Spider

Ria is a little bit upset with me. She feels that I am not being entirely truthful with her. She's worried that I'm lying to her and lying to myself. It seems that whenever I get drunk without her presence then I always end up in these photos being kissed by boys or kissing boys. She thinks that I might be gay.

I don't really know why it always happens, it's just one of those things. And it's not like they are kisses on the lips with full tongue or anything. They are just friendly kisses between friends. On the cheek. The chance of there being lip to lip contact are extremely minimal, and if that were to occur I am pretty sure that I and the other participant would be horrified and disgusted. Well, sure as I can be. I don't particularly want to find out.

There's quite a few of these photos around. They're generally pretty late at night when everybody is worse for wear. They are just an expression of platonic love between to friends. There is nothing sexual about it. It's just a bit of fun and games. I don't know if she sees it that way though.

Which is a shame, because I don't see any harm in it. It did get me thinking though. How do I know that I'm not deluding myself. How do I know that a big piece of hot man meat won't make me very happy? How do I know that I've been batting for the wrong team all this time? I guess it might explain a few things.

I'm pretty sure I'm not though. It just doesn't interest me. Still, it was something to think about.

In other news there is only one position left to fill in the staff roster at the centre. We hired a lady who is from Iran via New Zealand today. I hope she's great.

I Forgot The Title

I would like to apologise for the language used in the previous post. I don't know what came over me. I am a little worried though as this colourful language seems to be seeping into my day to day conversations more and more these days. Hmm.

So I think there are several reasons for it coming out on Saturday night. First and foremost is the fact that it was after closing time. Joshua and I had been at O'Malley's at Mooloolaba. While we were there we drank a couple of beers and a heap of shots. I don't think that I actually finished any of my beers because I kept putting them down so I could go out and flail around wildly on the dance floor. After throwing myself around a bit I couldn't remember where I had put my drink down. So that meant we would have to buy another round of shots and beers. It was a vicious cycle.

We had a good time. It was fun to hang out with Josh in his new pad. I was surprised at the number of people that were smoking at his place though. I thought that smokers were dying out? It was a bad influence on me. I certainly felt worse for wear the next day.

This isn't the best post I've ever done. It's not realy flowing too well. I probably blew out a few too many brai ncells and the synapses are having a bit of trouble firing now.

After drinking to excess Joshua and I had a late night lamb sandwich. It was awesome. I don't normally go for cheese on my kebabs, but at that point in time it was great.

So yeah next day I was pretty shady. I had McDonalds at that large service station. The dude in front of me was spewing because his McChicken took ages to come out. I don't know why he didn't just go to KFC because that was right next door.

Last night Ria and I made some filo parcel type things. One had chicken and camembert and something else. The ones that I made were spinach and fetta. They were terrific. I was very impressed with how it turned out.

Today was a very busy day. It is going to be another big week this week. We've got more interviews to do, meetings to endure, orders to receive and children to look after. I think that I'm going to be tired. But I guess that's the way it goes.

Uh oh!

We waited 30 minutes for a cab to take us to where we wanted to be. I am worried about how long it will take us to get home. I don't give a fuck about all these fuckheads. They can all smoke my flaccid cock.

Bus Girl

Saturday night was a pretty relaxing night. I was lucky enough to hang out with Ria and we just kicked it on the couch. Chillaxin. Whatever.

Sunday was more of the same really. We headed down to the Rock n Roll deli and picked up some provisions to get us through the morning and rocked out to the Wurlitzer that they've got down there.

Sunday comes and Sunday goes. It was a good day. I like Sundays.

Monday arrived and so did work. This week has felt really long. Every day just seems to drag, and I can't seem to get out of there in the afternoons. After school care is going gangbusters which is great, and the two younger rooms are full, but I'm looking forward to getting the bigger rooms choc a bloc as well.

The staffing problem at the centre is starting to become a bit of a disaster. We just can't seem to get in touch with anybody that could work for us. Apparently there are centres all over Brisbane that are struggling to get qualified group leaders. We actually had a recruitment agency visit us today. They were saying that they're just getting out there and letting people know about their service. We might have to resort to them.

That's about it really. I received an invitation to a wedding in Melbourne today. I'm thinking about going.

I wonder how much flights are?

Flashback!

Of course after reading this sign we had to turn around and go back. Tony and I may be good, but I don't think we're adbanced yet.

Climb A Tree

Okay I've been back for a few days now. Almost a week actually. It's been good. I haven't done much. I've been a little bit tired. I didn't get any sleep on the plane. We had the worst seats possible. I think. It was a 747. The seating configuration went a row of 3 a row of 4 then another row of 3 on the other side. Tony and I had the middle 2 seats in the row of 4. It was the pits. I hated not being able to get up and have a walk around. It meant that I had to drink wine instead of beer.

