ippy

Im about to name check him twice in quick succession, but been listening to all the doug stanhope podcasts. Theyre worth the effort.

love love love. Trees on skiers left every time. If youre daft enough to run that start part then i hope you have a bucket load of dampening on your ride. Ive tried it. Proper jelly leg bone-shaking ice wall stuff. Never again. The nice thing about those trees as well is that you can a) poach the course behind the ski patrol hut from it when they shut it down, and you can go pretty far in to be honest for some really nice untapped pow. It flattens in places mind you (and drops in others - er, off a cliff i assume), but so long as youre staying roughly within ear shot of the course and re

With this and micks report we have perfect harmony

Great review. isnt it neat? In peak and if im in the area and a mate drops in, its going to be a suginohara/nozawa coin toss every time. Had both season passes and honest to god, to this day, still couldnt decide which one i actually love the most. Possibly nozzie because as you rightly scored it, the lift system needs a bit of a rethink/return to former glory.

1. Why does ippy love it? - dude, the trees are amazing fun! So yep yep. Brilliant ride. 2. Why are there crowds? - probably the black box i reckons. Its maybe finally paying off. Every time ive been there ive had a massive room to myself. So good to see the black box works. Heres to more ski jos using it. 3. Any ropeway info/tips? - Ropeway is every 20 minutes. If youre outside the building when its due, chances are you aint getting that one up. I put it around 5 to 10 meters from the shelter part gives you a slim to middling chance of making it. If i remember as well its 8 minutes to ge

I can go old school if it saves me a few thousand bucks. I remember when i was a kid my nana told me how they used to get their teeth taken out as an 18th birthday present because if they didnt theyd end up in agony and no money for the dentist. Im sure she was mocking my childlike innocence. Still, i reckon a bottle of gin, and me and the old ways are fine.

Then id need rice I aint gots no rice. Maybe i should make some pasta soup. Wrangled a second day off which is of course fantastic because im still not sure about the lesson plan im going to teach them (and should have been teaching them today and tomorrow). So coming up roses ass ever

asked about the general cost on uninsured surgery for appendix. She told me around a couple of thousand, so not too bad

I just spent a farcical 40 minutes sat in a restaurant waiting for my food (while im watching plates wing past me to every other table). All i wanted was rice soup. On Doctors orders (and in this case, recommendation for the restaurant) it has to be nice and bland. Anyways, shown to my table, told the lady i wanted rice soup, pointed to the picture. Closed said book, she headed off. Thirty minutes later i see two of the waitresses harassing one of the girls (who clearly speaks the most english) to come and ask me why the hell im sat in their restaurant. After 5 minutes of trying to explain t

pics pics pics. Make it nasty and ethereal

Just had an hilariously bad day yesterday. Nothing dramatic or anything, but just several little niggles. 1. My bike blew up beyond repair. Nothing happened at all. Just the back axle broke for no reason. The people at the shop took one look at the wheel spinning and said "sorry dude, we cant fix that". 2. Due to said bike blow up, I left my wallet at my apartment whilst taxiing to work, resulting in not one, but three journeys (there, back and there again). 3. Found out that you cant exchange more than 500 US at the bank without a bunch of docs that employers seemed... reluctant.. to pr

another season... another mick rich attempt to make us all believe he HONESTLY has any intention at all to ride granview (and gasan)... .

nyuk nyuk nyuk On topic: about 40ish, maybe a little more. Im a touch typer though so its not like im cruise control here.

Woohoo! first weekend thread ive seen all season. I dunno, youre all slacking!

I mentioned this a couple of seasons ago. Stayed at the really nice little hostel (cheap - but fully english speaking), a little near the bottom of the area run by the ex-forest-ranger or something of the mountain. He told me, and this was weird, that prince hotels were looking to get rid of it, and they were doing it by er, cutting down on the lifts to make it more attractive or something. I dunno. Also, thank god, i ha a look at the map and realised it wasnt my favorite line there (champion a). Im trying to recall what that means now... i guess top to the lift on champion A isnt so bad,

Also mad jelly on this! Grats though. Dont waste your time doing the top to bottom until your penultimate run. If the taps are on just keeping lapping the mitahara lift (actually since they shut the top lift off almost every time ive been there and closed the best lift from the bottom to the middle i guess it is THE (as in the one and only) mitahara lift). Its nice and nippy, gets you a decent way up the mountain. If by a miracle the top is running, obviously, top to middle in the trees then Also dont think like i once did that there was a way to maybe go from mitahara side to the main s

Sugi is my absolute favourite (evah!!!), but only in peak. After peak sugi is a crap hole. Which is actually what swung the decision to pick up the nozzie season pass last season. Its sorta flat, which is the big complaint against it, and gets sticky late season quickly, but its beautiful to ride on, has powder out the whazoo, has LOADS of little spots to hit up and has "japans longest piste ride!" It also has fun hiking ive been reliably informed (no off piste above the lifts for me). Its sort of like Kagura now i think about it. Only with more restaurants, a more bubbly park rat atmosphere,

Its epic in a drop. Stay mitahara side. Actually dont, but the lift there is pretty nippy and it beats the mad gondy queues if its busy. If its not weekender though, then the whole place is LITERALLY yours.

Id stop mentioning it. Id just start a free lift ticket blacklist and post it on forums with a name of the resort next to them and barring them from entry to new giveaways until they meet the newer more strict conditions (id up the review word count and id also have my little red pen to wipe away the Dickensian traits out there). But then im cheeky and i like scandal I also like offering people a chance for redemption because i am an angel sent from heaven!

its WORTH IT!!! (even though i hated it enough to pitch one of my only two strops on a ski resort - get your gondie ticket early at the bottom or avoid it altogether - second fit was pitched by the way, fact fans, in escal plaza at the start of the season when they wouldnt let me put a binding box on the top of the lockers. I clearly wanted to take the damn thing home with me but the jobsworth at the salomon counter wasnt standing for it. I could have just put it in a locker and not paid, but brain wasnt firing and i was really stressed by the fact we got there around 2.30 and the lifts were

--- Zao (few) How is this unclaimed????!?! anyone in this area not taking a freebie for zao at the THIRD asking is now officially blowing my damn mind!

If theres no fresh snow its probably going to suck. But my advice is 1. Make sure you get off at the gondola station. You wont think its the gondola station. Youll probably just think its some kind of lift set up for a run that comes away from the main zone. But unfrotunately youd be wrong. Its possibly the ugliest, shittiest looking base area of all the places ive ridden. 2. Enjoy the off piste but BEFORE you go cruising under the ropes on skiers left on mitahara, i would STRONGLY URGE you at least take one lift up from the middle so you can scope out that MASSIVE cliff drop and not acci

Thats not a park board!!!! Or maybe it is! lets breaking the mold! (metaphorically).

of course i miss japan... in winter... when it snows... when i live next to the mountains and can go riding every chance i get. Who wouldnt? I also miss the 13-18 teaching hours where all i ever really had to do was sit around for half the lesson then produce an activity/game for the grammar point, then go back to surfing the net. I dont miss the shit (comparative) pay though or the... um... sorry japan... moody arrogant students.

youre probably right not to. Its good, but its not like im going to be rewatching it any time soon (or ever).