JA2340

Ah, Ezorisu san, domo arigato gozaimasu!

Jeeze, Ez, That's deep! Bl00dy true too! Can I borrow it for a while?

Originally Posted By: ger (I'd be a little more mellow if I lived in snow country and could get out whenever I wanted.) ger, from "near enough to Kansai" - what is the minimum travel time for you to get to snow? For me it is closing in on 10 hours drive. And, when you think of it that way, the flight to Tokyo is about that long, too. Add in the 5 hours to get to the airport and the 3 hour wait there for processing etc and to gat to Japan for a ski takes us the best part of a day! Then we have to get to the snow from Tokyo. Whaddya mean "... if I lived in snow country ..." ?

Yeah, welcome, Claire. GN is spot on (as usual) and as a "local" to Niseko (OK an ex-pat Aussie who lives in Niseko) knows exactly where it's at up there. That said, There would be very few resorts where there is NO terrain suitable for beginners/intermediates. It would just be that some have greater proportion of begiinner slopes. As GN said, check out this forum, get into SJ itself (http://www.snowjapan.com/e/index.php) and investigate the various resorts. The listings have quite detailed descriptions of the resort, with a good indication of the proportion of beg/inter/adv run

Too fntrue, though some of them are just here for the very reason we are talking about. It is a good excuse to get ratfaced, make an absolute a$$ of yourself, and no-one really takes too much notice unless you start assaulting people or damaging property. Anyway, as I said, a very good reason why we have already booked accom for the January trip to Japan (our 4th) and are actively looking for decent airfares that don't take us via Bahrain or somewhere else un-snowy!

Not buying into the MS debate, but why were you using IE if you have FF? Surely you also have IETab plugin, which allows you to see the sites that insist you use IE. No need to even open IE ever!

So, what you're saying is that they'd be nobs no nmatter where they were? Suppose that could be true - certainly no shortage of them around here during Country Music Week (The reason we head to Japow for January!!!)

Don't take hints thurs, - something to say, say it clear.

Originally Posted By: grungy-gonads JA you obviously have not heard about the cash awards SJ awards for post achievements. Sounds like a wonderful way to get people making a single post into a number of smaller, seemingly dicsonnected ones just to get the numbers up. Certainly haven't heard of it, and wouldn't make me spread my posts just to get a "cash award" - waste of effort, if you ask me.

thursday, What it means is that we do not have to be so careful not to upset the neighbours, since they are not living next door through a single wall. The fact is, though, that there is always somewhere anyone in Oz can get to where there is plenty of space around you. GN, I think that the majority of Aussies have very little concept of the interpersonal relationships that MUST happen in Japan for the place to operate! Population density changes the way people can interact without offending others. The idea of deference and social level as the basis on which the language i

Originally Posted By: tsondaboy The strongest/fastest machine I have al runs Unix. I seem to recall that the MacOS is unix based. Which is partly why there is such a divide - macnatics love the beast, PC users realise that they are using an inferior machine but with a more "popular" system. (popular = better marketed)

Most new boxes come with what they call a "recovery partition". From that, you are able to make a set of CDs (or DVDs) from which you can restore the computer to the condition it was in when it came out of the box. The advantage is that you can, if the computer absolutely refuses to start, you can return to a clean reinstall and begin again. They also allow you to reinstall much of the software that was preinstalled. IF you do not make these recovery disks, you are a bl00dy idiot! If you do not get preinstalled software loaded into such a partition, you are almost as stupid! Wi

From 2 and 3 years ago (when I was there) I dodn't notice it any worse than what we are used to in Oz (Or at least no worse than what goes on during Country Music Festival, anyway ). There are always a few f*wits (of almost any nationality) who cannot be assed being normal - realise thay are away from home (and the civilising influence of familial expectations) and get totally wasted and act the total idiot! On the whole, though, the aussies act civilly, same as most other nationalities. FWIW I believe that for the most part, the problem with the off the wall behaviour in Nisek

What's the thrill of knowing how many? I post because I feel something about the topic, not just to get a certain number! OR because I want to know why things happen - wierd huh!

Originally Posted By: Fattwins The problem is and you really aren't looking at this the right way. The domestic market is a very high % of the day ticket sales. Without those sales you have no resort and no upgrades to the lift infrastructure. You need a strong domestic market for the ski resort. A strong inbound market is good for the hotels. (my emphasis) FT, do not the inbounds also buy tickets? And for more than a day or two. Last trip to Niseko, we (group of 4 adults) bought tickets for 9 of 11 days. That is 36 days worth of tickets. To get the equivalent in day trippers, you'd need

As a matter of interest, what is the per litre price? In my home town, we are paying $AU1.50 (about USD1.33 at current exchange) per litre for standard unleaded.

Originally Posted By: Oyuki kigan enough with this peak oil and global warming craziness. i'm buying a horse. And i can eat it if it breaks down. Trouble is that you have to feed the damned things even when they are not being used! At least if you don't drive the car it doesn't require more fuel just sitting in the garage.

Originally Posted By: 2pints,mate Quote: when you get to Narita you can courier all your luggage to Hakuba and sit back on the super comfortable shinkansen and glide effortlessly around the Japanese countryside ...and then you need to lug your gear on the bus to Hakuba. Let's not mislead now, shall we? How mislead?? If you use Takkyubin, you can have the gear sent to the location you want. We sent ski gear forward to Furano in Jan and the stuff was waiting at our accom when we arrived after a couple days sightseeing around. Just need to check witrh the accom that they can/w

But ... when there is very little else of interest, when your physical ability is minimal and movement is restricted, there are not a lot of options.

Mama, When did the position of the loo seat become the province of just one of the genders? Why cannot women (actually, my +1 can! thanks dear) just get over it and put the seat down when they need to use it? If I'm sitting, I have to put it down myself, why can't a woman do that too? Sorry, :rant mode off:

Basically I decry anything where there is not a clear "first past the finish" winner. Anything where there is an 'artistic interpretation' mark to determine the winner. This just gives the potential for someone to adjust their score depending on how much they are paid. (I'd call that bribery)

What a dogs breakfast of a system! Jeeze I'm glad we have a (relatively) simple system in Oz! BTW, Good to see you here too ASB! (JA2340 from your own foruM).

Not wrong! I have a dream of still sliding in 30 years time (by which time I will be pushing 90!) and having skied in Europe, North America, South America and lots of other places in Japan. Why the fascination with Japan? I find the people an absolute joy! They are pleasant, easy to get along with, helpful to us gaijin, and (of course) they have the best snow I have ever seen. (OK, I have limited experience, but it is damn good!) Nozawa Onsen Jan 2009, here we come!

Ez, What's wrong with some criticism? I do not dislike the topic, I just dislike being advised by (and having people quote from) a cartoon. You might like your own advice - If you do not like my comments, feel free to ignore. Else, ... Tubby, What has Homer got to do with a god, and who brought the supernatural into it? Homer, like a lot of other TV 'stars', is a product of the imagination of an artist and a cartoon film producer. My main concern is that many people quote from Simpsons episodes as if they were quoting from some important social commentary.

Mama, The Oz version of 3G is not compat with Japan's frequencies. I had a NextG for this trip and it worked well. With the plug pack and plug converter it was perfect! Kev, Blackberry might be OK, depending on the frequencies it will operate on. Need to check with the manufacturer and with DoCoMo and the other provider (who I forget the name of atm).