snowbender

The snow might not fall much as much as in Japan, but is it generally good over there?

Me too. It will feel curious skiing with a spririt level on your back

Saw this in another thread and thought it was interesting. Many ski jo are pushing it to be called resorts, but how would you clasify a "resort"?

Welcome pink momoko - where were you?

All apart from Kumanoyu / Yokoteyama / Shibutoge in the south area are linked up. These ones you can still hop on the free bus to get to. Look here: http://www.snowjapan.com/e/maps/snow-jap...akogen-map.html

Huge Wii section in Toys R Us today. Looks like a gimmicky thing to me.

I recently got some ski boots sent over to me from the UK. They were sent Parcelforce but when they arrived here, I had to hand over 8000 yen to the post office before I could get them - import taxes or something. Apart from the fact that seems way expensive, I don't understand why I have to pay some tax on this but not other things. I never have with Amazon purchases. Does anyone know or able to shed any light on this before I start asking around to try and understand why I forked over the cash. I hate not knowing.

I was reading another thread where this was mentioned: Quote: if you are female, you must wear excessive amouts of makeup, and stop at least twice a run to check it and fix it So true! What is it with hitting the slopes all made up? The nanpa the reason for going out there rather than the skiing or boarding?

I'm interested in this too. I've never really put much thought into the sock thing. Perhaps I should.

It's 70 mins or so from Nagano > Shiga Kogen. It's about the same from Nagano > Hakuba right?

The monkeys are at the bottom of the Shiga Kogen mountains I think it was on that feature http://www.snowjapan.com/e/features/snow-monkeys-of-jigokudani.html so you have to go past 'em!

I read an interesting review of Stings new lute project: His overwrought delivery is unfortunately and irresistibly evocative of your English teacher revealing his frustrated theatrical ambitions during a class reading of Macbeth.

Nice one grassie. Mine is stored away so I can't see her but I know she's waiting and itching to get out and me be on top riding her.

I really liked it there. Not as packed out as other places (Nusimko) and still great snow.

I had already heard that actually. Apparently Mr Sony was very proud of his helipad just outside of the resort.

I remember you telling us about it. Simple girls.

Or a prize for the right guess. September 9th, 10am.

Asia seems unlikely surely. What do the peeps think? (Maybe they should ask Nagano).

2m tall! Whoah, are they agressive? (They don't wear boxing gloves in real life do they?)

Caught a bit of that on the tv the other day. What a load of nonsense. Do some guys find these things attractive? Makes you wonder what the judges are judging them on. The spontaneous Q&A was funny. yeah, right

Deacon Blue. That's a name I wasn't counting on hearing again I'm listening to some Ibiza compilation at the moment in the car.

I used to be an "expert" on everything homebrew - and all games associated with. That brings back lots of fond memories (and lots of smells too).

Class photo

The big difference with this news being that this was/is a decent place with good modern facilities, not just some crappy hole that no-one cared about.

Is this market shrinking with companies and people being more careful with money and cutting back on this kind of thing. Some of those gifts are really expensive.