At the ski resort I'm at we have a lot of foreign staff as such a large part of our market is from overseas. One year a new guy came in to head up immigration in Sapporo (who obviously hadn't heard much about Niseko) and obviously couldn't understand why so many foreigners needed jobs and basically denied nearly every work visa request sent in. So a group of business owners along with the Australian consul went and had a meeting to explain the need for foreign workers and thankfully most of the visa requests were then approved.
Anyway on topic, my wife has decided she wants to go back to live in Australia after this coming summer. Mostly due to wanting to have family support for our daughter and plus she's never been as keen as I am on the long, cold snowy winters we get here in Hokkaido. To say I'm devastated is an understatement. She has already chosen and put down a deposit on a house in Aus (with my reluctant approval). Anyway my living the dream here in Japan will unfortunately come to an end. I'm already dreading how much I will miss my life here! We will be moving to a little coastal town that has absolutely beautiful beaches which will be nice but I love the snow a hell of lot more than nice beaches. I'm currently setting up a new business though that will allow me to come back and forth quite often and spend a fair portion of the winters here so I won't be leaving it entirely...and I will have had nearly 8 years of living the life I really wanted. I guess the wife deserves her turn
