hokkaido
ok ok ok.. i shoudl hopefully finish my japan report in this post =p

:: day 11
travelling to hokkaido day.. aka..abusing JR pass day.. today we pretty much rode enuf trains to justify our 7 day rail pass =P about 90% of this day involved us sitting on a shinkansen with a contorted spinal position as we attempt to squeeze all our luggage into the luggage storage above the seats.. and under our feet and on our laps. and all this while still trying to be in a reasonably comfortable sleeping position =p

we had to head back to tokyo for a bit, so chito could purchase a snowboard.. and so ian could be further disappointed but the lack of naruto headbands at yet another Animate store.. grr.. worst holiday ever! chito ended up getting board boots n bindings for a bit more than Au$200.. and would eventually cost something like AU$160.. so he did pretty well, although he did get an Oxygen board =p hehe. the rest of the day was staring out windows at japanese snow-covered country-side going past at 200km/hr.

after a bit of discussion, we ended the day at a capsule hotel in Sapporo. nothing real exciting about that..

:: day 12
woke up and headed to a Mr Donut for a spot of brekkie. we all had a few donuts and a drink.. and we ended up having 8 of these tickety things which u get for every 200 Yen u spend. if you are lucky enough to collect 10 tickets, you can claim a free gift =) .. i couldnt possibly get so close and not claim a prize =p so i went and bought me and chito another milkshake.. cos we were thristy.. and also so i could claim this nifty 3 piece stackable teapot set =) it seems like lame now.. since ill probly never use it, but it was free.. and my mum seems to be awfully impressed by it. if only we were one day later, that teapot couldve instead been a 3 piece Cookie Monster lunch box set.. dang =p

.. more train travelling today thru snow-ridden country side. we went along this stretch of railway which ran right along the seaside, it was quite spectacular =) more interestingly, we saw some surfers in the water! i dunno what the temperature outside was, but it was snowing =p .. and there was hardly a wave to be seen. they mustve been desperate, i mean why not jsut trade in that surfboard for a snowboard?

we arrived at the backpackers after a rather amusing phone conversation between me and the owner, in which i dont think he understood half the words i said =p but still managed to come pick us up in his van. anyhoos, we decided to hit the slopes straight away, because in niseko the slopes are open from 8:30am till 8:30 pm =) the backpacker guy was uber helpful and drove us around so i could get hire and lift passes and such. whilst i was fitting snowboard boots, the guy at the hire store was preparing a 149cm board for me! omg! .. luckily hunt spotted it and hinted that it was a bit too small for me =p so i ended up with a 155cm.. a much more acceptable size for me. although over the week it did still prove to be a tad small.

basically the snow rocked.. but not literally.. there were no rocks to be seen, they were all covered in 4m of sweet sweet japanese snow. we ripped it up pretty good all afternoon and nite. although we were a bit n00bed up by chito hehe. we managed a whole lot of tree runs and black runs under lights.. ahh i could do this forever... *sigh*

:: days 13-16
um.. these middle days are all a bit of a powdery white blur to me. we didnt do much except snowboard all day and all nite. it was sooo good! omg.. we ventured a couple of times to the various terrain parks, i did some spectacular.. and some not so spectacular stacks on the rails and tabletops. chito managed to hit his head on a trunk on one of our many tree runs but overall got to be a much better snowboard over the week.

they have mad lifts in japan.. firstly there was a gondola, which is like an enclosed carriage where u totally unclip and sit inside. but they also had a hooded lift which is like a normal lift u get in perisher, only it has this plastic dome which lowers over your head like the cone of silence in Get Smart. it was a life saver on the windy days. instead of shivering as the wind chill tears thru my expensive snowboard jacket, we comfortably sat and chatted and ad justed our gloves in warm comfort =)

:: day 17
ack.. our last day at the snow, but we decided we had to try out to the snowmobiles! mm.. twas kinda pricey, so we cheaped out and got the 30min deal. my snowmobile conked out after about 2 mins =p but after i got a new one, the ride was awesome! the guy didnt really speak english and he jsut pointed at the controls and goes "brake" , then "accellerator" .. "ok lets go" hehe thats all the training we got. he jsut took off and we attempted to keep up with him as he raced around the place. it was mad fun, i almost rolled my snowmobile a few times =p At one point the guy jsut stopped in the middle of the track and turns to us and says "special stage" with a big grin on his face, then turned off the track onto these huge powdery rolling hills where we both had trouble movign around =p it was sooo sweet.. =) although for future reference, u cant turn a snowmobile is knee deep powder unless ur going really fast =) i got stuck once and he had to come drag me out =p