After the plane ride we got through customs pretty quickly and before I knew it I was home and saying hello to Ria. It was good to see her again.

I brought home some presents for some people. My brothers think that I am a devo because I brought them back some figurines and some anime porn. It's not porn. It's a cultural artefact. And everything rude is whited out anyway.

So yeah, that Thursday I just hung out with Ria. We went and ate some Greek food in the afternoon which was wonderful. There was a lot of it.

Friday was my triumphant return to work. Well, I guess you could call it that. They hadn't been having the greatest time while I was away. Do you remember how we had been hiring some new staff? Well, I was a little concerned on the way in to work as I couldn't remember their names. It didn't matter in the end though, as none of them actually started working for us. Which sucked. Apparently there was a few different reasons, but they were all crappy reasons. I don't know what the story was, but it's disappointing. I had some really high hopes for those girls, and they let me down. Now we're halfway through the first term and we still don't have 2 group leaders. If anybody knows someone who has a diploma in child care and is looking for full time work, then let me know!

So that was a bummer.

It was good to see the kids again though, and nice to see most of the parents again. Apparently some of the parents have been causing mischief in my absence so it will be good to sort them out now that I'm back. The other good thing about getting back to work was that it was only for one day and then it was the weekend. Just easing myself into it.

Friday night we headed off to Nanna's for dinner. It was a roast and it was great. Nanna certainly does know how to do a good roast. I had bought some lollies from Japan so we ate them. I didn't know what they were when I bought them. They weren't the best ones I've had. They kind of looked like little blocks Selley's No More Gaps and they were very chewy.

After dinner Ria, Erin and I headed up to 152 for a while. It was very loud there. I was talking to some blind dude who was really drunk. I think that he was lying to me. He was saying that he had a master's degree in law and that on Saturday morning the board that he was one of the directors of was getting together to discuss something about constitutional law. And then he told me that he was in property law. And then he told me that he had defended a pedophile once. I don't think that it's okay to lie just because you have a handicap. I could be wrong though. Maybe he is all of those things. Anyways, I thought that the music was too loud, and I think that the blind guy's dog thought that it was too loud. So I left.

Next day I managed to waste a whole heap of time on the internet. I don't really know what I was doing, but I was on this thing for like 7 hours straight. It was ridiculous. I was reading a little bit about the nu-rave movement and things like that. I did watch a 3 minute kiss between 2 porn stars on YouTube. You should check it out. It's not devo material at all. It's very tasteful.

I gotta roll. My work here isn't done yet though.

Lizard On A Stick!

Homeward Bound

Actually this photo was taken on the way over, but you can see a bit more in this one. And I'm home already so this post is basically all a lie.

Was That You Guys?

Yes, that was us.

Today was our last day on the mountain. My last day riding until I don't know when. It's a little bit sad to tell you the truth. I've had a great time.

So yeah, today the sun was shining, the birds were singing and Tony and I were making the most of it. We ducked under a rope on our first run and it was on from there. It was really very beautiful up there today. Being able to see across the valley and over to the next mountain range was really quite impressive.

As well as the sun being out, the ski patrol were out in force today as well. This weekend they have an international competition on here, and they are starting to get ready for it at the moment. I think that this is the reason for them being so gung ho, when for the rest of their time they have been very understanding of our need to go for the pow. Today they were hot on our heels all day.

Second run of the day and I was about to duck under the ropes so I could traverse across to a nice tree run that would bring me down back to the single chair lift, when who should pull up behind me? A Japanese guy in a black suit with an orange cross on it. He made a cross sign with his arms and said, "Crosed." I looked up at him, said, "Gommenasai." I think that means sorry. I came back onto the piste and went down to the chair. At the top of the chair Tony and I headed out in the other direction. There was a powder field that we had seen from the gondola, and we were eager to see if we could get there. It looked untouched.

So we ducked the rope, traversed right as high as we could. Past the point where we had gone down before, past the nice tree run, onward and onward. Finally we came to what we were looking for. The untouched powder field. Tony saw it first and he was very excited. When I saw it I was very excited. It was beautiful. Steep, deep, long and virginal. It was going to be beautiful. Tony headed down first. It was amazing. I went down after Tony. I had a small fall, but it was so soft that it didn't matter. I was just upset because I'd ruined an otherwise perfect run.

Once we were at the bottom of the run we had to figure out a way out. It turned out that the way out involved a lot of hiking. About 30 minutes worth. It was hot work, but there was an old guy just behind me, and I think that he was having a bit harder time than I was. He was certainly swearing enough.

