stepchild

oh, chaotic, one more thing: BEND UR KNEES! BUK BUK BUK BUK!

spot on oyuki k. you've got to learn to ollie on flat and on little bumps first. not on a kicker. chaotic - go on transworld snow or something, they'll have a far better explanation of an ollie than i could offer. plus it takes ages... meanwhile, as a learner, you don't want to be worrying about ollieing when you first hit a kicker. it takes a lot of coordination to ollie at first. whilst you're learning to ollie on flat and off small bumps, hit the smallest kickers in the park. don't think about jumping, think about control. i see so many learners hitting kickers and hucking off th

i'll give it a try gamera. it's a strange one eh??!! yep, i'm hitting the books everyday, benkyoshimasu-ing....

gamera - both times i was well over a foot away from the other person and i think that the time when i was on the chair lift i wasn't even obstructing their vision. i, also, wouldn't want someone's hand in my face but i really don't think that i was very close to them. also, it seemed to occur really quickly in both cases, almost like an unconscious reaction. i wish that my japanese was efficient enough to politely ask what the deal was but unfortunately it isn't. i might actually try some empirical research and start pointing near people and seeing what happens...

for starters make sure you approach the jump straight, don't carve in and don't be on either edge, be centred. don't try and jump too much, just cruise over at first. as you leave the jump, don't lean back, lean a slight bit forward. most learners land really heavily on their tails, you want to land only slightly tail first. i also think it really helps to hang the crotch of your trousers past your knees and have chains and stuff hanging out of your pockets. i could also recommend a gold tooth or two and hanging about in a gang. these should all help you snowboard better.....

you might be able to apply for a 6 month or 1 year working holiday visa without a degree but this varies from country to country. my girl hasn't got one (degree) and can't get a working visa or working holiday visa (because of her country) and we have tried literally everything to get a working visa and have failed miserably. you could always do a year-long japanese studying course, the student visa allows part-time work (i think) but when you get a job they'll probably let you work over the hour limit. other than that, come out here and work under the table. good luck

I was on a chairlift the other day, with my girl to my left and two j-girls (strangers) to my right. my girl and i were talking about the rideable terrain that we could see, we were scanning for lines and as i described one i pointed over to it, at about half past one (if straight up the lift is 12 o´clock) and as i pointed the j-girl to my right knocked my hand out of the way pretty hard. she didn't say anything though. thing is, i didn't point at her, i was clearly pointing at the mountain, and my hand was only slightly across her left arm, but at least a foot away from touching her. th

yeah, fair play, they are nutters but if you've ever seen any footage of the Verbier Red Bull Extreme contest then you would hopefully agree that the guys who head out to Verbier do way gnarlier stuff. the mountain is about 5 times as large and every line that you can possibly take is incredibly exposed. the year that i was there to watch they had very little snow, people were stacking on one cliff and then sliding off the next one. ridiculous, try and check some footage out.

Toque, am I correct in thinking Whistler is coast range BC? because if i am, i never experienced the quality of snow in whistler that i am in japan. i did, to be fair, go over on one of the 'el bloody nino' seasons, but i went for the season and it was never as light as the stuff i've ridden here. i heard that it's way lighter in the interior, banff, fernie etc. my main problem with whistler was the heavy snow, the locals seemed to agree with that, along with the poor ratio of bluebird to overcast days. i've ridden way better pow in both japan and france than i did out in whistler. sa

'My definition of heaven would be french terrain with japanese snow' roger that SerreChe. i have been saying that so much since i've been here. i think it's going to be a big shock when i head back to The Alps! 'For 24,000 Yen you can get an apartment for a week including liftticket in the French Alpes' Sanno - where the hell are these places?

in most french resorts you pay about 24,000yen for a week ticket. or usually about 6000y for a day pass. you can get cheap accomodation if you stay in places called 'pierre et vacances' which is a massive hotel chain all over the french alps. you can also bung loads of extra people in the room. otherwise you can stay in various hostels for 4000yen or thereabouts. food in france is quite a bit more expensive than here but way better. also, go to somewhere like the 3 valleys, les arcs, chamonix, tignes, val d'isere and the terrain will blow you away, if you've done most of your riding over here

what's the cheapest way to get over to hokkaido? I'm road tripping up there from Gunma. I heard that the overnight ferry is the best deal moneywise, but can't find any info. anyone got any links or advice??

yeah, i'm heading there too at the end of march. is anything even open up there then? reviews are few and far between on this site.

it sounds as though whistler is having a really hard time at the moment. my friend who is out there now said that the south facing mountains have literally no snow on them. ouch. i paid the equivalent of 4000yen to ride a place in the uk called tamworth dome. it's fake snow, but bad fake snow, or was when i used to go, on par with tama (rip). a 15 second run with a crap dendex kicker. then back to the lift.

cool, how about the park??

thanks sanjo, how about the park, ie kickers and rails etc? cheers mate!

has anyone got anything to say about the park in iwappara? yes, i've already read the reviews! cheers.

hakuba 47 and maybe yanaba. can't wait to hit that backside hip in yanaba

neaba for 3 days. there's going to be a big dirty crew riding and drinking. sweet

The Life of Brian was also banned in England for a number of years. Scandinavian countries always feature very, very high in the quality of life indexes that come out every year. The suicide rate is really high in Finland, i think it's Finland, because they have so much darkness over the winter that everyone hits the bottle hard and it gets pretty depressing. that's what my girl tells me. she's a skandi, from iceland and pretty damn happy. from what i know about scandinavian countries the system works pretty well. good health care for everyone and a pretty equal distribution of wealth. fine

yeah, i've never seen so many cars with shotgun passengers playing with toddlers on their laps. sometimes one kid on each knee, ridiculous, especially on the expressways. i often see kids clambering about all over the backseats too. mental. belt up.

if you don't know what you're doing then i'd definitely get that done by a shop. lots of my mates used to do botched jobs themselves and it's a waste of time and can knacker your board. get it sorted by a shop and you won't even notice it. mate, you're lucky it's just your topsheet and they didn´t blow your edge out. good luck.

seriously........lucky..........that guy will cherish every bad snow day, busy hill, long lift queue, bad visibility, icy run he gets for the rest of his days. lucky guy!

i will never ride without a helmet again after my buddy clipped his friend as they rode along side by side. they both crashed, one guy got up immediately, the other was in a coma for about 3 weeks and it took nearly a year to fully rehabilitate. i think the whistler park has the answer. if you want to ride the advanced park you have to wear a lid, no ifs, no buts. so even the pros wear them. as a result, all of the kids see the pros doing all of their sick riding wearing helmets and so it's instantly 'cool' to wear a helmet. job done. so many people wear them in whistler, especially the yo

cheers miteyak. it seems like i should be heading over to nagano this weekend, not bezzing all the way up to bleedin' iwate!