badmigraine

That sounds great! I was at Lake Louise in '98 and found a tree run kind of like what BigKahuna describes... It was a narrow, slightly concave course (about 2-3 meters across) that snaked endlessly through the pine glades on either side of a frightfully steep, bumpy pitch. At times it split into two or more branches that connected and reconnected at various points. There were small kickers, hummockss and duck-in curls around trees or big rocks, and all of the turns were banked quite high. The hairpin turns were banked almost as high as halfpipe walls, and if you came aroun

I wanted Uemura Aiko to medal. She is just so cute! Wish I could console her with a plate of my famous "rigatoni alla puttanesca", a hitherto-unknown but spectacular Cab Sauv from Chile, and for dessert a shot of espresso over vanilla Haagen-Dagz. I'm sure those tired legs of hers could do with some personal attention and a hot-oil massage.

It's a comedy about a group of friends who snowboard. I haven't yet heard whether the comedy is any good, but the boarding is supposed to be authentic and fun to watch. You can check out the trailer by going to www.apple.com, clicking on "QuickTime" then "Movie Trailers". If you don't have broadband, then go to one of the broadband cafes, treat yourself to a big steaming double mocha, and commence to a-watchin.

Oh, forgot to mention: I put Palmer PowerLinks under the bindings of both those boards, and it's like riding on a Jack the Ripper board... Those things WORK!! Edges bite and gnash and snarl...don't even need to sharpen them anymore. Who could ask for anything more, except another flask of cherry schnapps. Picked up a half-liter unbreakable Lexan flask at Hands and am thinking a bit of red wine on the lifts might be rather civilized.

Regular stance...30 degrees front, 21 in back. I've got a surfy Burton Supermodel (163cm) for that pow-pow, and a Salomon 555 (156cm) for slashing up everything else!

That's great news, Jinja! Maybe the Prince is wising up. Thanks for the update. How do you like the hills at Furano? They had a world cup downhill course or something that was interesting, as I recall.

What about the alpine boarders...the racers I mean? This is just the halfpipe crew! In the future, I expect snowboard moguls, nordic-style snowboard, snowboard jumping and even snowboard biathlon will be included.

Thanks, someone who knows... I'd already booked in at Hirafu Chalet and your assessment of it is spot on, a great place for those who want to ride the mountain early and hard. FYI, when I was there last year we also willingly separated our burnable and non-burnable garbage...and when somebody made too much noise after hours, a grumpy sleepy person who was aiming to get up early for first tracks would sometimes pop down and ask us to keep it down a bit. What you wrote about Snowave is intriguing indeed. It sounds all good to me in terms of Action. Maybe Mogski and I will colla

Wish I could say I've had personal experience with Olympic athletes, but I haven't...yet!! But over the last 20+ years of being a sports fan, I have seen about a dozen general references by Olympians in interviews to the casual sex that goes on in the Olympic Villages. Think about it. These are fit young healthy competitive people, thrown together in a great international sporting event, an electric environment, with all the stress and tension of years of preparation leading up to their events, and then several days of relaxing and celebrating the aftermath... They are ofte

I've stayed at two different Prince hotels in Hokkaido: the one in Furano, and one at Niseko (the Higashiyama Prince Hotel, which is listed in SJG's accomodations section). The one in Furano, though much more modern, bright, clean and, well, great-looking, was run in a manner reminiscent of the one at Naeba, which I described in my earlier post. The one in Niseko was great, and I highly recommend it, if you have the money. Read on. I am much chastened by the realization that a Dick Shagwell-type post can do a lot of damage, so here are some details. FURANO PRINCE HOTEL I

I've a mind to lay in a supply of my favorite beers, instead of paying a prince's ransom for them one by one at various fine establishments around town and on the mountaintops. Short of installing a tap for draft Kilkenney, lately I have been craving Red Hook Ale, Sam Adams...or maybe even "Brooklyn Lager" would scratch the itch. This Red Hook Ale, which I never drank in the US but have enjoyed over here, is a fine little brew good enough for daily swilling and also functions as a pleasant conversation starter (as in "Hey, bartender, give me another one"). I feel it must be ava

That sure would explain why most of the runs and the general mindset seems to cater mostly to the level of the typical family or OL. There are places and there are places. You don't find a lot of these dabblers at, say, Niseko or Hakkouda, from the sound of it. I suppose the demographic would show that these families, OLs and couple-type day trippers or weekenders may be the cornerstone of the snowsport market here in Japan.