We finally made it back on piste when who should show up? A Japanese guy in a black ski suit with orange crosses on it. He took my pass. Then he went down and took Tony's pass. He didn't take the old guy's pass. The old guy said that he was lost and didn't no what was going on. Like fun.

There is a happy ending to this story. Ski patrol gave our passes back, and said that if he found us out of bounds again, then they would be gone for good. Seeing as it was our last day, Tony was all for ducking under the ropes again, but I had a strange moral thing going on. For some reason I started thinking about the future, and how if we disrespected this guy's second chance, then there was the possibility that he would no longer give anybody second chances. I thought that this would not really be fair on future generations. I'm not sure what this means, but it was okay as we just hooted down some of the groomed runs for the rest of the day. It was nice. There was still a bit of pow to be found.

So in all it was a nice day. We actually had some people comment on our lines on that powder field as it was plainly visible from the cable car. It felt good. It felt great.

So now the trip is just about over. I'm looking forward to getting back, but it's sad to say good bye to Japan.

This guy sitting next to me is fucking annoying. He is wearing a hearing aid though, so am I still allowed to be pissed off by him? He's a cocky little fucker.

Place For Return

Okay today was something a little bit different. Yes there was snowboarding involved. Yes there was a lift. Yes there was some epic powder. Yes there was Tony. Yes there was some mystery drink. Yes there was a steamed bun. Yes there was face shots galore. So how was today different? Well, in a number of ways.

First and foremost was the fact that I was riding on the side of an active volcano. The first time that I have ever done such a thing. It was Mt Asahidake, the highest mountain in the prefecture of Hokkaido. Looking at it today you wouldn't really know that it is an active volcano. Well, there was a ten second window where the skies cleared and you could look up the mountain. Up a little bit higher there was steam spewing out the side of the mountain. Apparently it's always like that, and there are some hot springs and things up there. I think that's pretty neat.

Second of all, I was wearing a backpack. I normally don't like wearing a backpack when I ride, simply because I think they kind of get in the way, and I don't really want to land on one because it could hurt. It can hurt enough already without landing on the random crap that people keep in backpacks. I know that sometimes you're up there and you sometimes wish that you'd brought such and such with you and that if you're carrying a bag then you're more likely to have the item you were after, but most of the time you don't really need it. I guess. So yeah, the reason I was wearing a backpack today was because I was on a backcountry tour thing where they kitted us out with an backpack and an avalanche beacon. I can tell you what the avalanche beacon is for, and I can also tell you that there was never any chance of us being in an avalanche today. The backpack though? I have no idea why I was carrying that thing? Maybe to make us all look tough? The guide, Toshi, didn't even show us what was in them. That was okay with me though, I guess they had to justify the sky high price of the trip somehow, and kitting us out with useless gear is one way of doing that.

Umm, were there any other ways in which today was different? Yeah. There was. Instead of having a barbecue pork bun or a pizza bun I had a sweet bean one. I think that I should have stuck with the pork ones.

I managed to break some of my gear, although that's nothing new. I lost the clip off one of my bindings at the top of the mountain, but thankfully someone behind had found it. Still, my hand just about froze when I was trying to reattach it. It was -20 today, plus the wind, so that's pretty chilly.

I thought that I saw someone I knew at Mt Asahidake. I thought that it was Mel, Nigel's old girlfriend. It was this shorter girl, with a nose piercing, and a thin sort of a face. She was snowboarding and seemed to be avoiding me, so I thought that it could be her. But it wasn't.

Asahidake was pretty sweet. Unbelievably deep in some portions. The first run I didn't see the nose of my board at all, so I had to set my bindings back as far as I could. It helped. Asahidake was an interesting moutain. There's a cable car, and apparently the mountain is just about empty all the time, unfortunately today was the last day of a long weekend, so it was reasonably busy. At the top of the mountain everyone piles out of the cable car and then disappears. Then everybody reappears again at the bottom in the line for the cable car. It's weird. There are no definite runs down. There is a cat track that everyone takes, but it's not marked. The cat track is long. The part of the run that is actually interesting is the first section. It only goes for a minute or two. Not terribly long. But deep. The snow was really deep. There was one run where I couldn't see for a while simply because I was creating a bow wave type thing that went up over my face. It was amazing. The snow was a little heavy, but pretty good generally. I think that I've just been a little bit spoiled recently.

