sunrise

Congratulations, Zwellie! I wanted so much to do a tour with those guys - I wanted to stay a few extra days up there after my gig finished, but it turned out to be impossible. I entered the competition but I never seem to win anything.... who else has won something? Let us all know what it's like! When are you going?

Quite a few schools passed through while I was at Rusutsu and I noticed a number were learning snowboarding, though these were all high school students.

I definitely like grains for breakfast. Love traditional Japanese breakfasts, though I prefer brown rice whenever possible. I also like millet and/or buckwheat porridge with soy milk (can't drink cow milk). In the absence of a full Japanese brekkie (which is frequent) I like to down half a grapefruit first. Anyone tried black rice (from Indonesia)? Love it. Makes a great brekkie - cook it with banana and if possible use coconut milk.

I've noticed in Japan that ham in food (such as salads and spagetti) doesn't seem to qualify as meat either. Sometimes bacon qualifies, sometimes it doesn't.

That looks so much like water skiing.... I bet even I could do that, being a water skier...

Okay, I'm not totally qualified to answer as I've never boarded, but I can tell you that after not having skied for 8 years myself, todays ski technology is way superior - now you can let the skis do most of the work, and you will find yourself able to do things you weren't able to do before as well as having more fun at it due to the new degree of ease to accomplish things that were once so much more difficult on narrow skis. And after all your years of perfecting your balance while boarding I would say for sure that your skiing would be way better than it used to be, even without the n

Hey db, do you really need your own company to do that? I'd like to try it, but probably not quite enough resources to help you buy a company.... PS - you can really get 7% thru Citibank? Wow. Maybe I'll check it out.

There used to be a building near my old place in Higashi-Kitazawa with big silver letters saying 'There's No Such Thing As A Free Goose'. We could never figure out what it was for. It was there for a couple of years. One day they must have sold out cos it was gone.

There used to be a building near my old place in Higashi-Kitazawa with big silver letters saying 'There's No Such Thing As A Free Goose'. We could never figure out what it was for. It was there for a couple of years. One day they must have sold out cos it was gone.

Quote: Originally posted by Indosnm: T also the cheapest place in japan to buy electronics is at this website Care to run that website by us again? PS - you can copy iPod to Mac, don't know about PC. Easiest to do in OSX.

I met several different groups of foreigners who liked it better than Niseko because they said it didn't get skied out as quickly. One group was even staying at Niseko but were doing day trips to Rusutsu and skiing trees all day during a Niseko dry spell. I found out later that you're not supposed to ski in the trees (except on a couple of runs).... I don't know how strict the patrol are, there were certainly lots of tracks.... Trees aside there are other good runs to be had there that don't get groomed, including a couple of 25 - 30 degree ones. Niseko definitely gets deeper (ie more)

Seijo, not a bad neck of the woods.... I used to live on the Odakyu line, closer in. I'm in Itabashi-ku. Not far enough out to enjoy the feeling of 'country' and not close enough in to be able to get anywhere as quick as I'd like. I'm often in town, though, which is probably the best place to hook up.

If you want to hook up drop a line.

Yeh, those jackets were a limited edition, probably more of a gimmic and publicity than anything else...... though I bet Steve Jobs has one.

You don't need to - you can buy them mail order over the net - try somewhere like Bic Camera or Sofmap. Failing that, I'd be willing to get one for you and send it to you COD if you trust me with the money....

Sorry for the late reply, Ender, only just saw this post. Yes, get one if you haven't already! You can play playlists, albums, etc etc.... as of yet no randomising, maybe in later update. I can't live without it cos I'm always travelling on public transport. Apart from being able to put so much music on it, sound quality is just so much better than MDs. I hardly ever use MD anymore unless I have to. I heard the battery doesn't like the cold so I don't know what it's like on the slopes, maybe battery runs down quicker? However, since Apple and Burton released a special li

I was surprised to see the thread's back myself. Ender, you must feel happy now.... Have a great weekend up there, sexer. Say hi to Carl in the piano bar if you're staying at the resort. Well, Markie, to answer your question of a few weeks ago I had a totally fantastic time. It was just so good to get back in the snow again after so long, and for a whole month at that. Actually, going anywhere away from Tokyo for a whole month is such a wonderful thing.... I hope they ask me back again next year, I think they were happy with my performances. As for the snow we did have a couple

forgot to mention it has 18 x optical zoom.....

I just got a Canon FV200 about 3 weeks ago. Works great with firewire on my Macs. I think the western-selling equivalent is ZR40 if you want one with English menus, etc. Cost about 60,000 yen, or a little over. It's the lowest end Canon mini dv, quite cheap. Reviews on the net complain that the night /low light shooting is grainy, but the little I've done of that I like - kinda gives you that 16mm / super 8 effect... doesn't bother me at all, not like I'm making feature films or pro vid productions). The outdoor shots are great. Got some excellent snow footage.

Yeh, sorry I missed you guys, too. It was starting to get windy that morn, didn't look like it was going to be an inspiring day to travel with no new snow. But I did manage to get there last Wednesday, went with one of the staff who had a car so we got there early and the snow was great that day - a nice new dump of fresh powder to be had in the morning.

At Rusutsu there are 3 mountains. On the top of Isola there is a patrol station. I didn't notice one on East Mountain (though I've seen patrol coming uphill on snowmobiles from there while passing thru) and I don't think there's one on top of West Mountain (the smaller mountain in closer range to the resort itself), though it"s possible there may have been one at the top of the West Mountain Gondola. There's a station at the bottom though.

Getting down a powder hill properly - ie - doing proper turns without my feet separating and being constantly not quite in balance and without having to stop every 3 turns. It happened just last week, yay! I'm hooked. I still have a long way to go, I lost it again on the next (last) run, but it was an amazing feeling and a great triumph for me.

I'm going to be feeling sad myself when I have to go back to Tokyo next Monday.... I've been having a wonderful time in Hokkaido myself. (I haven't written cos the mouse on the hotel's computer has been driving me crazy...)

to SF - iPod: cannot live without. Even though the one I got (bought cheap off a friend, the first 5 gig model) has a sucking battery, which doesn't last long..... Thankfully it makes travelling around with MDs a thing of the past.... I'm praying for the day they bring out one that records. Sam: I'm still waiting for my camera. A friend was trying to grab a good deal and is going to send it to me. That new OSX suite for all that stuff looks good, though I haven't migrated yet.

Well, you told us all you were writing from the lobby when you arrived, and after all you started this thread, so everything in Rusutsu is yours really.....