It's after months like November that we can truly appreciate the chill month that has been December. We still had some traveling and out and about moments, especially with the holidays, but nothing like the nonstop that the earlier months felt like.
Hokuriku 3-day trip
We took advantage of one of our 3-day weekends this month to take a quick trip over to Hokuriku which includes Fukui, Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures. We didn't have a lot of time, but had some must-do things in each prefecture and got to do most of it!
Check here for my blog posts about each area [Fukui] [Ishikawa] [Toyama]. We won't be traveling like this again for a while, so I'm glad we got to check some of these things off my Japan bucket list.
Snowboarding in Hakuba & Myoko
My husband went to a Super Bazaar Book Off to get me a new (to me) snowboard for this season. We checked on all of our gear that had been stored away for the last 9 months and were excited to get out there for Christmas weekend.
For our first snowboarding of the season, we went with our friends and stayed at Mont Blanc in Hakuba. We went to Tsugaike on the first day (after Thursday and Friday snow!). I'm still super new to snowboarding, but thankfully was able to pick it back up without too much fuss (and a handful of falls). Luckily it was somewhat powdery where we were.
The second day (Sunday), we decided to go to Hakuba47 because all of the higher lifts were supposed to be open. Not much snow (if any) between Saturday and Sunday, so conditions were a little icier, but I took my time and had fun with some of the lower, wider beginner runs. 
On Monday (Christmas Day), we opted out of a half day of snowboarding and started on our way home after breakfast. We actually had a White Christmas morning :) There was a little bit of car panic, but eventually got on the road OK and made it to Matsumoto.
My husband and I had been to Matsumoto Castle last year in October after a failed hiking/camping trip, but our friends hadn't yet been, so this seemed like a nice quick stop on the way home.
We didn't end up going to the resorts on the second day because the forecast showed rain (rather than snow) and the following day looked more promising. Instead, since it was NYE, we prepped for dinner and the girls went on a short little hiking adventure in the snow to Naena Falls 苗名滝 which was nearby.
Back at the Airbnb, my husband and I tromped around in the snow a bit to get out of the dusty house while it wasn't raining too. Being from Hawaii, snow is still a source of entertainment for me, but while we're snowboarding, we don't really just play around very much, so this was just a bit of fun.
Leading up to midnight on December 31, we just stayed in, played some games and set up shabu shabu after grocery shopping the day before. We were happy to celebrate with friends again this year!
Ramen Sukeya (Hakuba)
I launched into action this month by trying to explore new routes (including catching a train to start) and increase my mileage (not shying away from doing a double digit run weekly) which was a little difficult with the weekend trips and snowboarding, but my mentality is there at least lol. I'm exciting to continue on this through the next 6 months and see where it leads! 
For the second weekend (leading into New Year's Day), we got an Airbnb with a bigger group in Myoko. This was my first time in this area so lots of new stuff! On Saturday, we had a leisurely start and went to Akakura Onsen Ski Area. The lift ticket line was insanely long and slow (I think about an hour long wait)! We didn't end up boarding as much as we had wanted to, but this was still a good way for me to warm up for the weekend and hang out with friends.
We worked hard to set up this group photo lol.
Thank you to 2023! (My year recap was posted here.)
What we ate
Kappa Sushi
Mama Bhanja
Katsu-an
Kura Sushi
Mendokoro Shinya
Saurus Kitchen (Fukui)
Kagetsuro (Fukui)
iL Chianti (Ishikawa)
Hachiban Ramen (Ishikawa)
Champions Curry (Ishikawa)
Himihama (Toyama)
Gyukaku
Seizeriya
Chateraise Christmas cake 😊
Yoshinoya
Shabu-shabu Ushita
Yakiniku King
Saizeriya
Samurai Kebab (Hakuba)
3 days of breakfast at Mont Blanc (Hakuba)
Hakuba Taproom (Hakuba)
Karaage Center (Matsumoto)
Tanzo (I asked for miso ramen with no vegetables and it was exactly what I wanted lol)
Two Pines (Myoko)
Personal life/miscellaneous
I've been saying this in a ton of different little ways over the last quarter, but this month I finally put it a little more into action - become more serious about running! In this specific case, I decided I have a stretch goal of trying to run an ultramarathon distance (over 26mi) in our area before we leave (and actually said it out loud to other people for accountability lol). There's a 100km course I have in mind but I'll probably have to modify it because I want to do road running vs trail running. This isn't for any specific race, but just something I want to do for myself if I can!
I might start doing a separate blog post series updating every 3-4 months for my running diary to accompany my new IG account to track my progress and keep me on track, but I realize this will mostly be for myself and likely not that interesting to most other people lol.
It's the end of the year, so I also put together my 2023 close out thoughts into my year recap blog post! If everything goes according to plan, that should be published already, so go check that out if you're interested!
Outfits for this month can be found here. Finally solidly coat weather (except a handful of random warm days, 70F in mid December really??)
I frantically threw in some Christmas outfits near the end of the month as I realized I was running out of holiday season days, but I'm not mad about it lol.
We didn't take any leave from work this month, so I had a quiet end of the calendar year when most people were taking time off. It was a good opportunity to reset and get more organized with some stuff I had been putting on the side.
This is the second year that we decided not to go home (to Hawaii) for Christmas and New Years. Since it's our last season here, we knew we wanted to stay even though it meant time away from our families. We were fortunate to still receive some gifts in the mail (and we sent some that way as well, thank goodness for online shopping), but I'm really looking forward to being with everyone again for next year's holidays.
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