Day 5: Niseko

G'day!

There's not really much to say about today.. so I'll talk about something else. No I won't - I'll just put you through this torture. Today was not very good for skiing. I think it turned out to be wet - thredbo weather like. We'd only been spoilt for one day, and we're whinging about snow conditions that are akin to Thredbo. Too right! Anyway, I'd call it rain, but some die hards would probably be more lenient and say... warm snow. \/\/oteva!

The highlight of the day was dinner down at Kutchan. I have no idea what the place was called, but I'd remember how to get there. Hmm.. get off at the Sports store stop (takoyaki sports store - or something like that). Then head down the road a little (away from the station) and at the first intersection, go left, then take your next right. Then the shop is somewhere on your left. That is... if you look at the 2nd picture below, the shop is down the road 30m, and on the street to our right.



What food did they have? Actually, I don't know what type of Japanese restaurant, but they served seafood, and dishes, and we sat on the floor (again). I had become anti-noodles by now because my stomach has been trying to eat itself for the past 2 days... that's the only way I could describe it. It was back to the good ol' rice diet for me.... but this was good too. The occasion was that Max and Kev were leaving us soon, so it's a farewell dinner . Awwwwww.



OK, enough talk. This is Gregan's favourite part - the food. I'll let you browse through some of our dishes, and then we'll move onto the next day.



Some of the crew in good spirits.

Day 4: Niseko

Woohoo. Snowboarding. It's been about 5 months since I last hit the slopes, and here we are, back again.

This blog entry was originally going to be Day4-Day13 or something, but I figured... I'll test my memory by seeing if I can remember each day's events. It's also easier, coz there's not many photos taken. Niseko is too cold to take happy snaps.

I do have some video footage of Day 4 (along with other days) but I'm keeping that in the vault until the next music video/dvd comes out.

The day starts nice and early with the crew heading out to Hirafu, or should I say, "The Grand Hirafu" to pick up our lift tickets. KCA (Karina,Cheech,Ari) pick up the 3 week tickets. KCM (Ken,Cherie,Mak) pick up our Bossman special - 10 days.

Aside: I just logged onto the anz.com website to check how much the tickets cost me. There's this chick they got on the front page - I was just trying to work out her nationality. Beats me!

Ok, the tickets cost us about $300 AUD each. If we went the full 10days, that's $30/day for lift passes. That kicks ass. As it turned out, it was closer to $40, but that craps all over bloody Aussie lift pass deals. And you get a Gondola that goes somewhere (as opposed to an 8-seater that goes over 2 slopes), and some chair lifts are hooded. Not a single T-bar in site either. Wicked!

The first impression was ...well.. awesome. Ok, I'll post up a little video to show you some conditions in the late afternoon.




We stopped over for lunch at Hanazono. Shoyu Ramen was my choice, and yeh bro, it was choice! I think it was 8 or 900Y... or less. Not sure, but it was worth it. Wish we could have lunch like this back in Oz........... ok, i'm awake now.

We caught a shuttle service back to our accommodation, changed out, and caught the next bus in towards Kutchan. Emi had told us about a 100Y shop where you can pick up foods from. So KCM went there. KCA went to Max Value (supermarket) to pick up their groceries there.

We were basically buying dinner that we would cook. What we picked up was:
* Udon (for Yaki-udon)
* Soba (for Cold-soba)
* Instant noodles (for tonight, coz we couldn't be *&#$ cooking tonight)
* Chips/Snacks (bloody heaps)
* Something else... sorry - can't remember at the moment.

We also stopped over at Co-Op (Supermarket+Department store) at Kutchan station. They were selling half price Sashima (Tuna). This was about ... 300g for $5 . I can't remember the exact weight, but the offer was too good to refuse, so we bought some :D They had a used-by date of ... tonight!

