Kid B

fukdane, the most I have got out of mine - constantplay, switching cds as little as possible - is about 7 hours. 6 hours and its down there near empty for the most part. With the battery back, I got about 15 hours from mine.

Nagoya

I've no idea if this is true or not, but a Japanese friend told me that he heard a 3 month forecast that said there would be more snow than average in November. Do they usually forecast so far ahead?

Are there loads of special trains in the ski season to the main places (ie hakuba, yuzawa etc)

Skiing - a bit when I was younger, not for the last 10 years. Snowboarding - last two seasons.