Bubble Era Madness At It's Best

Welcome to Tomamu

Impressive (electricity bill)

Like two sets of brothers - the twin twin towers of Tomamu rise up bravely from the frigid winter environment.  Yes, that's right.  One lot of twin towers wasn't enough.  Tomamu Resort build two.  This resort is crazy.  Even more crazy than Rusutsu.  There has been a lot of cash spent here.  And with very few guests, the question must be raised - how the hell can they make any money???  Apart from the twin twin towers, there is more accommodation within extremely ugly buildings, 20 restaurants and a "sky walk" - basically a glass enclosed tunnel, suspended up high, and absolutely freezing - than runs between the different areas.  There is a giant glass buffet room (god knows what the heating costs are like) - with piles of delicious options (see below for my top three favourites) plus 2 chocolate fountains - white and milk - and piles of marshmallows and cake to spike and dip into them.  My final undoing - fuck their velvety irresistible smoothness I say.  You can even use a soup spoon like a ladle and slosh melted chocolate all over the top of your icecream from the all-you-can-eat soft serve machine - if you want to split the arse seam in your brand new snowboarding pants.   Outside the restaurant's glass walls, are extremely tall fir trees, lit up with giant spotlights.  It's actually beautiful, and very impressive.  The lights from night skiing turn the sky orange every night - going all out for that one skier that wants to make the most of his lift pass.  Fuck night skiing.  I'm not sure if there are people that actually do it more than once.  It seems like such a novelty idea, until you're out there, it's icy, it's about 15 degrees colder than during the day, and you wonder why you're not drinking beerus at the bar and reminiscing about your glorious form during the day.  I remember once seeing a group of snowboarders (Japanese guys of course)  all dressed up in wigs, dresses and cheerleading outfits.  With bare legs.  As the temperature was about minus 20 I hope to god they were pissed.

Sleepy Valli

My favourite type of fungus

What?

Enticing

giant wave pool to ourselves

Another drawcard(?) here is the famous MinaMina Beach - which means "smile smile" in Ainu, and well as "everybody everybody" in Japanese.  This is a huge Olympic-sized fake beach enclosed in a massive complex.  There are of course waves (just can't escape the bloody wave pools) that roll in every half an hour, and twice a day they have the "violent waves" set.  We took the girls one afternoon, they of course loved it.  And of course I was unmoved.  The inside of the centre was like a sauna, but the water a touch colder than I would have liked.  The last thing you want to be, when you're in your bathers looking out at a blizzard, is on the chilly side.

Sitting on ice having drinks in ice in the Ice Bar

What no guests?  Should have got married here.....

Spencer Glacier in Alaska

There is also an "ice village".  Basically ice skating, ice restaurants inside igloos, even an ice chapel where you can get married.  Actually it reminded me of this place we went to in Alaska three years ago on snowmobiles - Spencer glacier.  Under the end of the glacier was the giant deep blue chamber called "The Chapel".  On our snowmobile tour were a couple that were getting married there.  Under Alaskan law anybody can marry anyone, so the snowmobile tour guide married these people, while myself, Chalks and my friend Harriet were the only guests.  On the way there we were driving these bloody vehicles up and down banks, even through rivers and really fast along giant icy plains.  I was having major troubles keeping pace.  But after the "wedding" we all got stuck into the snacks and the champagne, and three glasses later it was time to head back.   I drove that snowmobile like a maniac.  Alcohol works wonders for confidence on a snowmobile (that should be on the brochure).  God it was fun.  Not sure if it was safe, but it was definitely fun.  Another highlight was when the bride (wearing a red jumpsuit and a veil) dragged the groom on the ground behind her snowmobile (again we have champagne to thank for that kind of entertainment.

On your marks. get set, GO!