So tonight Tony and I had dinner with the three other people who came to Asahidake with us today. All 5 of us were Queenslanders. There was Kirra, who is a Virgin hostie and lives with her boyfriend, Matthew, up on the Sunshine Coast. Then there was George who is over for 2 weeks by himself. He's married with two kids and another on the way. Is it just a Brisbane thing where people ask what school you went to? Because it was a little bit weird. Anyways, George went to Nudgee and Matthew went to Churchie. So there you go.

For dinner I had sushi for the firs time since being in Japan. It was good. There was this weird egg pudding thing, I liked it. After dinner we had an ice cream and then I came here and typed this up.

Slow Made

I think that somebody lied to me today. I'm not entirely sure, but I am reasonably certain they were telling porky pies. The line they were trying to sell me? That this robot in a restaurant was the original C3PO from the original Star Wars movie. I don't think so. Wouldn't that be at the Skywalker Ranch or something? Not sitting in some museum/restaurant type thing on the side of a ski hill with a town of 26000 people? I don't think so. Still, I can't be too sure.

The restaurant had all these pop culture artefacts, specifically Star Wars and Coca Cola ones. It was a pretty interesting place. The dude who ran the joint didn't speak too much English tonight, but when we were in there the other day his English seemed a whole lot better. I dunno. I just got a weird vibe from him. And his memorabilia. In addition to C3PO there was an R2-D2, a storm trooper, Darth Vader, Bert, Ernie, Woody from Toy Story and The Colonel. There was another character there, I think that he may have been the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Then again he may not have been.

So yeah, this was an interesting place to eat. Did I say that Snoopy was there? No? Well, he was. Tony and I ordered our meals, which were pretty expensive by Japanese standards, and then we waited. And waited. Then some other people came in. And we waited Then the other people's entree arrived at their table. And we waited. Then the other people's main course arrived. And we waited. In the end it was over an hour. For two plates of noodles. It was ridiculous. I think that the owner was having his revenge on us because we didn't order of his beers. We didn't order any beers because they were twice the price of any other beer in town. The reason that he gave us was that the other people had reserved their table earlier in the day, and thus their food was prepared first. It didn't add up to me.

So today's riding wasn't the greatest. Although I did see the most sunshine I've seen since I've been here. The sun was out all day, it was nice. From Kamui we were able to see the entire valley before us. Pretty spectacular. Unfortunately the riding over there wasn't as good as we were expecting. I guess it's because it didn't snow last night, and there was quite a few people over there. We've been spoiled a little bit on this trip. If we had had these conditions at a mountain in Australia it would have been the best day ever. Since I've been here, it's simply, meh.

The fact that we've been riding hard the last couple of days probably didn't help. As much as I love snowboarding, I've probably done enough of it in the last 11 days. I know that in a couple of weeks time I would just about kill for another day of boarding, but when it's just about all you've done for a while, then everything starts to become a little hard. Your gloves are never dry. Your muscles are always sore. Your bones always ache. Tomorrow we're going to have a bit of a sleep in and take it easy for the day. We've got a back country tour lined up for Monday, so we'll take it easy til then I think.

Apparently it's a long weekend in Japan this weekend. I'm not sure what the holiday is for. There sure are a whole lot more people on the mountain though. Still, I've only got another three days, I should live it up while I can, it's going to be a while before I can hit it again.

Live And Let Die Chimes

The place that I am staying at currently is called Pension Furannui. I'm not entirely sure when it was built, but I'm guessing the early 80's or sometime around then. From the outside it almost has a German Black Forest village house thing going for it. Inside it's got basins in corridors, toilets randomly around the place, a pretty good communal hot bath room and a very annoying P A system that constantly pumps out this music that is played on a xylphone or somethig. It goes 24 hours a day. It's pretty annoying. Every now and again a tune will come on that you will recognise. It often takes a while to guess what it is, as it's been horribly bastardised. Tony thought that he heard Stairway To Heaven this morning. We definately heard Mariah Carey's Hero. There's also been the theme to Under The Sea and the James Bond theme. It's funny for the first little bit, then it just gets annoying.

The Furannui is an interesting place really. There's a bear skin rug near the entrance and some mounted deer heads. There is also this wax monstrosity that started out as simple tea light in a wine bottle. Apparently the owner has added to this humble beginning every day for the last 15 years. It is now 5 feet high and he needs a ladder to get up to light it. It's pretty far out.

The owner of the Furannui also collects model motorcycles and matchbox cars. He's an interesting guy. The breakfast they do here isn't the greatest, but it's not the worst either. I mean, I leave every morning full, so I can't really complain. I do have a fairly high threshold when it comes to shit food though.