1.5hrs of shopping later, we met up with KCA again on the bus. On our minds, was what was for dinner. At our bus stop, known as Izumikyo 2, there was this little restaurant there. It looked good, clean, friendly, and importantly - warm! So in we went. They asked us if we wanted western style tables, or japanese style. When in Japan, do as the Japanese do right? We didn't, so we went the Japanese style tables :)

The food was excellent. The Karage Chicken was excellent, and well, I just loved the food. Too bad we can't afford to eat out every night as Niseko is our only chance in our whole trip where we have the opportunity to cook. I didn't take a picture of the place... I don't even know the name. I just know it's a japanese restaurant with a circle sign at Izumikyo 2.

Did I mention how sitting cross legged on the floor eating dinner is not very comfortable? You can probably do it for about 10-15mins, but eventually, you'll (and I mean... guys) resort to sitting with 1 knee up. The meal cost us ... about 4000Y for 3 people (incl drinks of Warm Sake & Coke - guess who had coke!).

Night's were a bit of a blur for me, so I don't remember what happened tonight. We didn't eat the Sashimi.

Till tommorrow friends, adieu!

Day 3: Tokyo -> Niseko

Welcome back travellers!

After a jam packed Day 2, Day 3 is the day we head for the slopes, though skiing on them ... yet!! . First thing in the morning, we rush out to check the world's longest escalator. I mean, I was very excited at first. Could be really cool right? It was quite fun. I think the ride took about a minute. It was sort of a let down seeing it, but who else can say they rode the longest escalator eh?



Oh yeh, the first photo is of their (Japanese) little garbage trucks. Nothing unusual, I just thought it was cool. I'm into that sort of thing you know.... no, not garbage trucks, but I was in this mood where I wanted to take a lot of photos of Japanese life. Not necessarily pretty pictures, just pictures... umm... that I think shows Japan isn't just a place of pretty things, and wonder, and whatever - just Raw Japan! That's it!



Me,Cherie,Mak stopped at the Excelsior Cafe (Ikebukuro) for brekky. When I went to order, they pointed towards the menu on the front counter. They must have realised we don't speak Japanese... but nup, it's just how they order. After trying to understand what we get in the offer, I scored a Ham & Cheese crossoint (however you spell it), with coffee... or something. I remember the H&CC was served cold - I'll put it down to "that's how they do it in Japan" because H&CC should NEVER be served cold. It's not very tasty :)


Back to the hoteru (Hotel), packing, and lugging the massive snowboard bag back to the domestic airport (Haneda). Halfway to Ikebukuro station, I trade cheech his snowboard bag for mine. He reckons mine was easy. I reckoned his was easy. So we happily made it there though I started to struggle as we got closer to the ticket gates (different part of the body started aching).

At Haneda Airport station, Cherie noticed a dude in cool clothes, so tried to 'unobtrusively' take a photo of him. Obviously, she got busted (take a look at his mate staring in the direction of the camera).


Flying was pretty uneventful. Japan has lots of mountains, and snow on top of them, but what did you expect in Winter? :) I was watching the plane fly away from the main island of Honshu, and onto Hokkaido. The picture below was the first port city we saw. I assume it's Hakodate, but it could have been anything.



On arrival, the bus that takes us to Niseko wasn't gonna be here for another 2hrs. Bugger. So we sat around the airport a bit. Grabbed some lunch. After walking around the food court area (it's quite a nice food court area, but expensive - again, not unexpected). The food wasn't too bad for 1200Y for the place we chose. As we were eating, we were treated to how the Japanese like to decorate their planes. Yep, it's Pokemon!


Bus came (on time) and the trip was going to be 2hrs. So to keep from sleeping, we played a game where you had to get a certain number of movies an actor/actress has been in. Then played Charades... then we arrived. We were met by Hugo who helped us load up, meet the Bossman, Mr Nakamura - the owner of Shizenkan (our accommodation). The room we had was good. I don't I have a photo of it anywhere - bummer. If I find one, I'll post it up some time. Warm toilet seats, clean showers, vending machine, 100Y/20min Internet access, TV, videos, drying room, lounge, everything!

In our room, we had Cheech, Karina, Ari, Ken, Cherie, Mak. I couldn't wait to get out and ride some powder the next day as it had been dumping most of the night.

