The 1000 Day Holiday

With Japanese girls walking around in FMB`s and mini skirts you would think so.

Talking to a few longterm gaijins (foreigners) its year round standard practice.
it looks very funny with them running across snow in heels et al. need to get a good pic.

Teine & Sapporo Kokusai were awesome mountains. but the weather is not participating. both days were around 5 degrees celsius, and blue sky. why!? its meant to be below zero and dumping!

grrr

Arrived in Sapporo last night.
Had a day touring the city today. it was dumping snow all day so thats good news for the skifields im hitting tomorrow and tuesday.
Teine tomorrow.
Sapporo Kokukai tuesday…

then heading for Niseko on wednesday for a week.

one of the kiwi guys (bruce) that I hung out w on tuesday ended up in hospital after hitting a tree on Happone on thursday.

he was still unconsious with major head trauma before I left on saturday. not cool.
helmets and insurance, and some good karma are always required.

heres hoping he makes a decent recovery.
update: Bruce died of his injuries about 5 days after the accident.

heres a backpacking experience i dont want to surpass or experience ever again.

Tuesday night everyone in the hostel headed out to party. a huge night bouncing around a few of the local pubs.
anyway. most people crashed out around 4am.

6am ben, one of the guys in the room, got up and walked over to the other side of the room between 2 bunks.
he then proceeded to take a piss on one of the other guys packs.

one of the$ guys woke up and started screaming at him. however he didnt stop until he was shaken and yelled at.
glad it wasnt my bag!

urgh.

Now in Hakuba near Nagano for snowboarding.

spent the lsat 2 days riding Hakuba47 and Goryu resorts.
blue sky day yesterday w some great packed pow.

today the rain came in during the arvo.. bugger. heres hoping it chills down tonight and dumps lots of new snow.

Heading for Niseko on Saturday.

Arrived safe and sound.
didnt have enough time to make the sleeper train to sapporo. so hanging in tokyo.

its not too bad getting around on the rail system. met some aussies on the way to the hostel so hanging with other gaijins is good, and theyre organised on what to do!

mt fuji tomorrow. and then maybe nagano in a few days time.

the language thing is crazy.
we came out of the train station, and couldnt find which exit we came out of, thus the map made no sense.
however i asked a japanese couple for directions, and they walked us there, even tho they had no idea where it was, and ended up calling the hostel, getting us most of the way there.. then later noticing us lost again. and walking us to the right area.. then we talked to some others and got there in the end.

Food is soo cheap and good. great feeds for 200 – 400 yen. 2 to 4 bucks!
and the supermarkets sell the equivilant of vodka for 8 bucks.

visit to the govt tower today sent home the total size of this place. as far as the eye can see in all directions – built up.INSANE

Annas wedding was a great weekend.

couple of pics in the gallery.
Anna + Me
Practising for Japan

Back to sydney for 7 hours, and now in brisbane waiting my Japan flight.
Silly me forgot to get the Japan Rail Pass, hopefully wont be too expensive without it.

Well the routeburn (32km) was a breeze after the kepler. even carrying my whole pack – useless clothes/books etc.

a totally amazing track.
I can see why it is rated in the top 10 walks in the world by Nat Geo.

2 of the days I tramped with a bunch of aucklanders. 4X 16yr old girls (they know how to verbalise continuously!)+ 4 oldies.
The weather on the alpine day wasnt too crash hot but we sat it out till lunchtime and missed most of the wind/rain.

A cruisy couple of days has been had in Queenstown, and about to hitch to Invercargill for Annas wedding.

New Zealand

3-Jan-06 tue Fly Wgtn
4-Jan-06 wed Wgtn,
5-Jan-06 thu Wgtn – catch up w Timmy, Becs etc
6-Jan-06 fri
7-Jan-06 sat walk tongariro crossing
8-Jan-06 sun flew Nelson
9-Jan-06 mon Motueka
10-Jan-06 tue nelson
11-Jan-06 wed Rabbit Island w cousins
12-Jan-06 thu Blenheim Wine tasting, stayed Lake Rotoiti
13-Jan-06 fri Blackball Hilton
14-Jan-06 sat Croesus Track, stayed Franz
15-Jan-06 sun Franz Joseph Glacier
16-Jan-06 mon World tour work/photos
17-Jan-06 tue headed to wanaka – skydive postponed due to wind
18-Jan-06 wed scheduled to skydive wanaka 11am maybe do shotover jet too
19-Jan-06 thu Milford sound flight & cruise ex queenstown
20-Jan-06 fri Claybird shooting – wanaka, Picnic on Crown Range
21-Jan-06 sat thrill
22-Jan-06 sun thrill
23-Jan-06 mon routeburn
24-Jan-06 tue routeburn
25-Jan-06 wed
26-Jan-06 thu chch
27-Jan-06 fri rees dart or chch
28-Jan-06 sat rees dart chch
29-Jan-06 sun rees dart chch
30-Jan-06 mon rees dart chch
31-Jan-06 tue dive fiordland