There's a bus you can get to take you up to the hill from here. Even though the walk is only a couple of hundred metres. The bus is totally pimping though. Each seat is sort of a captain's seat with lurid purple and pink designs splashed over them. The bus is only half the normal length, but the rest of the dimensions are the same. The back seat is a bench seat, and there are bench seats extending out of the back row along the walls. It would be an awesome bus to do a longer trip on. Plenty of room. Unfortunately I think that it only does a 500m round trip each day during the ski season.

I can't really remember where I got up to last night, but I think that I'm just about up to date. Yesterday was a fantastic day of riding. Today was just as good.

Yesterday Tony and I had seen a few parts of the mountain that we wanted to hit today, so we did. The first one was a run that was out of bounds but was directly below one of the chairlifts. It was an incredible run, waist deep powder, fresh tracks, no-one around except the people above us on the chair lift. It was supposed to be awesome. Unfortunately it was a little bit scary. The snow was a little bit too deep. The terrain was a little bit too steep and sketchy. The run out at the bottom of the chair lift involved going over a bridge two logs wide that was covered in snow. Just before the bridge it was quite steep and it flattened out very quickly. It was a bit hairy, and I went slow. Unfortunately Tony didn't go so slowly and fell off the side. It was a 7m drop down. Thankfully he landed in some deep powder and didn't hurt himself. It did take a little while to hike out though. I couldn't believe it. We were very lucky.

After that we really should have stayed on piste. But we didn't. We spent the majority of the day ducking under ropes and getting into waist deep powder. It was amazing. It snowed all day here, and there was no wind. It was unbelievable. I rode for almost 7 hours today and could have kept on going. I was in heaven.

I did stop for lunch though. At the top near the cable car station there is a little hut. It's ordering system is a little bit different to your conventional restaurant/cafe/diner type place. Here you order your food from the vending machine which discharges a ticket which you give to the kitchen. There are vending machines absolutely everywhere here. It's incredible. Down the road from the Furannui there are 5 machines lined up along the street in the middle of nowhere. It's bizarre. But handy.

So yeah, today was another epic day of Japow. This is supposedly a bad year, and it's probably the best snow I've ever seen. It's incredible and it just doesn't stop falling. It has snowed every day since I have arrived. Amazing.

Anyways, there are a few more videos and things linked up from Tony's MySpace page.

We're off to Kamui for the day tomorrow. Apparently it's even more deserted than Furano with plenty of snow, so I can't wait.

Two Ice Creams

Today has been a big day. But before we can get into the big day, let me tell you about last night.

Last night, our first night in town, Tony and I went up to the tourist information office and spoke to a lady up there about what's going on in town. She said that there was going to be a geisha party and that she could give us a couple of tickets. This sounded great so we jumped at the chance.

We weren't expecting too much. Maybe an empty hall with a lady dressed in the traditional kimono doing a dance or something like that. Nothing too flash. We were wrong.

The night was held at the New Furano Hotel (which might have been new in the early 80's). We were greeted by the hotel staff who took our jackets and gave us a number. Then we surrendered our tickets to the lucky door prize, then we were ushered into the main ballroom of this once luxurious hotel. In the ballroom were a couple of hundred people who had been sat around large circular tables. There were approximately 10 people at each table. On each table there were 12 cans of beer, 4 bottles of local wine and 2 pitchers of ice tea. In the middle was a lazy susan with several plates filled with local food on there. It was a nice surprise. Tony and I did feel underdressed though as all of the local Japanese men were in suits, and a lot of the older Japanese ladies were dressed in their own kimonos.

The events began with a welcoming speech from the head of the tourism board from Furano, then a kam pai from the head of tourism for Kyoto, which is the most popular foreign traveler destination in Japan. From what I can make out they are trying to introduce more travelers to Furano, getting them up here to see some of Hokkaido. So they turned on the charm. It was great.

It was also a little bit weird, because there was all these Japanese people dressed nicely, then all these ski bums who had been up the mountain all day and not looking too crash hot. There wasn't set seating, so I was at a table that had a few locals, but mainly travelers.

The first show was a lady dancing with a sword. She was very graceful and it was quite impressive. She had some cool pants on. Next came a lady with a longer scythe type thing. She was also pretty cool and very graceful. Up next was a guy reciting a poem about the four seasons and another guy doing calligraphy in time with the poem. The calligraphy was then given away as the lucky door prize. I didn't win.

While this was happening some drums were being set up directly behind my seat. There was 6 sets of 3 drums. When they started beating out a rhythm you certainly knew about it. This act was probably my favourite for the night. The drummers really got into it, and it went for about 10 minutes. At the end everyone was clapping and cheering. It was awesome. They were pulling some very complicated moves, but I didn't pick up any mistakes. The drummers looked tired at the end. They had given it all. There was a small girl at the back of the group, and when they first started she only beat out the timing on the edge of her drum. She looked a bit bored. At the end though she was leading the group and had this huge solo and she was going nuts. It was fantastic.

