. >> karolina styczynska of poland has made history at the age of 24.ver foreigner to turn professional in the 400-year-old game's history. karolina became interested in shogi at the age of 16 when she read about it in a japanese comic. >> there is this ninja who played shogi. the dynamic of the game makes the end game more interesting. >> karolina developed her skills by playing on the internet. she later won the european shogi championship. karolina got the chance to come to japan two years ago to study the game in-depth. she was invited by professional player madoka kitao, who has been trying to promote shogi overseas. >> translator: i heard about a strong female foreign player. so i looked her up and found her enthusing about shogi on facebook and twitter. i was really surprised to discover just how much she likes the game. >> reporter: but it was not an easy task. karolina had to beat other talented young players to have a chance of turning pro. >> at first i was like oh, my god, they are moving and making noises, i couldn't get used to it when i l

and karolina herrera and her team also played a huge role this year. it time to have some fun. before we do that, i want to say once again, i want to honor all the military families here today and around the world. thank you for your outstanding service. thank you for your sacrifice. a thank you to all of the families for your sacrifice, for being so brave, good and kind. and you guys get to be here first. and we wish you guys the happiest holiday. we wish everyone in the country a happy holiday season, hopefully you can come down and visit the white house. for now, we have business to take care of. you guys want to follow me, you guys ready? we will have some special surprises for your parents. it may involve something you can eat. [applause] first lady michelle: we will see the big tree and maybe bo and sunny will come by for a visit. we will see. they may be busy. we're going to see. anybody who is afraid of dogs, you tell me. they are pretty nice. they are bigger than they look on tv. you guys ready to go? we will take care of your children. sit here, relax, do not break an

there is also a junior trainee from china, hoping to turn professional like karolina. she looks set to play a major role in promoting shogi around the world. >> good luck to her. people celebrating christmas in tokyo, it's going to turn out to be a warm one. but for residents in northern japan, a totally different story. >> yes, indeed. you're going to be looking at colder air spilling in, and really the faucet is going to be turning on as far as the snowfall over the curse of the next 48 to 72 hours. you can see on the satellite picture, we have those lines streaming in from the northwest towards the southeast. that is our cold weather cumulous continuing to set up and it looks like it could drop about 50 centimeters of snowfall, extending down towards the south, 20 to 30 centimeters. but the snow and this pattern is going to be sitting in place, well into next week. and you're going to be looking at all sorts of snowfall across the region. keep in mind, the japanese alps here, really blocking all that snow. so across tokyo, not going to be seeing the white stuff. but