SnowJapan#Andrew

Yes, I would add that. I remember making the first posts on the Forums a long time ago. That seems like a lifetime ago and there are certainly a lot of Forums-related memories - some great...some not so! It's a real mix up of feelings behind this decision, but we always come back to the same answer when we have thought this all through... A real thank you to the people who have genuinely supported the Forums over the years - I don't mean by just taking part, but helping out in other ways. That has been really appreciate it and we really do hope you keep in touch. For folk like that

METAL, kind of 恥ずかしい I'm not well up on car details - actually not that interested. I just like ones that look nice and drive well. Oh yes, and good sound system is a must. I had the default speakers replaced and a subwoofer put under the drivers seat. These things are extemely important. Something to do with rear wheel drive and not being 4wd.

I did indeed... until I changed it. Was getting a bit old. That one was ok through the winter though.

Yes, it's owned by MacEarth now.

634-maru, i have a BRZ and I love it. But, it's not a snow country winter car! Thanks to a local friend, I drive a K car in the winter months while the BRZ has a long sleep in the garage. Something of a comedown, but for me it's worth it to enjoy driving the BRZ April to November. Wouldn't be driving in winter though. Do contact me if you want to know more.

We haven't decided what we're going to do with this kind of thing next season. We'll let people know around November.

There's probably various things we could do 'to (try to) make lots of money', doesn't mean that I and my colleagues wish to spend our lives doing them though. Travel agency kind of work has absolutely no appeal to me, so you won't be seeing that here any time soon.

You're right on that. But I'm pretty sure I recall him asking on the phone if I could use chopsticks and how it would be interesting to viewers if when I had lunch it was eating with them and that kind of stuff. I can well imagine they would have wanted to add in as much igirisu puppet nonsense in there as possible.

Well done Chriselle! A number of times I have been asked to do some silly tv stuff. The worst one was a Niigata local station that wanted to do a 'gambatte iru' gaikokujin piece. They explained to me that it would take half a day, they wanted to come to the office and film me talking on the phone (!), eating lunch (!!), drinking coffee, talking to unspecified locals apparently about anything, and typing on the computer keyboard (!!!). No kidding. Perhaps come into my home too. Er, no, I don't think so. Just the idea of it horrifies me!

I'm afraid that even with only the briefest of information we were told, we all had to sign complicated NDAs. They wouldn't let us out of the room otherwise.

My wife and I were at the local neighborhood annual meeting today. Part of the huge resort complex that is Mt Granview is in our neighborhood so there were a few Mt Granview related things, some of which I cannot reveal at this time (as you might expect). It was funny though, at the nomikai part at the end when the beer and sake was flowing, I overheard one of the old guys mentioning to my wife next to me how they were really surprised at the number of foreigners at Mt Granview this year. (I don't think he knew what I did or anything like that, he just came up with it).

Me too!

As seen here, I think Mick came down on that left course...

Well done guys! Looks like a fine day. I'm afraid I think lots of those buildings dotted around are unoccupied..... though I have not actually been up to that area myself. Mick will have the latest on that. Perhaps with all the redevelopment going on at Mt Granview, there may have been some changes. That run off to the left might even have been part of Mt Granview one day I think, so they are probably just in that transition redevelopment phase. It's brill living near Mt Granview though. Not too close to the bustling car parks and base plaza. It somehow feels right that the clo

Congratulations! If I had known, I'd have invited you round for cake, crisps and pop..... secret World HQ here is just over 1km from Mt Granview, I'm looking up at it's soaring peaks now actually.

Nice garden pic Mr Wiggles. Is that a Takasho marble top (iron/steel?) table I can see there on the left?

As part of our garden plan, we're having an awning put outside our to-be patio area. I have been able to find a company online offering it at 50% off the catalogue price - which is a lot of cash when it's a fairly expensive buy. One of the companies we spoke to about putting together a garden quoted me 90% of the list price. He would not move on that and wanted a chunk to install it too. I have found the quotes we got to to be unreasonably expensive, so I'm really thinking of putting things together bit by bit and organising it myself even though I have no experience. Just hate that feeli

Sure, we have only had two bills so far since we started using it. The first one was about 17000 yen and the second one around 13000 yen (less snow, and fiddled about with settings) One oddity of this system is that the thing shuts down for 1 hour every day in the afternoon. Even if it's blizzard and you want to use it, you can't. Actually there is a way to have it available 24/7 - if you have it available through the year it doesn't have this shut down period, but our winter only contract there is the one hour off. In the whirlwind of the beginning of the season, I did at one

They're quite common around here yes. Some people just have them along the front in their driveways or going round the house. Has saved a lot of work moving snow yes. Raku! Like I said though not cheap. The ido drilling, pump and associated work was around 1.5 million, and you have the electricity running costs on top of that in the winter months of course. It's there though so we now have it to use into the future. The only real downside for me is that the water coming up from the well stains the concrete mostly in the places it lands once 'sprinkled'. It's not that bad in th

They went down 52m I think with the well, and there's a a sprinkler system of tubes (set in the concrete at the front) that goes around near the base of the house, with some going up the side to the roof. A little sensor on the side of the house that looks a bit like this ...munches on the snow and tells the system when to turn on. We can either turn it on/off manually or have it turn on automatically which is what we have been using most of the time. We can adjust some settings that help it decide when to to turn on/off - things like how many snowflakes are detected

Ido (well) and pump system sprinkling water up from 50m undergrood to the roof of the house and around the sides of the house. No snow build up at all. And the way it knows when to turn on as well, it's very clever. I like that.

I haven't seen a queue like that since my first few years here 20+ years ago. How long does that take to clear from back to getting on the gondola?

DumbStick, talking about garden sheds that are strong and long lasting, especially when there's snow involved, we had a look at some of the things here on recommendation from a friend http://www.deasgarden.jp/ Nice. Expensive! Also for fences, Takasho have some interesting ideas.

Came to Japan on the JET Programme in 1992 and placed in Yuzawa. Never really thought about skiing before I came here, first ski at Mitsumata that year. Been in the area ever since.

Yes well it does snow here a fair bit of course. Though it doesn't get crazy cold and icy in Minamiuonuma as much as it does in some places - which is probably an important point. I don't know too much about cars so won't pretend to know more than that!