mrbrisbane

And it all comes out at the end - ride duck foot in the park if you like / must but if you have your feet pointing in different directions - well physics sort of says you are making life harder than it need be. For goodness sake work out whether you are natural or goofy footed and commit - just like the initiation of your turns - there is no room or time to be wishy washy when you are approaching a tree, cliff, lift pole etc at 60 kph and need to change direction! Even if you do not like what I am saying just take the time to try - leading foot +21 and back foot +10 or 12 ( or maybe

We always like to go to resorts that have slopes facing a range of directions so that you can make themost of - or avoid prevailing conditions esp wind. Sometimes you might want some sun - eg after a warm day and an overnite freeze, a little sun to soften up the ice is good. Or if there is a 90 kp gale blowing from the west, it is really nice to be in the lee of the mountain on an East facing slope.

Jetstar are still doing early $300s + tax for Sydney / Gold coast - Japan. Depending on return dates the fares are even a bit cheaper.

AHH - but the new printers have a chip in the cartridge which keeps an eye on this behaviour and tells you, your computer and the printer that you have voided the warranty by using a pirate cartridge. This is so pervavsive that even with no genuine cartridges that you reinstall the chip from the old one into - it still knows and still presents you with idiot speak about the perils of what you are doing and that you will if you press the button forever voidany warranty that you may have. We use a cheap small printer - which has just died ( $58 - 3 yrs ago ) that we could buy $5 cartridge

Hey maybe I sound a bit supercillious here but our family - dad,mum, and missies 18 and 9 do the whole 2 snowboards and 2 pr boots, and 3 pr skis and 3 pr boots and 4 helmets and poles and clothes for 79kg. Admittedly one looks a bit silly walking around Cairns airport with a ski jacket but it is the item you need to have at the other end. We travel with 2 snowboard bags and a medium large suitcase but do do stuff like removing bindings from boards and packing boots and helmets with socks etc. This keeps the item count down and helps with "Black Cat" cost which is per item. Generally each

Hey try a regional flight in China - you will share the plane with livestock - typically poultry,machinery and just about anything else that a person can actually carry.

But really - fish that are hard to beat for eating - 1. Mangrove Jack 2. Medium size Spanish Mackeral ( 1 - 3 kg) 3. Red Emperor 4. Fresh ( like swimming less than 8 hours ago) Flathead 5. Pearl Perch ( Nanaguy) And just because they are fun to drag out of the water - GTs - give them a taste of air and let them swim away. But all the others - "I fillet and release" And every time I pig out on fresh caught Mud crab - I think how fortunate I am compared to the "lucky" ppl of Hakodate who can get fresh King Crabs for $50 + kg

AHH - Whale - the beef of the sea!!!

Rumour has it that last year - 07-08 saw a fairly significant price increase - mainly at Happo One which is where you will probably ski most, so my bet would be that lift tix will not go up by much, if at all this year. They may of course do the raise the price - esp for 1 day tix and offer attractive discounts to encourage loyalty to one particular hill. There were certainly signs that that sort of thing was starting to occur. I could never get my Master card to work at Escal Plaza (Goryu) but it worked fine at Immori, and Happo one and Iwataki., but my wife's Visa card worked at all o

Stemik - it is a very parochial thing where players represent the state (province) from which they came - even though they may be living and playing in another one.

So if bio fuels production is about 300,ooobbl /pa that would be 5 minutes out of next year sorted, we just need to sort out the other 525,595 minutes and then every 4 years we need another 1440 as well.

