s3phis

we get some new demo skis every year from suppliers (usually Salomon, Ogasaka, Rossignol and Head... sometimes get some from Elan too) usually around mid March. They're all the stock for the next season and we rent them out for JPY 2,000 for half day and JPY 3,000 for a full day. At the end of the season, we usually just sell them off. The ones we receive early are used about times where as the later ones only see about 10 uses. I know some of the good rental stores sell their stock off after 2 seasons because they keep getting new stock (largely because the Japanese 'hardcore' skiers re

Originally Posted By: SKI Ryoma - how often do they have ski examinations days? By that do you mean the badge test things? The tests are done every Sunday; Technical/Crown tests are done on specific days though. Tests are the level exams for skis that's organised by the Ski Association of Japan (SAJ). The levels are done the same as a lot of the martial arts schools (where you have 'kyu' ranks with 1 being the highest). Technical and Crown levels are the levels above the standard levels. Basically, it's just a technical ski examination where you have to demonstrate GS/SL turns

it's currently lightly snowing at the moment; the snow conditions is wet slush but the top part somewhat froze. It's not too bad if you know where to ski and where to avoid but on the whole, it's pretty tiresome. Yesterday's snow had a lot of dirt mixed into it; it basically stuck onto the skis and slowed things down heaps but things are better today. I'd recommend doing thorough cleaning of the skis before waxing... though the merits of waxing in these conditions are debatable. Wet snow itself isn't too bad, it's when the new powder mixes with the wet and then freezes over that it gets

Originally Posted By: thursday Ryoma, you should just take no days off. Please for the sake of us punters. lol, I'm not allowed to take days off on the ski examination days, days that there are competitions... just tell me when you're planning on skiing in Nagano . *edit* it was a total white out and rainy yesterday too

On my days off, I basically choose when to do what early in the month. If it ends up being rainy on my day I choose to ski, I still go... if it ends up being a perfect day when I decide to do something else, I still go ahead with that plan. The main reason why is that, every time I decide to ski, it ends up being a blizzard/white-out/rainy day anyway. My days off are posted on the bulletin board and headlined as "Weather Forecast". Yeah... it's *that* bad. Back at the start of this season, we had basically no snow at Noz. I had a day off on the 18th, and the ski fields became skiable over nigh

I got lazy and haven't really read the thread... but Japanese property market is usually fairly low key because of its taxation. The capital gain from property is taxed quite heavily in Japan (to the point that most people cannot afford to buy property of the same level after they sell their old property). The only real investment you can do, in my opinion, is long term development etc. The domestic market is also really conservative in regards to property/housing (just to name a few). I'm curious to see how Niseko pans out; personally, I wouldn't mind building a chalet somewhere.

I'm sure they existed 20 years ago

man... 5 days for customer service. That'd be nice I used to get stuff thrown at me if I didn't pick up the phone within the first ring tone. We basically have to respond within 12 hours unless we're waiting for a 3rd party to respond to us.

Originally Posted By: quattro Do the resorts need to be responsible for what goes on off piste. I know of many resorts that have signs up "leaving resort property ski at you own risk". At that point it should be up to me if I want to ski their or not. To a degree, yes. From a business point of view, it'd be bad PR to just say "well, he went out of our patrolled area so we won't be rescuing or even searching for him"... and as a person, I think that's even worse to consider. A rescue effort requires a huge amount people and hours. If you look at it from a local perspective, it's lik

Originally Posted By: brit-gob Quote: More Japanese resorts need to realise people want to ski off-piste and they need to manage areas beyond the piste to get them open. I think many do realise that some people want to ski off-piste. But they decide that the cost involved is not worth it. Not somewhere like Niseko or the big major names, but lots of smaller places. Basically; if there was going to be enough money to make a profit out of it, then they would do it. However, there needs to be a much much bigger demand. A dozen people every week wanting to go off-piste isn't reall

Originally Posted By: ILoveZao So much is also going to depend on the management at a particular resort. Look at for example Prince. They run the Kagura resort in Niigata and they are quite relaxed in the way they let people "off course". Big contrast with some other Prince resorts I can think of. The reason? Perhaps simply because the guy in charge there likes to go himself. Not sure if that is 100% true, but I have heard it from a few people I trust on such matters. It's not just that; some places are more prone to avalanches than others. The places that are strict ab

Difference between Chinese and Japanese is similar to English and French. It's possible to grasp the general meaning in the written language but it's bothersome. While it's more considerate to write signs in Chinese, I haven't really met any non-Japanese guests who don't speak even a little English. I think English is a convenient middle ground.