Till tommorrow then friends....



Oh, nearly forgot. Didn't get to meet any chicks today.... oh yes I did. Max introduced us to Emi. I forgot her name afterwards (Gomenasai!!!) ... but hey, I remembered again and I remembered now. That's what's important!

Day 2: Tokyo

Day 2. Well... done one was action packed... too much for my liking. I don't think I should write as much Day 1, even though we did heaps in Day 2. Let's see how we go.



The day started with a trip to Ikebukuro station and picking up a one-day subway ticket. Our first stop, Ginza and the Sony store there. It was our first taste of everyone bowing at us entering a store. That felt sweet. haha. Hmm... I took a liking to a handycam that was quite small and well... I can't remember much else about it, including the model - though I do remember the Japanese person explaining it to me had a very American accent. Cherie took a liking to the AIBO's.



We lost Cheech @ Sony, so we made our way to the Kabuki theatre in Higashi-Ginza (East Ginza?). We just took photos around the building, and of the elderly who were all hanging out to watch whatever was the next show (see photo below).



Asakusa was the next port of call. To get there, we tried to use our day-pass ticket but it didn't work. Had a train guard try to explain to us why it didn't work. After deciphering his hand signals and tone, we worked out our ticket didn't let us go on the Toei lines (incl. the one to Asakusa). Bummer. Walked to another subway and after getting directions from another guard, we found our way there.
Cherie had a walking tour map thing which we followed. It took us to this massive lantern thing. There were some stalls selling snacks and touristy things there. I tried this red-bean cake thing that had massive queues in it. It wasn't that great - I think I bought too much of it.



Got to the end, found a temple. Our first temple, wicked. It was pretty. But not very eventful - but I guess I wasn't expecting Bruce Willis to come busting out behind a donation bin.




Started to get hungry, and Cherie's walking guide thing took us to some pretty dodgey places without food :P. There was hardly anyone along those streets at all. There was an amusement park in an alley ... about the size of Luna Park with maybe... no visitors inside. Pretty eeeeerie. We did find a guy making tatami mats in his shop. Stood there staring at him for about 2mins.. the moved along :D



Found another small temple (below), took more photos and moved on to the riverside. There were some homeless with some sweet housing along the river (photo below). Maybe they were fishermen.



Still starving (approx 2pm by now), and our next stop was Jimbocho. Supposedly, a great place to buy snowboard gear. Wicked! Off we went on the subway again, and found an english speaking information desk who helped us catch all the right trains. I loved travelling the subways. It's so cool having a train every few minutes or waiting for you each time you're there.


When we got out of Jimbocho, we were at the main intersection and couldn't see a single shop that sold snowboard stuff. We had nooo idea which direction to go, so we took a punt, and went.... the wrong way. We did find a nice noodle restaurant. I say nice because the food was nice, but the waitress was nice too. She could speak a little english. I didn't get her name - doh! Though when we were asking for direction to find snowboard shops, Mak did his simulated 'ski' gestures which ended up looking like he was asking if she wanted a hump. Thanks Mak. Blew our chance of getting her details.


After walking around for another hour without luck, we asked a pamphlet giver-outer on the street for directions. He pointed us the right way and weren't we happy to find it! Woohoo. It was dark by then, and we saw cheech again shopping there. They'd practically finished and were heading off somewhere (can't remember - dinner i think). We continued shopping : Cherie scored glove liners, wrist warmers, snowboard bra. Mak got a snowboard bra too - it looks great on you man. I got thermals for mi-self.


After shopping, off to Akihabara - or Electric Town. Supposedly lots of electronics. I was hoping that when we get there, finding electronic stores would be easier than finding snowboard stores. We got there, and it wasn't too hard as this time they had signs to point you to Electric Town. Cool! Did a bit of shopping. Cherie scored earphones. The shops were closing by then (9pm?), and hunger started to kick in. As were were walking down the main street, we smelt something really good. We followed our noses to this alley, and there was a little restaurant there. Cherie read the sign as Okinomiyaki - but we weren't sure the place was still open. We peered in and there was no one else in the restaurant, but we went in anyway (hungry remember!!).