I guess I forgot to mention it but it came to me last night as I lay in bed. The Olympic Village is a hotbed of sexual activity. It could be the hormone treatments given to female swimmers and weightlifters, or it could be the gooey warm tension of being among all those finely-tuned bodies and having little dorm rooms like back in school days... I for one would love to be the drooling, submissive toy of certain female speed or ice skaters (what overwhelmingly awesome thighs and buttocks! And those skintight catsuits..!), massaging their poor tired legs and posteriors in the name

I don't know whether the last group is the smallest, as I think I see more of them on the slopes than I do OLs, but that last group is most certainly the group with the least amount of cash. OLs are usually rolling in spendable money, and might go on those expensive Prince package tours, as would the young couples. The families probably go to the big resorts, but stay in cheaper accommodations. The young dude set often drives up in the middle of the night, sleeps in the car or a free tako-beya in the lodge, then eats cup ramen and boards all day without dropping much cash in th

Thank you Sir, may I please have another! [whack!] Thank you Sir, may I please have another! [whack] Thank you Sir, may I please... etc. etc. From a movie, but reminds me of the good times when I was dating this Colombian-Japanese dominatrix in L.A. What on earth am I doing over here?

A patroller at Kiroro once told me not to ride in a roped-off area under a lift. When I asked why, he said "it's dangerous because of the lift poles..." All around us were other lifts with poles aplenty and no roped-off areas around them. Some small stands of trees to, not roped off. I guess maybe they just ran out of rope.

I grok all these comments about the Olympics. Myself, I have mixed feelings. I always want the Olympics to be something they never end up being. On the one hand, I love sports and I love watching sports and I love a chance to see top-level international competition in sports you never get to see on TV otherwise--biathlon (Guns! Skis!), fencing, table-tennis, etc. On the other hand, there is the proto-fascistic element. And--because for most of us what we call "the Olympics" is not really the Olympics, it is Television Coverage of the Olympics--there is the childishly overbeari

Closing the gondolas and lower quads early on Sunday for no good reason (it had begun to snow a bit--terrible!!) had me pig-biting mad. Having closed runs such as mogul hills and boardercross courses where you actually have to pay 100 yen to ride it one time is gouging of the worst sort...what's next, 100 yen for "reserved seats" on the lift? Blank hostility and lack of facilities for day trippers...had to walk a half-mile at the end of the day, lugging giant board cases through puddles, mud and dirty slush, just to get to the bus back to Echigo Yuzawa Station...prices are high, slop

You shouldn't go under the ropes. What do you think they are put there for? And riding powder is BAD! Please be more considerate of environmental and cultural issues. We are guests in this land and we should strive to follow the rules. I know of no good powder stashes and in fact I have it on good authority that there actually AREN'T any. This year's weather was execrable...most resorts acknowledge a severe lack of accumulated snow, so you'll ruin your bases with deep scratches and core shots from all the poorly-covered rocks and roots littering these so-called powder stash

I'm not saying Japan is a dangerous country, just pointing out that it is not the perfectly safe, honest, crime-free haven many love to think it is. Aside from my personal experiences, there are so many unreported crimes here that you can't really believe the crime statistics. And, as Ocean11 correctly pointed out, what about all the white-collar crime, political corruption, yakuza/politician/bank shady activities? My company, a major Japanese manufacturer, paid off corporate racketeers for decades until it was exposed a few years back, along with dozens of other major companies

Japan a really safe place? Dream on. Read the papers...leaving aside the Big Ones like the sarin gas attack on the subway, not a day goes by here when I don't see news about stabbings, slashings, fatal- or near-fatal baseball-bat bashings of homeless people...a couple of weeks ago a bomb went off in a park trashcan, blowing the arm and leg off a bystander. I saw a pic of the aftermath, him lying in the dirt in a sea of blood with smoke coming off his charred flesh...a very safe country. Last summer there were stories every couple of days about yakuza shootings in Ginza...actua

I suppose if we broke it down by country/timezone the statistics would be less convincing, but on the assumption that most of you lot are here in Japan, it's obvious that this list is busiest during weekday working hours. You lazy slugs! Now, are we to conclude that the majority of posters is UNEMPLOYED, or gainfully employed but SLACKING OFF? Which one are YOU?

I guess nobody else is reading this thread or else we drove them away through sheer boredom. I was waiting for someone to point out that train-riding oyaji also invented the tail grab, the front lipslide, edge grind, boneout, and the art of discreetly filming objects above the lens of the camera without disturbing the subject. Now that I have done that, and there is no steam left in this thread, I am going back to that old beer thread to read the names of all those great brews and think about what is going to start up less than 2 hours from now... Beer and brontosaurus burgers!

Do you mean the stalefish grab?

Mogski, the "frontside grab" was invented near Tokyo, Japan and was first practised by Japanese salarymen riding the Inokashira-sen with schoolgirls out of Shibuya.