For Golden Week, we close the bottom half of the ski resort at Nozawa. Basically, if you look on the map, you can only really ski from Uenotaira up to Yamabiko. I'm not really sure how much of the other resorts is skiable during that time so I can't really make comparisons. Again, this all depends on whether there's enough snow or not but it's usually a safe bet.

wow, why didn't we think of that earlier? >_>; *edit* On the other hand, the ones we have here are starting to give out and they're expensive to replace .

there are specific radio frequency allocations for each country, I can't really remember what Japan's frequency tables were but it's technically illegal to have any wireless device that operates outside allocated frequencies. Main reason is that it may interfere with various stations etc. It's possible to buy international UHF-CB radios but you have to make sure they're fine to use within Japan. Easiest option would be to just buy a set in Japan. Every now and then, there are people using foreign radios operating outside the bandwidths but they're legally liable for any damage and interfe

Yeah, they built infrastructure without really considering the future. So now the running costs are outweighing the number of people using the lifts. To put it bluntly, the Japanese are pretty bad at thinking ahead despite their own philosophies and ideals. They should have planned for a large resort from the beginning and then split the development into phases so that, should things go bad, they wouldn't have to complete development while having a fully functional resort. To break it down, it was like: - Okay, we're building a new lift from here to here and clearing these trees. - Let's c

Yes but it's still got more of a skier image. One piece of interesting trivia: we're finally getting more snowboard students than ski students... but we have a lot of maniac skiers. We've got really good technical snowboarders as well as people who are good at freestyle. Noz was, however, one of the last resorts to allow snowboarders. Even Kandhar was only officially open to snowboarders two years ago.

Originally Posted By: thursday Great stuff. That sounds very local community. Live long and prosper. And it gets worse... the uniform is all black with a white and gold logo on the back. At competitions, everyone's wearing their club uniforms and it's usually really bright racing colours... and then you see this huge alpine guys head to toe in full black gear. Everyone's pretty reserved around our guys ... but at least it's easy to pick out where your coach is XD.

Originally Posted By: Metabo Oyaji Originally Posted By: SKI Extending a ski lift might sound 'simple' in theory, but is it in practice? How about laying down one of those chibikko gelaende conveyor belts leading to the problem lift? Should a lot cheaper than moving the chair lift station. Both are pretty expensive. Largely because you're building infrastructure in an area prone to heaps of snow. If you're looking at lifts, you need to firstly remove the first station, build a new foundation and then move the station while replacing the entire cable and probably add more chairs

The Nozawa Onsen Ski Club is, well, the club that manages the alpine/jump events etc. It's also the main body of the Nozawa Onsen Ski School. The ski resort is run by a publicly listed Nozawa Onsen Ski Resort. The ski school is a sub division of the company but the club that runs the ski school is not. The school and resort employs people from outside but the club itself is comprised of local (ex)athletes. Responsibility boundaries for the resort is very blurred. I work for the school and do volunteer work for the club. The general objective for the ski club is to support professional sk

Originally Posted By: Go Native Originally Posted By: Jynxx In Japan. You are White and you are going to stick out like I did. But.. You don't speak Japanese - strike one You are not married to a Japanese - strike two Don't have permanent residency and lived there for under 10 years? So only if we speak the language, are married to a Japanese and at least have permanent residency can we be considered a local. Thanks for clearing that up Jynxx Mmmm... In Nozawa Onsen, you're not *really* a local until about 3rd generation. Like, the people here are friendly and everyth

Originally Posted By: spook that's an interesting point about the quality of the grooming ryoma.　at a bunch of different japanese resorts i've ridden, the grooming has been shoddy. you don't really expect 4inch ridges to be left in the middle of runs Yeah, start of the season, we had some green groomers and it was pretty rough. It wasn't a huge issue on the green runs, but the 'intermediate' runs here can be suprisingly steep... and when the grooming is bad, it's really not cool. An example of grooming is the Kandarhar course at Nozawa Onsen. As our competition course, we *have* to

Originally Posted By: I'm Sexy 7-10 fold meaning 700%? Yes. Basically, back then, when you looked at the slopes, you could barely see any white... and it wasn't for the lack of snow either.

Originally Posted By: tripler Originally Posted By: Ryoma Nozawa's still pretty lucky. We've changed from magnetic chips to paper tickets Why did you change to paper tickets? Are plastic tokens more expensive even after you've made the initial investment? The running costs are more expensive but not by a huge margin. The biggest costs with the chips is that those chips don't last forever. They have a 5-10 year span, depending on how they're used. If you bash them around too much, they become unusable. We got to the point where we were looking to have to replace the old chips and tha

There's a big sports store at the Nishi-Shinsaibashi area of dotonbori. They had a large selection of boards from what I remember but I don't really remember how they compared in price. (Also don't remember the name, sorry ._.) It's basically on the Dotonbori Mido-Suji bridge. Unfortunately, I bascially only know ski shops but best of luck!