Go Native

Mild here again. This is turning out to be the warmest May on record in this part of Australia.

I found telemarking to be pretty hard on the legs and knees which was fine in my youth. But I'm not in my youth anymore so after more than 20 years tele'ing I'm now on AT bindings. Much easier on the legs.

In regards to boots I'd not advise boots that are made for work or hiking. They generally have really hard soles to reduce wear and tear. It's a bit like road tyres and winter tyres. Road tyres don't grip snow and ice very well at all. Winter tyres are a softer compound and grip much better. Best to look for boots made for the snow as they are similar. Especially important in villages like Hirafu where it's on a fairly significant slope and there's few walkways that are cleared of snow. I think more people hurt themselves there slipping over in the village than on the slopes.

For only 8 days I wouldn't look to travel to so many resorts. You'll barely get to scratch the surface at each resort. I'd base yourself either in Niseko and do day trips to Rusutsu and Kiroro or Asahikawa for the more central resorts. I think if you had a few weeks then doing the lot would be great but with so little time and the time it takes to travel between regions (you'd lose most of a day) you're best just choosing to do either the SW or central region on this trip.

Frost warnings for northern parts of Hokkaido this evening. Plenty of places already below 5 degrees at 5pm.

I think I saw on some site that in Japan there are 117 burglaries per 100,000 people. In Australia the same site said there are 1,017 burglaries per 100,000 people.

I really miss camping down at Lake Toya. Beautiful place.

And pie-eater is a fvcking cockhead.

Yeah but you're probably just as likely to win the lottery as get your house broken into in Japan I'd reckon. Hardly worth worrying about.

And that's a problem where you live? In all my years in Hokkaido I never heard of anyone's house being broken into.

Is there really any point to having it in Japan?

We've only had one because we started pretty late. I was 38 when my daughter was born and it took 3 years of banging away to finally get my wife pregnant! I have no desire to go through that again and certainly no desire to have more children now I'm in my 40's. I'd be well into my 60's before they even leave home. Bugger that. I want to be well and truly retired and living the good life by then. No more kids for us.

Been snowing in parts of Hokkaido this morning!

I think any of us with kids on here would tell you it's worth every cent.

In Australia the average age kids are leaving home now is supposedly 24 and the average cost of raising a child over this period is supposedly over $500,000. An average of close to $21,000 a year.

Unless you live in Hokkaido.

Will probably take my daughter up to Mt St Gwinear for some snow play and maybe some x-country skiing. Thinking of maybe an overnight snow camp as well.

Here we don't have to pay land tax on properties that are our principal residence or are a farm. We do pay stamp duty though when you purchase a property of up to 5.5% of it's value. Which considering property prices in Australia now can be a lot of money. The property we just bought will have a stamp duty amount that is considerably more than what was my annual salary in Japan!

Also comes down to snow conditions. I find bottomless powder to almost be effortless. You just float down through it. Hard pack on the other hand requires all this edging and weighting that I find much more tiring.

Saw The Ramen Girl the other night. I enjoyed it.

Possums were introduced to NZ from Aus. As there are no natural predators in NZ they are able to breed unhindered and cause great damage to forests that haven't evolved to deal with them..

I really enjoyed the full service stations in Japan, especially during winter in Hokkaido. It felt like a real luxury as they are pretty much non-existent in Australia these days.

Yeah I've never been interested in going to Bali. There's no snow.

In my very early days in Niseko I remember getting through much of the summer before bookings got busy as well. These days people are attempting to book their next trip before they've even finished their current trip. There's no break at all.

Just the way I like it.