:: day 18
ok, we were sposed to go to sapporo today and meet up with shizu (hunt's mother's friend). and chito was sposed to fly home today... well 1 out of 2 isnt bad =p chito made it to the airport.. but there was no flight today =p so he had to wait a day.. he decided to hang out in sapporo instead of joining us. i suspect he jsut read manga all day.. possibly yaoi =p

.. back to me.. we met shizu and her daughter naoko.. and true to japanese nature the first thing they did was pull out a digital camera to record this historic event =p they were heaps nice though, they took us back to their house and cooked us a rather delicious japanese lunch (although it did have mushrooms .. bleh). it was pretty funny talking to them, cos they had partially broken english and i had very broken japanese.. and hunt jsut had "sumimasen" and "arigatou". me and naoko compared japanese/english dictionaries as we attempted to communicate by pointing at words in the other person's respective language =p she had an electronic one which was sick.. she was very impressed with my dictionary though.. it doesnt look that special to me =p

.. that nite naoko had scored us some free tix to the Toyota Big Air competition becuase her friend was working there =) as we got dressed, they kept telling us to wear all our snow clothes.. cos it would be uber uber cold. so shizu tried to get hunt to wear this rather amusingly colored jacket which lasted about 2 seconds.. before he jsut wore my jacket =)

the competition was pretty sick.. although there was a noticeable lack of double backflips. every1 jsut did spins the whole time. the winner was some canadian guy who did a method 1080 (or something like that). we met a bunch of naoko's friends.. most of whom were pretty trashed. i can only remember the names Yuka and Machi. Yuka was her friend from down the street who later drove because naoko had had wayy too much to drink. Machi was the guy who worked there and got us the tickets. here's a pic with both of them. from left to right: some guy, machi, me, hunt, naoko and yuka. Machi kept trying to get me to drink this weird alcohol which was supposedly a Okinawan specialty, and honestly it tasted like methylated spirits =p it was horrible, but they all drank it straight and by the glass full.

anyways.. after that we headed to this dinner/karaoke place where u order food and sing at ur table =) it was heaps funny trying to talk to the ppl at dinner, once again using the dictionaries, but this time we all had a lot more alcohol in us. they had all these english songs they wanted us to sing, and i had a few jap songs i wanted to hear them sing. unfortunately all the songs they wanted us to sing were like Britney and Mariah, so we sounded pretty bad, but they thought it was still cute =p we also sang Sukiyaki in english, and then they sung the japanese version =) hehe so funny.

we ate as we sang, but we also ordered more dishes and drinks as we went along. the waiter would always run thru the door, drop off the food or drinks.. then rush out again as if the room was full of poisonous spores and he had to hold his breath. the food was a big mix of different things most of which were really tasty =) one dish in particular was very interesting, it was a plate of a dozen or so Takoyaki (octopus balls) but one of them was filled with extra hot wasabi. What we did was play Janken (rock paper scissors) to put people in order of who would eat one. i was not the unlucky one *phew* .. but the look on the guy's face was priceless =) hehe

afterwards we headed upstairs to try and find a Dance Dance Revolution machine, but to no avail... instead we took sticker photos! hehe.. ahh im kinda getting into those.. even though i thought they were lame before. theyre all so complex and varied over there, i had no idea what was going on as they cut pics and editied stuff and drew on our faces =p

:: day 19
woke up to a japanese breakfast courtesy of shizu. it was soo nice.. and rather huge. it was snowing pretty heavy in the morning their backyard was caked in soft soft powder =) we spent the morning jsut looking around the local shops and going to Animate yet again.. but i think im destined never to have a Naruto forehead protector .. grr. worst holiday ever! hehe. They took us to this little japanese restaurant which only opens for special visitors =) it was vegetarian, but in japan that includes fish =p the food was pretty incredible.. it was like a 5 course meal or something.. all of them were sooo nice.. i even ate a mushroom! *gasp*

after that we went to get our luggage.. and then they drove us to the train station for the start of our ludicrously long, tedious trip home... when we go to the airport.. it was pandemonium! there were some flights that were delayed by up to 3 hours. we were kinda freaking out cos we had no idea what was going on. in the end it all worked out. our flight left on time and we had heaps of time to spare.

back in tokyo! .. we decided to go for the net cafe option for our nite's accommodation. basically cos we only need about 6 hours stay.. and it was a lot cheaper than a even a capsule hotel for that. also we could check ur mail =) hehe.

:: day 20
last day in japan! *sniff* it finaly comes to an end. we woke up.. and dragged ourselves out onto a train to the airport. where we just checked in and then we spent the rest of our Yen at some airport stores then slept a bit in wait for our plane....

the trip home was pretty trying on me.. if u count the net cafe.. i hardly got a breath of fresh air from Sunday afternoon all the way to Tuesday morning! by the time we got to Singapore i was feeling very very ill. i jsut couldnt want to get home..

.. meh the rest is boring.. i jsut went home

:: fin ::