Mintyjulep

OMG MB are you ok?

Originally Posted By: shadowtec That and pack the abseil kit... The hotel I was staying in at Tokyo did not have a staircase.. Good call - a guy here in chch helped his workmates abseil down to a carparking building (he had to be rescued with a crane I think) because their stairwell collapsed. Lots of stairwells collapsed actually.

Originally Posted By: panhead_pete Im coming again as the odds of such a disaster happening again are the same as they were this year. Long. Come to chch (Mt Hutt/Porters/club fields) for your southern winter fix too Shake shake shake!

wow, we complain about the cost of daycare in NZ if it's over $200/week

Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads Did you get to drink a lot?! I was really good at drink driving.

Originally Posted By: BagOfCrisps Can't get over it? Sounds like a slight over-reaction there! Overwhelmed by logic, zomg

naw It's called a bachelor of viticulture and oenology - I can't hate on it 100% because I met Mr Minty through uni friends.

Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads Interesting Minty. 3 years learning to be a winemaker?! What was the course called. Seems you came out of it with a positive outlook. Sorry, it's a bad back day - I've been taking it out on the internet in general.

14-ML-21095-ML-

toilet humour in my highly intelligent thread!!!

Originally Posted By: snowbender Bears are way cool. I want to meet one where he's standing up with his hands in the air roaring. Like this As long as I had 10m on him, I'm sure I'd be fine. tell me how that goes for you rawr fierce

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver Minty, King Rat is pretty good BUT his best ones in my opinion are Shogun and Tai-Pan. I agree, though my ranking is more like Noble house - Shogun - Tai-pan haven't read whirlwind either - but judging by the number of copies available it wasn't that good. Is it about the noble house trying to cash in on arab oil during the gulf war or something?

Oh, and the mango/lychee/whatever flavour kit kat chunky bars are f-ing foul

I like the apple kit kats! soy sauce sounds yucky

Haha, we'll be stretching just to make it on one trip - fingers crossed I get a new job soon as my mall fell down. But, if we won lotto Mr Minty and I would spend a few weeks in the USA/Canada, and the rest of northern winter in Japan! The yen is pretty stable against the NZD, but the USD is generally in decline against NZD...

Originally Posted By: Mamabear Welcome Gedem, It is well worth the trip. And if others do stay away you might have freshies all to yourself. this is my dilemma now - next season in Japan could be the one time we got Noz to ourselves, minus all the annoying families who thinking that yelling crosses language barriers "I JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU... THANK YOU... THANK FOR HOT CHOCOLATE" manager comes out, waitress looks ready to cry "THANK YOU FOR GIVING SON - points furiously at her son - A FREE HOT CHOCOLATE" cue manager looking angry and giving her some in Japanese, brilliant. But

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver I often wonder about this. A couple of years ago I was hiking with my girlfriend around the Oze Marsh area in Niigata and asked her why everyone had annoying little bells on their bags, "Oh they're to warn bears away" BEARS!!?? Nobody told me of any bloody bears that might be in the area and where the hell was OUR bell?? LOL! I love that the bell is supposed to scare the bear I'd rather the bear didn't know how to find lunch from a km away

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver Originally Posted By: MintyNZ Originally Posted By: Jynxx This is how I do it now. Fresh wax goes on at the beginning of the season, not at the end. If I were in Japan and humidity is the problem, then I´d have my gear indoors where there´s Air-Con. OMG that's just waiting for an earthquake! That photo actually made me anxious. Currently our stuff is leaning against a wall, we're waiting on EQC stuff before we can empty the garage and set up a little table for servicing our gear and brackets for storing it. he lives in

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver yeah......sure they will! I do hope so. Potential problem here being that I'm actually very messy myself.

Gah, I spent years at uni (3 to be precise) learning to be a winemaker. It is such a snobby shit-house profession that is incredibly underpaid, and you are criticised constantly by the head winemakers who are scared of losing their jobs to the younger crowd - which my old boss should have as he had become desensitised to sulphur and was adding far too much, and he couldn't pick up brett character so we had bacteria ridden barrels and tanks. I can tell the different between good wines and bad, I have done blind tests and all that, I know all about vineyard to winery - harvesting at night t

I LOVED milk in Japan - it tasted so real Here in NZ (and we're something like the worlds largest dairy exporting nation, we produce a third of the worlds dairy exports) they take ALL of the milk to the fonterra factory, and then they removed the solids from the water. Then they separate the solids into different kinds of solids - fat and milk (they can break the milk solids down more, and do so for lots of different things) Then they add a certain percentage of milk solids and fat back, plus other things depending on the type of milk All milk sold in NZ is made in this wa

I'm reading Gaijan now by James Clavell - quite enjoying it. Some characters have just died! I lost my first copy in the Feb 22nd quake - some builder at the hospital has it now, along with my two favourite national geographics! but mum bought me a new copy, yay, along with a copy of his childrens book (I know, wtf) called Thrump-o-moto! (He's a wizard ) I've been thinking - so Clavell was held in Changi (his book king rat is based on his experiences I believe, haven't read that one yet) So do you think he wrote his Asian saga because he desired to know his enemy (something comment

His mother The wonderful Mr Minty would be faultless if his mother hadn't cleaned up everything after him (and his brother and father!!) for his entire life - he neglects dishes, washing, vaccuming, cleaning the toilet, gardening. Our possible future male children will be taught to do everything from a very early age - their mother is a feminist!

Originally Posted By: Jynxx This is how I do it now. Fresh wax goes on at the beginning of the season, not at the end. If I were in Japan and humidity is the problem, then I´d have my gear indoors where there´s Air-Con. OMG that's just waiting for an earthquake! That photo actually made me anxious. Currently our stuff is leaning against a wall, we're waiting on EQC stuff before we can empty the garage and set up a little table for servicing our gear and brackets for storing it.

Originally Posted By: 2pints,mate I always wanted to see a bear but I heard they be sleeping in winter. Are the bears often spotted out on the mountains in autumn? Renee from Lodge Nagano was telling me that she took some clients out trekking in the snow (wearing snow shoes I guess?) They were walking in the ski field area, but a quieter part. There was something to do with a bear, but I can't remember if they saw it, or only saw it's footprints - it was very early spring at the time.