The Chapel in the background - a couple of drunkards in the foreground

As I said = probably not that safe (note the glass of champers in one hand)

That kind of thing wouldn't happen in Japan.  You would probably have to do a safety course before you were even allowed to turn the ignition on, and you would be prohibited from taking it over 5kmph.  There's no way the initial instructions would be like they were in Alaska - "Here's the accelerator, this is the brake - get it up to 100kmph and let's GO!".  Anyway, back to Tomamu's ice village - where we also sat on animal skins on a ice seat in an ice bar and drank booze served out of blocks of ice.  Local sake was their speciality, but I guess hot sake wouldn't really work here.  Shame, it's my favourite.  I've been to an ice bar before.  One of those Absolute Vodka ones.  It was in Tokyo in the middle of summer.  You had to get dressed up in these giant thermal silver suits before entry.  Then you boozed it on with the same type of ice block cups, and very nice vodka cocktails.  There was something about being all dressed the same as the other patrons.  It really broke down the social inhibitions and there was a lot of chatting going on down there.  It wasn't the vodka either, I felt completely sober.  That was until I left.  As we stepped out the door back into the humid summer night, the sharp increase in temperature by about 40 degrees made me become immediately drunk.  And not just a bit tipsy - completely spastic.  There are photos of me slumped in the gutter pigging on greasy fried chicken bought from the 7/11 - the ultimate slag food.  Obviously family shots.

Valli and the Ice Bar

Tomamu from the top

I haven't even got to the snow yet.  Tomamu is in central Hokkaido, so it's much colder than on the coast.  The snow is more intact and very, very powdery.  There are also very few people here, so it doesn't get skied out.  The only issue is that the weather has been awful, and although it's snowed daily, the winds were so full-on, that they kept closing the upper lifts, severely limiting the accessible terrain.   Also, a lot of the chairs are uncovered.  With a temperature around minus 26 for the last few days (with wind chill) it has been pretty fucking brutal.  I was not lasting all day, lets put it like that.  My fingers and toes became like clubs of unfeeling nothingness.  We were however, finally able to get to the top in the gondola and experience some extremely enjoyable conditions.  Although I couldn't see much, and I kept  covering myself in a huge wave of powdery snow whenever I turned my board (that isn't a complaint by the way).  But that joy didn't last long and after a nail biting ride to the top in strong winds (again), the gondola was closed again, and we didn't get to the top again until our final day, which was (due to another huge dumping of snow), without doubt, the best day's riding of the entire trip.

This is what minus 26 looks like 

On one of these bad weather days, we decided it was now or never for "Powder Heaven".  This is a resort-named elusive area of the mountain which also has been closed since we arrived.  A snowboarders nirvana.  Wide open runs from the summit to the bottom, that are not accessible by any lifts.  It therefore, involved a short hike up the mountain from the highest lift to gain entry, but had had a large red sign across the hiking path the entire time we were there.  Also, there was something written in Japanese (unsure what that was though).  Well, after waiting for it to reopen, we eventually decided - fuck the sign.  We were going to "Powder Heaven" and we were going to love it.  Instead of sneaking up the assigned (and closed) path - we decided to go directly up  a nearby run.  This was quite an intense experience.  Climbing an almost vertical slope in deep powder with your snowboard isn't the most cruisy way to spend a Friday.  For most of it we were basically crawling uphill with all arms and legs on the job.  As we got near the top, with every step we took, the snow fell away beneath us.  I became almost frozen with fear.  Plus it was blowing a gale.  Not a great time really.  We decided to buckle up and traverse through the trees from there, and come out onto "Powder Heaven" a little way down from the very top.  It took a little while but we made it.  A huge, steep, wide run from the mountain's top to the very bottom, deep in powder, and not one track on it what so ever.  It was thrilling.

We started to swoosh.  I was at one side, Chalks at the other, when suddenly I spotted couple of orange sticks across the run.  I went in for a closer look.  And that's when I spotted it.  I huge lip of snow that dropped off in a a massive zig-zagged crack that extended across the entire slope.  Basically an avalanche just waiting to drop.  It fucking terrified the life out of me.  I screamed out to Chalks to stop, but he was already across the other side above the crack and couldn't get back.  He couldn't see it properly (I was down the side of it with a direct view into the crevasse).  I couldn't believe it - our promised land of Powder Heaven had become Crack Hell.  I guess that's the way it goes for a lot of people.  Chalks decided to take off his board and try and walk across the run above the lip.  I went to the side to grip a tree.   Then I couldn't actually see him, and got a little panicked about his whereabouts.  But at last he made it, and we got the fuck out of there as fast as we could.  So THAT'S why they had closed "Powder Heaven".  I guess it pays to be able to read Japanese when they are warning you about life safety.   Looking back I'm sure we would have been fine.  I think I was a bit over anxious after reading an article the night before, about a young guy who had ridden the extinct volcano near Niseko called Mt Yotei a month ago, and nearly been killed in an avalanche.  Avalanches are like the Great White Shark of the ski mountain.  Plus, you never think it will happen to you - until you wake up in a snowy hell with your legs pointing in all weird directions, and get to see what bones sticking through the skin look like.

