Davo

Interesting read. Niseko clearly has a lot of advantages for the visitor from outside of Japan not least of all the consistency and quality of powder (particularly lower down the mountain) and 'legal' access to tree skiing. Hakuba resorts have plenty of safe inbounds tree skiing areas that could be opened up and controlled effectively by resorts, but they appear to be quite uninterested in developing that opportunity. Of course the best that Hakuba has to offer is outside of the resorts themselves IMO, but that doesn't have the mass market appeal. Why can't a resort like Hakuba

I got one after a scary out-of-control cartwheeling tumble in the trees where I luckily didn't hit anything. Have appreciated it for protection ever since including another cartwheeling tumble that would have been a lot rougher without it. Better to have those scratches on my helmet than my head. They're warm, comfortable and essential for bush bashing or just regular tree riding. I have a mate who could well have died in a tumble. The tree broke his helmet and he was in bad shape but he survived. No regret from him about his lucky choice to finally get one a week or two before the accid

Post away mate. I've spent lots of time in Hakuba but only been to Nozawa once and never to Myoko. Plus I never get to go on long trips so it's interesting to hit the snow viacriously.

Oh..edirted for drunken typos BTW

Nice one Pete. Truely in the spirt of what this site should be about and I would like to big ups to the SJ team. I started posting here in 2000 (I think) and the SJ mods have handled everything with the fairness, consistency and professionalism that much of the posting didn't deserve. Never met any of you brothers and sisters but thanks for making this site what it is from when I first logged in 8 years ago This site gave me the lowdown on what I needed to know about the snowparadiso that we have here in Japan and hooked me up with some of the best people I've ever friends made. I don't

I hope so too mate, I guess your leg is all back to good now hey?

Well Mantas, I suppose I just want to see things go back to how they were. I like watching test matches and am used to things like that. As to relevance, the haka has been a fixture of interntional matches for a long time, so there is a lot of historical precedence to keep it so. I wish they'd just get on with the game as well. I think the blame for the current situation is with NZ. Overhyping things has backfired and that is too bad. Maybe they could give the ABs a choice of the haka or the national anthem.

Originally Posted By: Creek Boy More pics for us endentured servents please Just to clarify SG, that's snow rather than your smoove legs we want to see

It's all getting kind of silly. I can understand why other teams are a bit fed up with the hype of the haka performance. This stems from a combo of the throat slitting gesture (sure I know it isn't actually a representation ofthroat slitting but it certainly looks like it) and overpromotion of the haka in sport. I enjoy the haka and it makes me proud to be a NZer, so I hope it can go back to what it was. The opposition should just face the challenge, all staunch like and then proceed to beat the All Blacks in reply. If they can of course...now that (the valiant attempt only to be crushed

blue84, hard to say cos with with exchange rate fluctuations and the end of season deals that I guess could be available in OZ, it may be cheaper their. Boards and other gear usually get cheaper here after the N Year period is done around mid Jan.

This thread needs more 'snowbum'

Awesome pic dizzy, that's a heap of snow for this time year. Glad to hear the stripping gig is going to pay off for you in Dec. SG . To be honest I'm thinking of chucking in my paper round now. Snowboarding on the weekend sounds like it's a lot more fun.

good work fellas, alas like creek boy I was working today

Dools- maybe Hakuba, but the timing is a challenge for anywhere you try. Goryu resort in Hakuba has a 1000 yen a night shared room I believe and I guess you probably just turn up for that.

Dools, tough call and I don't really know much about Niseko. I can say somewhere like Wazzas is probably a good avenue to investigate-it's got to be hard to get in anywhere around that time though. Camping could be an option if you have the right gear I suppose, but that's not really feasible unless you're super keen and have done the reasearch and prep. How about considering somewhere other than Niseko?

Nice story mate, what a great mission. A mate of mine told me a similar story about snowboarding in South Africa's Drakkensburg mountains, though that's not as tropical or high up. I wonder if anyone has been skiing/boarding in Irian Jaya.

Welcome Josh. As skidaisuki said Hakuba is what you're looking for. You'll be in heaven, it's a sweet place to be a bum. You might even be able to get a bit of discount on your rent if you clear snow or whatever around where you're staying.

No doubt the parents are ultimately to blame for this. Might be a good idea to not take calls from them in the future after hours-just say you're busy and will get back to them the next day. Might give them pause to think about someone other than themselves, after all you're not public property mate. I'm off to bed to dream about working at a slut school-for girls aged 18 and over of course. Hmmm,OK...25 and over is probably more apporiate for me I suppose.

Can you be a human and be green? Possible but a challenging proposition for a regular person like myself. I try to balance inputs and outputs but basically I am drain on the resources and ecological well-being of the planet. It's something I'd like to work towards changing and I guess the ungreeness of snowboarding can be compensated for by harm minimisation in other areas. Having just eaten sausages for dinner, I'm not doing very well for today. I do however live in a small house and catch the train to work so it aint all bad.

Not such a bad thing mate, you're too young for semi-retirement anyway. They sell rolling pins in Australia too? If I'd known that I could have asked Ms. Davo to leave her one at home when we went on holiday there this July. Lugged the damn thing all the way there and back only to get several beatings for my trouble

Yeah Soubs has it right. Deal with the worst to start with. Also make sure you can manage the right sort of time periods when you can work with out disturbance and clear some decks. Unfortunately, going into the office on Saturday is often the best way to get this sort of peace.

I'm pretty sure those monkeys are big farters as well-Death to them all! The problem with this methane stink up (aside from the fact that it's going to wipe out civilisation) is that news like this makes people think "Well...WTF, nothing we can do about it anyway so may as well carry on as usual". Then again, that's pretty much what people ahve been doing anyway. Ohh, the pessimism!

Anyway, back to my alcohol issues. Beers on the weekend? Nevermind the hikikomori BP. I want to know how life is for NEET/Freeters like yourself in WA?

Sounds like the school should be providing you with more support about this. The parents in particular need to be expressing all their rediculous angst to someone at a higher level than you. I feel sorry for the girl as her parents seem to be completely unhinged from any sense of reality. If this is their approach to handling the kids schooling what other messes are they creating in their lives. Time for the school to say enough is enough because it will only ostracise the girl more and have a negative effect on the other students. Staying back a year would be the best possible thin

Pointing the finger at Japan only regarding overfishing is wrong for sure. It's a commonly held assumption though, if you surveyed people in any Western country about which countries about who was to blame for overfishing and I expect most would say Asian countries, with no knowledge of facts involved. I guess one thing soubs is that the whitey country whaling occurs off their own coasts. There is some element of anti Japanese feeling in the criticism of whaling but the Canadians or Norwegians would be getting roasted if they were doing the same thing down in Antarctica. Another poin