Well given that world oil consumption currently runs at about 1000bbl per second - thats right folks 160,000 ltr every second of every day of every week etc, the whole bio fuel thing can only ever make a small input into the fuel equation. Further to this the energy overhead to prodec and refine bio fuels is huge compared with extracted fossil fuels. My read - in the absence of any revolutionary technology goes like this - 1. Improvements in fuel ecconomy and general downsizing of vehicle size and usage. 2. Cocktailing of fossil fuels with recovered and reprocessed bio solids fue

We bought lift tix day by day in Hakuba as the happy 7 is the dearest way to go. If you happen to have kids, family tix at Goryu / Hakuba 47 were significantly cheaper - 1 Parent + 1 Child 5500 ( I think) 3 day tix @ Happo one were the best way to buy and could also be used at Iwataki - however day tix at Iwataki were generally cheaper (4500) All this said - tix are between 4000 and 5500 perday with discounts for multi day buys. There is always someone with enough English that can be combined with the signage and your phrase book to do the deal. Some of the ticket wind

It is all part of nature and cycles and breeding cues etc - Two blokes that work for me swear that when the agapanthus flower - the flathead (big primitive looking esturine fish) are ready to jump in the boat. and when the red geraniums flower ..... etc etc So it is probably not too long a bow to draw that the same cues that trigger the flowers may have some effect on certain animals. What this has to do with good years and bad years re snow fall, I am not sure.

And here in Brisbane - T shirt and shorts to work - as usual- although I do put on tracky dacks and a fleecy after dark.

We just booked our flights from Brisbane to Tokyo and Osaka to Gold Coast - 30,000 econ to Tokyo and 48,000 star class on return leg. Must say it is a major benefit to be able to get the airfares for nothing ( taxes about $200 each way pp although a bit less for the kidlets) It would not surprise me if sometime over the next 5-10 years we saw airfares return to the sort of relative prices that they were in the 60s - somewhat outside the broad base affordability that we now enjoy. Might even be a good time to invest in a bicycle works. More seriously though - saw this thing abo

And action figures are not dolls??????

Hey I must say that after using the "Nap Hall" at Escal Plaza - Goryu, Hakuba, there would seem to be no real reason why one could not use this facility as a holiday domicile. - Full on bath house, wc, lockers and a warm dry floor to sleep on with ski in ski out convenience. This is an excellent concept - like beer vending machines, that I suspect is respected and appreciated by Japanese and as such they do not abuse the priviledge.

Anyone got experience in buying gear in Nagano or points north. Last time we were on the bus out of town - toward Nozawa, there seemed to be some pretty big sports barns that would perhaps be worth having a look at ?

Not entirely sure what budget you have but we always like to splurge at least a nite or two in full on Onsen Hotel / Ryoken. Some of our favourites have been up past Takayama, and further north near Zao - Sakunami. I would think that you would be spoilt for choice and any number of resources are available to help you.

Having a wife who is a teacher and school aged kids has one big advantage - You get to do holidays - and the biggy is Xmas 6-8 weeks in OZ. This means that we can get away in mid December and return to waist high grass at the end of January.( 5 weeks usually so we can have a week at the beach to unwind) Our recipe is to go somewhere that we know for the first 2 weeks then get on the move to a couple of other places for the rest of the time. Japan has a nice long list of destinations that keep us enthusiastic for more - however with AUD up where it is we nearly ended up in America to

My experience of rentals in Japan - Well - in quite a few places is that - 1. If you have feet bigger than EU44 you are likely to have probs getting anything. 2. The range of gear is wide - from stuff that was old when I was a kid to the very latest - but none of it is very cheap. 3. If you get old stuff then you might as well get into a sports barn and buy cheap gear, even if you only use it for a week you will be in front - or not far behind. Of course the other benefit of having your own gear is that you don't have to muck around picking up and returning gear and .... If you

My understanding is that just about every card and bank is different so it is well worth investigating this before you find out the hard way.

Yeh stamps are like money - (well in British type countries and the US). It all sort of dates back to the Magna Carta - and in plenty of times since stamps have been used as alternative currency quite extensively. Duty stamps and tax stamps are a slight variation on postage stamps but essentially represent a credit with the government - which in loose equivalance is money. I am sure someone here will look it all up and put us all str8 on this urgent trivial matter.

hahahahahaha - very witty.