Once the ringing in everyone's ears had stopped and everybody had stopped clapping the curtain was raised to reveal the geishas. They put on a very interesting performance. No smiling. The costumes they were wearing were very beautiful. Someone told me today that they would have been worth about $10000 all up. They looked it. I don't think that we actually had fully fledged geishas last night. I have a feeling that they were very close to being there, but I can't recall what somebody who is studying to be a geisha is called.

At the end of their performance there was some photos and that was about it. It was a wonderful evening and very interesting. They make wine and cheese here in Furano. I had some cheese, but I didn't think that it was really worth writing about. I haven't been game to try the wine yet. I might buy a bottle at some stage. I don't know what type it is. Maybe just red and white?

I was in bed early last night. Not on account of the free beers, because I only had a couple, simply because I was tired. I think that it was about 8:30. It had been a big night though.

This morning I woke up early and had some breafast. Tony and I met Tom, the ski Japan guy, who took us up the mountain and showed us around a bit. He's a really nice guy, with a very deep voice. He even took us out of bounds a little bit. I rode all day today and no-body checked my pass all day.

Today was some of the best snow I have ever ridden. Here at Furano they don't really like you to go off piste, but Tony and I did a couple of runs through the trees. The snow was knee deep all day. So soft. So light. So dry. It was awesome. There was a run under a single chair that we did all day. There is nobody here in Furano, so you basically have the mountain to yourself. The snow kept falling all day, so I kept getting fresh tracks all day. It was amazing. I don't know how many times I said that the snow was amazing, but it was alot. Furano today was unbelievable.

Tony and I found this nice drop just off one of the chairs. It was reasonably big, enough to get the adrenaline going, but the landing was ultra soft. I think Tony ended up going for it about 5 times. It was alot of fun. There should be some links on his MySpace page somewhere. Unfortunately the last time Tony landed a little bit funny and hit his chin on his knee. He's okay though.

Furano is awesome.

They have a cable car here that can take up to 101 people. It goes really quickly and will have you at the top of the mountain in 4 and a half minutes. It almost goes as fast up as I do down.

After riding all day it was time for a hot spa. Then Tony and I headed down to Furano. Or at least we tried to go, but someone had stolen my shoes. This put me in a spot of bother, as they are the only ones that I have. I was pretty annoyed. You have to leave your shoes at the front door everywhere over here so I know that I had left them there. Yet they were gone. I was pretty annoyed, as I love those shoes, and if they had been stolen I would have been sad. I didn't let it get me down too much, and Tony and I got a lift into town with the son of the owner of the place where we are staying. I wore my snowboard boots. He took us to a Kmart type place and I bought a new pair of shoes for Y698. They aren't very nice and they are a size too small for my feet, and pretty cold and wet, but they did the job. Tony and I trudged around Furano for a couple of hours and then had some dinner at a curry house. It turns out that we had met the entire family of the girl who works in the curry house. We met her dad last night at the geisha party, we met her mum in a shop and we met her in the curry house. It was a good curry with homemade sausages and homebrewed beer. Very tasty. The walk home wasn't much fun though. It was freezing. The wind was howling, the streets were slippery, it was not much fun. So Tony and I bought some ice creams. They were tasty.

On the walk back we ducked into a pachinko parlour. We think that we've sussed out how it works, but that's a story for another day. I'm tired so I'm done.

Disgraced

Last night started off with the best of intentions. We weren't going to do anything silly, we were just going to have an onsen (spa) with two guys that we had met cat skiing.

The cat skiing was great. Not as great as I thought that it was going to be, as the snow was a little wet, but still pretty good. It was blowing a gale at the top, but that stopped about 30 seconds down the hill. There were these two people up there with boogie boards or something like that. Anyways.

So the cat skiing was good. I managed to hurt myself a little bit when I took some fairly big air of this roller type thing and then fell into a gully. Well, I actually smashed into the opposite wall of this gully, and it hurt a little bit. It took a while to dig myself out, but I was okay.

We did the cat skiing with a 4 other people and our guide, Liz. Liz actually brought us down to the wrong part of the mountain on the first run so we had to hike back out for a little while. The other 4 were Christof and his girlfriend/wife thingy Jacqui and 2 other guys, Jim and Scott. Everyone was fun and we got along pretty well with the two other blokes. So we decided to have an onsen with them when we got back to Niseko.

