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grazza

SnowJapan Member
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2 Got that first like!

About grazza

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    SJ'er with 10+ posts
  1. Haven't been back to complain... yet. Even on your sixth pair of boots, you're still in a position of having to trust someone's professional opinion, without really having much idea of their professionalism. If you had 50 boots worth of experience, maybe you'd know enough to be your own bootfitter. One problem I see is the limited range of brands that Aus shops carry. If they only have two or three brands, there's not much variety in fit options. And with the fitting fee that most want to charge you, there's a real push to get you in a pair of boots no matter what. Here's what I'd lik
  2. Spent a lot of money and time at big name ski shop in Sydney getting the best quality, custom footbeds, the works. Had lots of adjustments last season at Niseko to make things bearable for her. Then day two this trip she has a half day lesson, skis hard and a little differently technique wise and her right big toe ends up looking like it's been hit with a hammer. Could bearly walk the next day, then had a few days R&R in Kyoto to let the major bruising subside a little. Skiing here at Furano was bearable but painful, and we've just had the boots further adjusted here by a local guy (M
  3. Mainly punching out the shell around the big toes to allow them room to breathe. She couldn't walk for two days, let alone ski. Very bruised and red. Still needs a little more, and now we're up in Furano bootfitters are a little harder to source.
  4. My wife had major and seemingly very effective boot surgery a few days back performed by a kiwi bloke (dont recall his name) at central sports next to the Adam Gondora at Happo. Highly recommended, made a huge difference.
  5. To the Op: The above is a very good question, because if you are staying at Rusustsu they should offer you a shuttle bus to come and pick you up from the airport. If I remember correctly it costs about the same as Donan Bus. Having said that though Donan is also good and pretty easy to find from the train station. Last question.....Can your computer read Japanese characters? If not then I guess one of us can write out the times for you. Thanks. Have to come from Furano, so Chitose is not an option, unless it's 6 hours in buses, which would drive me potty. Black Mountain, thank
  6. I'm kinda stuck with this one. Using babelfish I suspect that I have found the Donan Bus timetable for buses from Sapporo to Rusutsu, but I'm not really sure, and even if I was, I can't work out where they leave from. This is the webpage (I think) http://donanbus.co.j...utsu/index.html Am I on the right track? What does this actually say? Are there other buses from Sapporo to Rusutsu? Where does this one leave from? Heeeeelp pleeeeese.
  7. Usually I can work these things out for myself, but a little help would be appreciated. Is there a way of doing this transfer that doesn't take 6 hours and multiple changes? If not, is overnighting in Sapporo a better option? Thanx
  8. Kamimura is extraordinary. A very, very good restaurant (with prices to match).
  9. They had some availability, just not the stretches that I wanted. I sort of got the impression that for some reason they didn't want to do the booking?! I mean, they couldn't be full already in a year when skiers numbers have to be down on usual, could they?
  10. Out of interest, what was the Japanese ski industry like before the bubble? How many of the current resorts were in existence?
  11. All that is true, and much more. It's not as if the Japanese haven't got a history of innovation and excellence. Think Sony, Toyota, etc, etc. They showed the world how to do it for so long, until they got caught up in the asset bubble. I'd love to see some of the Japanese approach to quality and strategy that was so successful in the 70's and 80's applied to the snow. That could produce some great things.
  12. None of this changes the amazing beauty of the place, though. Even with driving ranges in the foreground, wow... That's one of the reasons I keep coming back every year.
  13. They've done that already, that's why Japanese public debt is now a world leading 225% of GDP and steadily rising. To put this in perspective Greece's ratio is 130%, and we know how much trouble they are in. Currently, over 60% of Japan tax receipts are used to pay off interest on debt. If you keep on spending more than you earn, eventually the money runs out, you can't cover your commitments and you have a sovereign debt crisis, as we have now in Greece. I'd suggest that propping up unprofitable skijos would be an obvious spending cut target in that scenario.
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