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Mintyjulep

SnowJapan Member
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Posts posted by Mintyjulep

  1. 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.
    lol


    Sorry, it's a bad back day - I've been taking it out on the internet in general.
  2. 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?
  3. 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 I REALLY want to go to the US and Canada.

    MB what are we to do? Are you still planning US and Euro instead of Japan next season?
  4. 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?? omg


    LOL! I love that the bell is supposed to scare the bear smile I'd rather the bear didn't know how to find lunch from a km away
  5. 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.


    Jynxx_63.JPG




    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 Germany......not 100% sure but don't think they are troubled so much with quakes


    Oh the carefree whims of those who live in tectonically stable climes.
  6. 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 to restrict oxidation etc. I know about how to put some spark back in a dying wine, blah blah blah. I've done tastings with 14 grand cru Bordeaux wines from the 70's that were all brown and watery and AMAZING, I've also done tastings where I had to taste 100 wines in a day and explain each one, and they were horrendous.

     

    After five years all up, what have I learned?

     

    * The only good wine costs an arm or a leg.

    * I don't like wine

    * I don't like people who trade in wine at all, and only some people who make it or grow grapes

    * Don't take people in wine related careers seriously, just add chilli powder to their food in ever increasing amounts until their tastebuds and nose are ruined.

    * There are no rules, there are only marketing schemes.

  7. 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 way except klondyke I think, and a couple of special organic ones.

  8. 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 wink )

     

    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 commented on pretty frequently in all of his books it seems) as so many WWII veterans still consider Japanese to be their enemy - or did he write it because he admired his captors?

  9. 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.


    Jynxx_63.JPG




    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.
  10. 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.
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