and I woke up earlier than usual on a work day, which Fridays usually are. But today I had a day off Still I had to be an early bird to catch the Shinkansen train to Nagano.

At Nagano I and Shimizu was picked up by Saito-san and the three of us was on our way to Shiga-Kogen. About an hour’s ride and we met Mash-san and Hachobori-san at the Prince Hotel West in Shiga-Kogen.

First things first… We checked in. Rented a snowboard for me. And had lunch. Then we were off enjoying the slopes on a very fine day’s afternoon.

In the evening, after a gym session, Chie and I went to Red Pepper in Ebisu. There we met Non, Ryo, Andreas and Jonas for St. Valentine’s Day dinner.

We had a lot of good food and talked about おひとりさま (ohitorisama) which basically means a person without a date. That was what Non, Ryo, Andreas and Jonas were. Andreas and Jonas kind of had dates but they are in Sweden so it was a bit difficult to have dinner together.

We talked about other things than people without dates as well. Like what to order for desert. We all had apple pancake with vanilla ice, but I also had strawberry sherbet. Yummy!

Oh, almost forgot. Valentine’s Day in Japan means you get chocolate… If you’re they guy Though we have to pay back in a month’s time when it is White Day