We had this hot plate in front of us, then they gave us our menu's. Great, Jap menu's! The lady that was serving us wasn't very good with english, so she brought out the owner/chef who explained the ingredients in english. The "Special!! SPecial!!" one sounded good so we got that, along with 2 other pancakes. I think coz we were foreigners, they helped us cook it. That was really cool!


The Special was the best okinomiyaki ever. Like ever! (Even better than ones we've had later on). Great find, and I remember as we were leaving, I was bowing like about 30 times and getting hit by Cherie "stop bowing!". For me, that was the highlight of the day. Great food :D Great service :D

Day 1: Tokyo

Welcome aboard,
So where shall we start?... oh... the getting to the airport.

Woke up... got ready... had fun trying to pack the massive snowboard bag in the car. It kind of fit... if you fold the front passenger seat down, and really wedged it in and stuff. So I sat my way to the airport, crouching down with my head near the glove box (since I was the front passenger... doh!). So long as the gear got there, that's all that mattered. It did cross my mind how I would get home as well... but that's another bridge to cross... when we get there.

Late, as usual.... me I'm talkin' about. The others were there already, so we started queueing up. Cheech was dressed in his 'normal' blue/yellow basketball shorts that he always wears which has a massive hole about 12cm in diameter on his... hmm... left buttock I think. I hate how I remember details like that. And he was in $1 shop thongs as well - which I wouldn't be surprised if they were cheaper.



Checked-in the luggage, with mine weighing in at 40kgs alone. The luggage limit is 20kgs per person, and I had Cherie's snowboard gear in the snowboard bag (27kgs). I think everything was sweet though as we checked in as a group... and it all sort of balanced out.

A macca's breakfast was the order of the day, so off we went. Nothing of note here, other than Cherie performing one of her customer opinion surveys (ie. returning watery OJ) and scoring a free 300ml bottle of AJ (apple juice for you uneducated).

Karina sighted a Japanese tennis player waiting in the ... waiting area before boarding. I think his name was Takao Suzuki (yes, I just looked it up on google because I had no idea). For a while there, we weren't sure if Karina was checking him out (as I must admit... he's probably got qualities the ladies would like... not that I would know of course... but err... he 'probably' has), or if she was waiting for him to get off the free Internet terminal. I'd say the former and she was trying to get his autograph, but I'm sure she'd protest and say she wanted to check email. Ziiiiiiiiiiifffffffff. Mr Suzuki, who as Karina told us, had just lost to Federer a day or two ago @ the Ford Australian open, was one of the first people on the plane, presumably because he's a celebrity.

We flew JAL, Jumbo 747, departing I think at 10am AEST. It was a very full flight with a lot of Japanese. Sweeeet.

I scored a seat between Cherie (window) and a jap chick (aisle). Some of us are just lucky ok? :) But aaanyway, I spent most of the 8hrs on the plane watching movies, listening to music and mostly, sleeping. Food was ok on the plane, nothing to write home about. As we completed our final meal on the flight, I decided to speak to the chick next to me. Here are some quick facts:
* She was flying home after 1yr Working Holiday in Oz.
* She was working at Matsuya's?? A Jap restaurant in Wynyard... or so she told me. I think the place is popular... at least, I think I've heard of it before. She was a waitress.
* Her English was ok, but it did take some getting used to.
* Her family owns a restaurant outside Kyoto I think.... or was it Yokohama.... or maybe Nagoya. I can't remember. She was planning to go back and work there with them.
* She liked Australia. That's about all I got out of her about that.
* I didn't get her name
* Not quite a supermodel, but wasn't unpleasant to the eyes.
* Damn, I should have at least got her name!
* I noticed she didn't ask me any questions. I'll put that down to her shy English, rather than her disinterest in prolonging the conversation.

So, off the airplane. Waited for Mak's flight to arrive, jumped on a train. I'd heard from a work colleague that Japanese trains are just so on time, it's not funny. And the first train we caught... I guess met that expectation. But the real test will come after we catch a crapload more trains.



