Glen Falting

Nice one Mika,

What a crock. Its times like that when a decent grasp of Japanese comes in handy. I always find it a little difficult explaining to someone why they should go F-themselves, using taxi Japanese. It inevitably results in me shouting "Baka". Ocean, mate welcome back. Its good to see you're still in fine form. It just hasn't been the same without you.

Scouser, it wasn't too bad at all. They only had a couple of single chairs reaching to about 2/3 of the main kagura run and the skiiers chopped the snow into mogals quite quickly, but it was a fun day out of Tokyo. We even hiked up to the top of the kagura quad station a couple of times and went down through the gully on the right hand side of the mountain. There was still quite a bit of snow around. What was pretty incredible was the amount of trees and bushes that were visable. Runs that during the season are clear and open had all sorts of hedge rows and bushes and stuff. A v

Not sure I agree without the positive outlook with some pretty major structural and cultural changes taking place. I don't know much about tax and economics - but is there any other country in the world that has anything like the deferred tax assets arrangements that are in place for the banks here in Japan? Maybe it is me, but I have very serious doubts about any system that allows a bank that is losing money to claim as an asset this year, the tax reductions it will enjoy in the future when it makes a profit. It seems that this (put very simply) bascially means that the bigger the

A great story there IM. A mate and I are really keen to give it a go next year. Going into the crater would be a awesome. Does anyone know if it is possible to ski fuji in autumn? I mean is there enough snow on the mountain in say, Oct, to do the same thing before the conditions get too bad?

Kintaro, Quite right, "seppo" is a term mainly used by tossers and rarely if ever used in polite company. Although I expect you would hear if fairly frequently if you visited Aust. In case you're wondering, there are now nearly 20 mill Aussies on this planet, so if push came to shove, I reckon we could take you and the rest of your 270mill countrymen from the good ol' US of A.

Anyone else here just that bit more wary this last couple of years getting on a flight. Glad when its over. ...and when exactly do you think that will be Scouser? Never is my bet. What ever happened to the armed air marshalls? Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of half trained gun toting chuck norris wannabe on the planes these days?

but they were probably whinging about the bloody poms!

mmm, maybe the mystery of Ocean's disappearance has been solved. He's shacked up with Cheeseman!

Seppo or septic is probably a bit old coz ryming slang and septic tanks are not that common anymore. As Indosnm said, Aussies don't really mind what people call us. Just as long as we're part of the discussion. Deep down inside I reckon we Aussies are more worried about being left out and considered irrelevant than anything else. Watching the news in Aust a person could be forgiven for thinking that we play an important part in world affairs. But spend more than 10min OS and it becomes apparent that we're a pretty small fish in a very big pond. "Yeah, I know Australia, you guys ha

Where is Ocean these days? Its not like him to miss firing off a couple of shots from the hip on a thread with such a sensituve topic.

Not at all. I think we are kind of proud to be antipodeans.

Miteyak, mate, spot on with your comments. I also agree with most of the above comments about the minshuku owner and the SARS thing. But there is also a lot of whinging about how racist and difficult this country is towards gaijin. Here is a bit of advice folks - if you don't like it here...GO HOME! A great deal of Japan bashing is done by people who are here entirely by choice - if it is that bad, why stay? When I was living in London, me and a lot of Aussie/Kiwi mates would sit around and complain about how crappy things were in London. No one ever suggested that we leave an

Japan hit its comic high point with the Tokyo Shock Boys. Since then its been all down hill. I saw a show in the states last month which had extracts from a dodgy Japanese show called Takeshi's Castle. It had Beat Takeshi looking a lot younger and less smashed up and all these Japanese people doing stupid and dangerous things but with a couple of US guys doing the voice overs. It made for a very funny mix, watching Amercians make fun of Japanese making fools of themselves.

A couple of friends and I went to Kagura last Saturday. There was actually still quite a bit of snow around. They only had a couple of single chair lifts operating and these only went 2/3 of the way up the main run but it was still good for a bit of fun. We managed to climb up to the top (20min of hard slog in snowboard boots) and enjoy a couple of runs out of bounds through the trees. All things considered, it was worth the effort to get out of Tokyo for the day.

I'm heading up tomorrow with some mates just for the hell of it. We're not expecting much so if its anything better than totally crap, than it will be a bonus. Just spending a day in the mountains will be worth the effort. Anyone who lives in Tokyo will understand what I mean.

So what is the stupidest thing you have ever done? In defference to the abortion thread - unprotected sex with a stranger doesn't count. A couple of mates and I once got our hands on a hundred meters of rope and a parachute and did a bit of DIY paraseiling behind a ute at an abandoned airfield near Sydney. As the ute took off the parachute would flap like crazy while it was going up. Once the rider was at the maximum height, he would disconnect the rope and ride the chute back to the ground. Only one of us ended up in hospital with concussion, so on reflection we got off pretty lightly

Hey, Grungy, mate I thought you were joking regarding the bus. Just checked the website and there is a shuttle bus!

So how does one get from the top of the rope way to the top of Kagura? Hike?

Zwelgen - but what about the jets? Surely being so close to the jetfighters 'n' stuff would have been pretty cool. Loud too I suspect. Hide - people join the military for a whole bunch of reasons, much like they join any profession or career. There are plenty of jobs in the military for guys who are not very smart but who can left heavy things (a bit like Plucky). If you spend 5 minutes talking to the average artillery soldier you will know what I mean. At the same time there are some very bright and capable people in the military (eg. Neil Armstrong et al). Often people have good rea

Jared - no use trying to justify db's comments. His rejection of Sport as a legitimate culture is unAustralian and he knows it.

Hey db - if you are so adverse to sport et al, what are you doing spending so much time on a web site dedicated to snowsports talking about snowboarding, or is it only some sports? The craziest tradition in Aust is the whole "white christmas" fixation. For those who haven't enjoyed a December in Aust, its not uncommon to see store windows with fake snow and santa displays, kids singing songs like Jingle Bells and families eating Christmas pudding. Its been generations for some families since anyone grew up in the Northern hemisphere, but we still can't quite let it go.

I guess it really depends on what you're doing, when you're doing it and where you're doing it. Can't see the benefit in getting too strapped up in the powder, but on an icy board park, the more gear the better. A guy I know scored a helicopter flight in Switzerland this season after breaking both wrists snowboarding.

Baka!