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SerreChe

SnowJapan Member
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Posts posted by SerreChe

  1. The whole of Japan has a maritime snowpack. I have always been surprised that the snow in some places is advertised as "champagne". It can get extremely light at times similar to continental areas, but it is not the norm. Maritime snowpacks tend to be more stable than continental packs such as in the rockies. The shear depth of snow helps with regards to temperature gradient except early on in the season, but as mentionned earlier the high variability of weather can make it very tricky as well. Mr. Wiggles is the pro on all this so may be able to add.

     

    A season in heliskiing in the stoke must quite the experience GN.

  2. Hi Tsonda,

     

    plans are to ride early, away from resorts often, use splits, take the 2nd part of the avie class, and practice some rescue techniques. This should keep me busy. :-) To be honest given the current market turmoil, I have not been thinking much in terms fo planning. The good thing about being busy is that winter is here before you know it.

  3. evilgrin

    anybody got a can of worms opener?

     

    Not ur fault grrrl, but the Niseko/Hakuba comparison has a long history on these forums.

     

    Given what I have read from u, sounds like H may suit ur style more than N (except for the night life). Loads of reviews/pics of both on here for you to make a decision.

     

    Whichever u choose, good luck n have fun n Tsonda is right re the Avie gear.

  4. Thanks SG, this is where I had been looking for to come up with the 2 suggestions.

     

    Cheers for the link slow. Some of them look kind of similar, but not really the same. I cannot find anywhere that rectangular bright yellow spot on the head anywhere.

     

    CB, the one I saw was around 20-30cm and very thin.

     

    Glad my wife was not around or she would have freaked.

  5. NPM, I saw it in Tanzawa when I went fly-fishing.

    Not much plans for the summer I must say.

    I'll try to go to Yuzawa a few times to hike a little bit and practice with some of the climbing gear I got.

     

    Tsonda, no worries. I used to boogy-board a little but have never really tried surfing. I do windsurfing mostly, especially when I am in hawaii which has some great conditions. A friend of mine who goes to hawaii surfing all the time has asked me to join him and his friend one of these week-ends in Chiba I think he said... I am thinking about it.

  6. Quick question if we happen to have an herpetologue on the SJ forums:

     

    While walking near a river, I have come across a snake:

     

    brownish color (aren't they all smile ), but the striking feature was an extremely bright yellow patch on top of a a triangular-shaped head (again, pretty standard). It was a juvenile. I have done a bit of looking on google but cannot find pictures that match exactly what I saw. I assume it is either a Chinese Keeled ratsnake (Chugoku-Syuda) or a Yonaguni keeled ratsnake (Yonaguni-Syuda). I saw it by a small pool of water full of tadpoles. I assume it is feeding off the tadpoles which are plentiful and must be a great food source.

     

    I tried to take a picture, but it slithered away under a rotten tree trunk before I could take any decent shot, and I was not going to lift the trunk just to take a picture of the little bugger and disturb its habitat.

     

    Anyway, if anybody knows exactly what specy has that bright yellow patch on its head as juvenile, that would help my curiosity.

     

    Thanks.

  7. Gosh Mamabear, this is just plain shocking and wrong.

    How low can they go ??? Attack a 10 yr old and then have a go at mum!

    I can't believe the number of bad incidents that happened to you over there and how you always manage to stay positive!

    I almost get the feeling that this type of incident is considered as banal given the people you end-up interacting with.

    I wish you could have gone to the local police box (wake-up the Gaijin working who is apparently bored cos nothing happens) and file a complaint for assault against this knob.

    Sadly the revival of this discussion has just made me push back my visit of N another 10 years, which means I will be 120 years old now by the time I make it there.

  8. I guess a lot of it is a matter of perception, which itself depends a lot on your background or culture.

     

    I do notice that quite a few anglo-saxon countries seem to have a culture of binge drinking. Not everybody reacts the same way when drunk, but the more drunks you have the more likely you are to have problems.

     

    It seems that in Australia, in order to be respected you either have to be really good at some kind of sport or be able to absorb vast quantities of alcohol (or both). This is obviously a over-generalization that is not always true but this is what people who live there have told me.

     

    I have had some non-australian friends go to Niseko this year and tell me it was great. They were mostly interested in the skiing and not the drinking. They said they went to bars but that they full of australians and that not many locals ended going either as they seemed to be a bit uncomfortable. They eventually gave-up going.

     

    I think if you are australian and want to bring along with you a piece of your favorite Melbourne pub with you while on ski vaca, then you will enjoy Niseko. As others said, for a cultural experience you may want to have to look somewhere else.

     

    I have had australian friends (who live in Tokyo) go to Niseko this season. They told me that the place was "full of dumb obnoxious oz knuckle draggers and red necks and that it was really shocking and painful" for them to put up with it. So they basically told me that they would never be going there again unless it changes a lot despite the good snow.

     

    Whether you like it or not, the number of problems in Niseko and Hakuba have sky-rocketed with the arrival of an ever-increasing number of australians and other foreigners. A lot of these problems have been swept under the carpet and never made it onto these forums which is a good thing as they tend to also tarnish the names of hard-working foreigners based in these places who end-up being collateral damage from a reputation standpoint. They usually involve assault or theft. I will stand by this despite what I have read about the foreigner working in the Koban in Niseko who seems to be bored.

     

    Unfortunately, in the case of foreigners heading to N & H, it seems that some countries seem to have a lot more than 1% or hoons/morons over there. They are still a minority making all the others look like s**t, but that's reality.

     

    Anyway, this has been debated to death already I guess, so not much new material here, but at least one should know what to expect before going to these places. As Al said, you can quickly notice which ones are out of control and hopefully you can avoid them unless as in the case of Mamabear you end-up being wiped-out by one of them from behind. It is clear that these people are a pain for all to put-up with, not just the locals.

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