The onsen was great. Getting nude wasn't a problem at all and it was very relaxing for the muscles. Having a beer in the outdoors was lovely and there was a good atmosphere. Quite a lot of old guys though and old guy's penis, but I guess that's what you get when you go to an onsen.

After the onsen the other two guys were heading into Kutchan which is the bigger town about 15 minutes away. Tony and I went with them. In Kutchan we were looking for this ski shop, and on the way we found this really weird casino type thing. In the casino there was a deafening noise from the games that the people were playing. They were playing a sort of pokie machine, but instead of money you seemed to play for these shiny metal ball things. The noise was made by all of these balls dropping through the machines. It was really loud. Anyway, we left there pretty quick after getting into trouble for taking a photo and then made our way to a little izukaya off the main road.

In the izukaya we had some noodles and a fair bit of sake. The proprietors of the restaurant didn't speak mch english, so we just got them to make up whatever they liked. We ended up having noodles. They were okay. Afterwards they gave us this stuff that I think may have been raw prawn legs and prawn guts. I'm pretty sure that's what they said they were. The other guys didn't like them too much but I ate a few, they had a nice sauce on them.

After dinner we came back to Niseko on the free bus and headed back to Hank's bar. Scott played the guitar there for a while and he was really good. Hank brought out some other instruments for us so I was banging away on a toy tambourine for a while and clacking out a beat on some maracas. It was a good time. Tony played a couple of tunes as well and was great. It was clean wholesome fun. By this time we were having beers and everyone was getting on famously.

Oh, hang on a minute. We had a cheeky beer at a bar called Blo Blo after getting off the bus. Blo Blo had all this Japanese porn up on the walls, the animated kind. It was a cosy kind of joint and pretty neat, but we didn't stay there long, we wanted to get to Hank's.

After Hank closed down for the night we moved onto Fatty's which is a bar in the back of two trucks that are parked together. The thing to do at Fatty's was a ski with 4 shots along it. Seeing as there was 4 of us it made sense to do one. So we did. 4 shots of Jagermeister came to 1000 yen and we got a photo up on the wall. The first one was so much fun that we did it again. Good times!

By this stage everyone was feeling pretty good about themselves and Jim and Scott decided to call it a night. This was a wise move on their part and I guess that's where experience comes into play. Jim was 29 and Scott was 33. They were cool guys and a lot of fun. In advertising down in Melbourne and Sydney.

After they left Fatty's closed up too, as there was only really us and the bar staff. So we moved on to another bar. I'd forgotten about it, but Tony reminded me this morning. I think that it was called Jack's or something like that. We were there for a little while, but not too long. Long enough for some dude to try and kiss me though. I told him that I wasn't interested, but he persisted. I guess that's what some guys resort to in a ski town. A little bit like prison really.

Next thing I know it's morning and there's some Japanese people in our room. They were replacing our towels. I didn't feel so hot, and neither did Tony. In all it was a big night, and a good time. I'm glad that it happened last night and not tonight as we would probably have missed the bus.

Adbanced Only

Today was huge. The morning was totally epic. It was up there with the best snow I have ever ridden.

The snow puked down all night last night, giving us around 20cm down here in the village, and a good 40+cm up the top. Fantastic.

I woke fairly early this morning as I was having this dream where I was really really thirsty, but no matter how much water I drank, it was never enough. So I woke up and found that my tongue was like a piece of leather in my mouth. It was extremely dry. I got up and walked out to the tap to get some water. I had a look out the window and I saw snow. Lots of snow. The cars in the car park had a nice thick coating on the top. I started to get excited. My mouth went dry. I had to get some more water.

I came back to the room and Tony got up and we headed down for breakfast. I ate some of these ball things. I call them mystery balls because they are filled with this strange goo that sort of explodes through your mouth when you bite into them. It's some sort of cheese I think. I'm not completely sold on them. I keep trying though.

After breakfast was done Tony and I got ready to hit the mountain. We had everything prepared and caught the bus to the gondola. The bus fishtailed into the corner where our stop is. Another group of guys left behind one of their number. There's no friends on a powder day. At the gondola the line wasn't too big and we were heading up by 8:40. The snow was still puking down. You could see out the window that it was very deep.

Once at the top Tony and I strapped ourselves in and then threw ourselves down the mountain. It was magic. The snow was so deep, but still very light that you could just punch through the turns. Fantastic. Everyone up there was having a blast. Unless you got caught in a flat and needed to dig yourself out. Even then it was fun.