There weren't many seats to start, and people (our group) seemed happy to stand. I think some of them didn't realise it was a 1.5hr trip into Tokyo, so I was keen to get seated. And we did (me and Cherie), and then we laughed at the others across the carriage who didn't have a seat. Muahaha. Ok... this paragraph is not that interesting.

I didn't realise my snowboard bag was that heavy to carry, even with wheels. Tip: Try not to put 27kgs in a snowboard bag... even with wheels. I found that out the hard way after lugging it out trains, changing trains, lugging it up stairs, lugging it through the subway paths, lugging it through Ikebukero (which is where we stayed) and walking to our accommodation 10mins walk away. It killed and I was being a girl and complaining.

But I survived, got there, and saw our first accommodation in Japan. It wasn't spectacular. It wasn't even 'that' good, but it was reasonably clean, and that was enough for me. We got tatami mat floors and a mattress that was about 2cms thick on the floor. Pretty sweet.

By this time, we were starving and waiting for our first Jap meal. We went to this place about 3 blocks from our accommodation. We spent time looking at the pictures of the food outside, and then realised we had to order via the ticket machine. That sucked, because the ticket machine didn't have pictures and I guess it expected us to read Jap and understand what we ordered. I can't remember how we worked it out, but things turned out and we got fed. The food wasn't great.... actually, it wasn't very good, but I think we were just happy to be eating. The chick that was working there... I had a chat to her as well. Here are some quick facts:
* Student from Vietnam
* She spoke Vietnamese... though I think I tried to speak some and she just smiled politely... maybe coz my viet sux so bad
* She was in Japan studying Japanese
* I didn't get her name... doh!
Hmm... anyway, conclusion so far = Jap food isn't that special yet... but we did go cheapo. I think my meal cost 450Yen... or something like that.



We walked a little around town... it started raining very lightly. Saw our first dodgey Karaoke place. Actually, it might not have been dodgey, but we'd like to think it was... just so we could say we saw one that was dodgey. It had a big dragon up top... I can't remember if it was moving or not, but let's just say it was breathing smoke (even if it wasn't) because it sounds so much cooler.



On our way back, we saw a bakery... just 1min walk from where we were staying. Pretty sweet. Nice food - not that I remember what it was, but it was edible and it looked nice, so it was nice food. We'll pay a visit there tommorrow morning.



See you's tommorrow!

Introduction

Welcome to the first installment of my very first blog.... ever. Yeh, pretty amazing being a computer geek and all, and it's taken me this long to write a blog. Well... I find it nice to write my thoughts... knowing that someone may or may not read this some day. I find myself very forgetful lately (alzheimers?), so this will be very useful when the full brain cell loss kicks in.

So... this is the Japan Trip of 2005. I should write written an ongoing entry, but you'll get an ongoing entry as it is... a kind of Post-Trip Blog. Lots of things happened so I doubt I'll be able to write it all up in one night anyway.

A summary of the trip would go like this.
25-27 Jan - Tokyo
27 Jan - Feb 6 - Niseko/Hirafu
Feb 7 - Feb 11 - Hokkaido
Feb 12 - 25 - Honshu and the rest

Trip participants:
Jan 25 - Feb 6: Ken,Cherie,Mak,Chieh,Karina,Ari
Feb 6 - Feb 12: Ken,Cherie,Mak
Feb 13 - Feb 26: Ken,Cherie,Mak,Louisa

Cheech/K/Ari stayed in Niseko for another 2 weeks and saw the Toyota big air. We met up with them on the last day in Tokyo.

It was a totally awesome trip. If someone asked me what I thought of the trip, I would say 'good'. It could have been great, excellent, just the bestest.... but it was good.... ok, you twisted my arm... "really good". Kind of like, really good, and really loved it mixed into one. I can't explain it so you'll just have to live with it.

Ok, so enough of the small talk, let's start this thing! I know you won't enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed living it... but sucked in!