Things I didn't try early on: Winter sports

My first few years of living here were spent in Tokyo, and coming from a country where snowy areas are few and far between, I'd never tried any kind of winter sports before.

Obviously that all changed when I moved out to Niigata! There are so many ski resorts out here that it's very common to head out to the slopes on a weekend.

The other thing is that it's so much more economical to go skiing or snowboarding here than it is in my home country. That could be to do with the fact that in my home country there are only a handful of places with any kind of ski infrastructure, and even then, they often have to supplement naturally falling snow with man-made stuff. 

The scenic slopes at Gala Yuzawa here in Niigata