The winds were too high to open up the top of the mountain but Tony and I had more than enough fun down the bottom of the hill. We managed to avoid most of the big lines more by luck than by any planning. We were lucky enough to be amongst the first to be up the Ace Pair Lift. The run down there was unbelievable. The first 3/4 of it was some of the best riding of my life. Just perfect. Right under the lifts and straight down. Powerful turns. Smooth soft snow. Amazing. I was hooting and hollering the whole way down. Until I hit the flat. Then I needed to dig myself out and hike out. The snow was as deep as my waste.

In the afternoon Tony and I had a bit of a break. I snoozed, Tony put some videos and pictures up on his MySpace page. You should check it out.

At around 5:30 we got up again and it was time to hit the mountain again. It was good. Not as good as this morning, but still a lot of fun. It was pretty cold tonight, so we took the gondola up most times. There was still a bit of powder around through the trees. There was an old Japanese guy who was synchronised with us. He went up with us, then he went down with us. He didn't speak English but we were able to work out that he is 70. He was wearing a bell, which was a bit annoying, but a cool guy all round. Still spritely.

Tonight we dined at the 100 yen Noodle Shop again. It was good. There were only gaijin in there though. I guess that's who their main market is. Tomorrow Tony and I are going cat-skiing. It should be sweet. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it will snow a little bit more tonight so we can have fresh lines all day tomorrow.

Chicken Sarad

So it`s Saturday night now and I am tired. Yesterday was a big day up on the mountain. There was a lot of snow. I was riding through stuff up to my knees for a lot of the day. It was very tiring. I liked it a lot though.

The weather on the mountain is constantly changing. It seems to change between fine and snowing every 10 minutes or so. Also, depending on how high you are up the mountain, you can go from being able to see all of the surrounding territory, to being unable to distinguish whether you are looking at the land or the sky. Riding in the white out conditions can be pretty scary. Especially when you don't really know what is coming up.

It is snowing again now. I am hoping that there will be a big dump tonight. There was around 30cm last night, which is fantastic, but here in Niseko, that is only an average day. If there is somewhere over the 45cm mark, I won't know what to do with myself tomorrow. I guess I will probably just throw myself down the hill as fast as I can and try not to run into anything that will hurt too much. I can't wait.

I've just enjoyed a wonderful meal at one of the numerous izukaya places around town. They are an informaly dining option and generally serve simple but delicious food. And beer. Tonight Tony and I enjoyed some salmon sashimi, followed by akotori pork, grilled mackerel and grilled squid. It was fantastic. And cheap. That meal, with a beer each, came to just under ¥2000 each. Very tasty and I am extremely satisfied.

Now I am very tired and I think that I will be going to bed soon. Today has been a big day, not quite as big as yesterday because I haven't been up the mountain tonight, but still tiring. I am looking forward to getting a good night's sleep so I can rest my tired bones.

I think that I might have to try and track down some karaoke for later in the week.

Technical Difficulties

Yesterday was my first day on the hill. They keep saying that this is a bad year, but it has been some of the best snow I have seen. The mountain is very wide and there is lots and lots of snow. The snow is extremely dry and fluffy. You aren't able to make snowballs with it because it just won't clump together.

So it didn't take me too long to get back in to the swing of carving down the mountain, although I feel a little bit like I'm working too much, forcing the turns out a little bit, which is something I'm going to work on. I have a feeling that this is partly because of the conditions though, what with all the powder. The visibility has been a bit poor at times, which can be a little scary when tearing down the hill. The snow fell all day yesterday. It wasn't continuous, but clouds washed over the mountain throughout the day.

The Lodge Ronde, where I am staying, is a place that has a lot of character about it. The room isn't very big, and I think that I was snoring a bit last night because I woke up under a pile of clothes that were thrown over me to try and break me out of it. This could have been because of the beers that I drank last night. We didn't have too many, but they did seem to have a devestating effect as I was very tired. The first beer was on the house as part of the welcome drinks, then Tony and I slipped and slid our way through the streets of Niseko up to the 100 yen noodle house. My noodles were more than 100yen, they were tasty though.

My muscles are a little bit sore today, but I can't wait to get back up to the mountain. I'm about to have some breakfast. Yesterday I had chilli meatballs, fish, seaweed, noodles, green tea and some other stuff. I gave the raw eggs a miss as I'm not sure how you're supposed to eat them. I've tried raw eggs before, and they're not really my thing.

I'm sorry if I rang you yesterday and then didn't speak. Apparently I left my phone unlocked in my pocket and it decided that it would be good to call people and send them text messages. It was probably doing that when I was falling down the hill. I apologise and I don't think it will happen again because I'm not going to take it with me.

I'm really loving the bidets they have here. The seat warmer is especially nice.