sock_monkey

i live in a sakura 'house'. the company is fine, but you have to realize that the buildings/houses are all owned and maintained by different people. that means that the accomodations differ greatly. i'm lucky my landlady is extremely nice and helpful and the place is only shared among 3 people. oh yeah when they say utilities included, that means 10000 yen a month (and they will warn you if you get close) one other thing i like is that i can pay my rent by (foreign) credit card (and make frequent flyer points on it)

i'm heading to hakkoda this weekend for some bc touring. i'm pretty stoked but since i've never been is there anything i should look (out) for? routes i should not miss (or avoid like the plague)? any places to go at night? we're staying at Sukayu onsen. (i'm too lazy to read ALL the journals, but from the few that i have read, i'll make sure not to forget my emergency blanket and bivy)

maple syrup, eh? i feel a beaver pelt and hockey stick joke coming...

i made most of my mistakes differentiating korean and japanese, distinguishing chinese from koreans or japanese isn't too hard.

here ya go giggsy:

timex (and others) makes speedometer and odometer watches (with optional heartrate monitor and cadence meter) that use GPS but the stupid things can't be used for navigation. garmin makes one that has basic navigation but i'm not sure how useful it is. as for how fast i've gone, i was doing mach speed on saturday and bailed when i fell back on my skis in a compression and couldn't pull back up. the bruise on my leg is the size of a tall can of beer, i don't know what that is in km/h but i'm damn curious. back in whistler my friends and i would always wonder just how reckless we wer

i was in hakuba for the first time on the weekend. i was looking at the stuff above happo (at least the view from goryu/47) looked like awesome lines around there, but lots if not all i could see were bad consequences. sunday was so hot i thought i might get to see some activity on the south faces i saw some good looking stuff above goryu/47 but unfortunately the group i was with was all resort skiers so i didn't get to hike anywhere. some of the people i tour with were up above goryu last weekend and they said it was fantastic. said it took 'em an hour and a half to skin up

haha, that's too funny. psycho mogul skiers with really strong thighs, really the bouncers just saved that poor guy.

SJers will pool all their money together and buy one...

i make rice balls and carry spare snacks like dried fruit and nuts, chocolate and sometimes an energy bar of some kind.

here's the view from my window. funfun

<------- there ya go, sunrise. was fun to meet all of you last night. glad the waitress didn't poison anyone

i'm heading to hakuba as well, don't know exactly where. i'm heading up with some japanese dudes that know the area quite well. i've never been there myself.

i've tasted 95% alcohol from the chem dept. not on purpose, some crazy dude on a ski trip had it in his flask. my tongue went instantly numb and i thought he'd just poisoned me (technically he did). I had a few smaller sips after that but not really something i'd bother with again. i'll stick with overproof rum (75% alcohol)

hi everyone, i'm fairly new to the board and i always like to meet more skiers and boarders i have to run some errands in shinjuku tomorrow so i may as well stick around and say hi.

two days at WhiteWater near Nelson, BC. we had 60 cm of fresh on the first day followed by 35cm on the second day. It was ridiculous and mid-week too. i've also had fantastic days at Red Mountain (Rossland, BC) and Big White (Kelowna, BC) i've yet to try Fernie (BC), but it holds the prize among my skiing buddies back home. i'm going to Hakkoda in a couple of weeks so I'll see how that compares.

hehe, nice. i'm not worried about the size of their balls, brains maybe, but balls they got covered.

That would kind of be like Alaska or coast range BC bingo. though i'd hate to be in BC this season. the pacific northwest is dying for snow. Alaska is more reliable.

one of the guys on my trip this weekend took some video. i'd love to see it to check my technique. haven't seen myself ski in like 10 years, at the time i was disapointed but it sure helped.

various sprains and bruises all over worst was blown ACL due to a flat landing. i thought it was a sprain and skied almost two full seasons before it was diagnosed by a specialist. I was skiing 5 months after the surgery. dumbest was aggravating a small partial fracture of the 5th metatarsal in my foot into a full fracture with dislocation. my skis got stuck under the snow and i fell forward with all my weight on that leg. binding didn't release so the ankle ligaments and tendons attached to the bone managed to tear the piece right off. dumb because i knew about the partial fractur