SnowJapan#Andrew

Even if this turns out to be the peak for the box, it's quite impressive I think. This morning there were about 10 guys moving snow from the other side of the road, so I think it's a co-ordinated effort to clear things up. I'll mention it to the town office guy next time I'm there, perhaps they don't realise it's iconic status.

The cheek! (26x2)-11.

Thank you 26 I think, rach.

Thanks, difficult to take bad pics at the moment it's going crazy. The car, perhaps it's not the best fit for snow country, but I like it.

thursday, it's a celica

And here's the box at 5pm today, I was on nighta phone box photo taking duty and getting some strange looks along the way

This area is usually flat

The car at 3:30 today. This morning at 9am there was no snow on there Do I win a prize?

How does this fit, Mr Wiggles

Can't you see it Rob, look over there, next to the yellow house. Yes I prefer that area as well though haven't been to Joetsu Kokusai for a while.

You can see my house on there, centre background. Wish I was up there muikabochi better than sat in front of a computer. Was it busy?

If that is the one you are referring to, here it is. It is of Joetsu Kokusai in Minamiuonuma (Niigata) - a photo they used for promotional material for a few years.

I'm really doubting (a lot) that it was me who took this most beautiful picture you have ever seen!

Originally Posted By: gareth_oau any suggestions why the snow doesnt stay on the station roof? its almost like its heated, or at least the ceilings inside arent insulated The roof of that walkway just outside the station has a water sprinkling pipe setup, you can see it at top of this photo:

We're glad that so many people will be able to check out these places. I think this season we have over 250 lift tickets to send out as well as the other accommodation giveaways, and we've tried to get quite a few from places we haven't featured before and are perhaps currently less well-known as well as the bigger places. Anyway hope you enjoy it. Of course our grateful thanks to all of the resorts and companies who trust us in what we do, take part and provide the wonderful prizes themselves.

When I went to Gala ages ago thats where I was most of the time. It's the most challenging area of the resort and often lots of ungroomed fairly steep areas to play in. It will be good to see it back open.

Hi muikabochi, excellent photos again. I believe they test the ropeway fairly often to keep it going. If all goes to plan, it will be operating as it should be next season when that south area opens up again. That will be big news for Gala, that south area was a lot of fun.

Yesterday Here's the same place this morning. Not mad yet but getting there.

The report is in the office and I'm not back there until maybe Tuesday but we got this huge report full of literally thousands of comments from tourists regarding what they found inconvenient etc. Transportation and signs was a big one. I'll try to post some more of that info next week.

Not too exciting yet but this was close to where I live in Minamiuonuma just before Hopefully that will have changed a lot in the next 48 hours. I'll try to post evidence later.

Certainly not dismissive, thursday. I would say encouraged, though how that will translate into anything I don't know. I often feel I know much more about it than the JNTO guys who are at the meeting but if that is the case then hopefully that has some use too. After all, it's not a meeting about winter sports but as you might expect thats the agenda that I try to push.

I would like to think that positive changes like that are going to be made Go Native. Getting feedback from people involved in tourism/marketing is one of the reasons they have this particular group/meeting - though I'm not sure how useful my particular input is! And pretty much all the guys there can actually speak English, even though the meeting is held in Japanese though most present are at the top of the JNTO organisation don't know that might make a difference. I presume this particular meeting is done in Japanese because some of the members can't speak English and Japanes

Sorry I forgot to post that list. Too many things to do! Here it is 1 France 2 US 3 Spain 4 China 5 UK 6 Ukraine (!) 7 Turkey 8 Germany 9 Russia 10 Mexico Meeting was actually really interesting this time, they heard a lot of comments they might not have wanted to hear to chew on. As always I kept banging on about winter sports. The party was fun too - ended up at the end just me and the top JNTO guys talking about skiing, beer, football and stuff. They have some very ambitious targets for the next 10 years but some pretty big question marks on how t