Face to face with the evil Chokkari

Maybe it was safer to go and play on Adventure Mountain with all the under 10s.  We too could find the seeds to the forest, and prevent the evil "Big Monster" - Chokkari - from stealing them from the Nipos (forest fairies).  All this exciting action takes place on the slopes in a kids wonderland called Nipotown - Apparently Chokkari want to chop down all the trees so he can ski, and the Nipos want to plant more trees.  I'm with Chokkari on this one.  I think a few mores trees could come out of some of those wooded areas - they're a bit closely spaced to ski between on occassion.  Cordi is terrified of Chokkari, but also fascinated by him.  I don't think she knew what to think when she saw the photos of me posing with my new BFF.   God knows how much they have spent in promoting the Nipo/Chokkari battle.  There are signs everywhere.  Plus they pay some guy to ski down a hill all day shaking his fist and terrifying all the kids learning how to ski for the first time.  Not to mention the Nipo, who walks around in that stupid costume bumping into things.

I think he wants to punch me

But really he wants to be BFFs - I can get past the nose

I later betray Chokkari by bonding with a Nipo

They also have an interesting off piste policy here.  They don't seem to have an active ski patrol, but they instead make people who want to ski through the trees sign up every morning, buy insurance, wear a helmet and poxy vest, and listen to a lecture on the daily snow conditions.  They are also nice enough to have pamphlets that divide the tree skiing zones into different areas and explain the nature of the terrain.  For example, Zone 7 - "the trees are widely spaced and there are a few dips and bumps".  Or Zone 8 - "Full of creeks that you will nearly ski into, stop a metre from, and then the branch you are holding onto for dear life will snap with a resounding CRACK and you will scream loudly".  Thanks very much.  I'm still not wearing the gay looking vest though.  However, I guess part of the lecture may have covered why you should never go into Powder Heaven....hmmm could have been worthwhile afterall.

But as always, the good things come to an end, and the snow honeymoon is in it's dying throes of life.  Ho Hum.  We will have to go back to everyday life.  But first, off to my old home town of Sapporo for a few days....but not before I have my final Tomamu healthy start breakfast of fried breadcrusts dipped in condensed milk (breakfast slag food), and slap on a horse placenta face mask.
It's so nice to look after yourself.

That mask picture is scarier than Chokkari

Two Years Later

Blythe is the best doll ever - stylish as well as empathetic

Yesterday at 2.46, there were vigils, prayers facing the ocean, and moments of silence across Japan.  This was of course, in memory of the double punch of earthquake plus tsunami, which, as the world knows, then saw the triple knock-out kapow due to the almost nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.  A nation completely slammed.

This year, I decided to write about our experiences during the earthquake, and the aftermath.  I know a lot of my friends have already heard the story (some possibly several times), but I haven't blogged about it yet, and want to before the memories fade even more.

Friday, March 11th 2011

This morning, Mark and I woke up early in a tiny town in the mountains of Akita prefecture.  Tazawako.  Ourselves, and our 20 month old twin girls, had flown from the north island of Japan - (Hokkaido) into Sendai (located north of Tokyo on the east coast of Honshu - the large main island of Japan) the day before.  We were on a high because Mark had just proposed to me.  Well I was.  Mark was already calculating the estimated costs of the wedding.  I wanted to spend a couple of days in Sendai.  I had a friend who had lived there for a while, and I knew it to be a vibrant coastal city.  I always like checking out new places.

But Mark was anxious to get back on the snow, so we abandoned our Sendai plans and took a train directly from Sendai's airport train station to Tazawako.  We checked into a very Japanese style country hotel.  Nobody spoke English, but we didn't mind.  We had enough basic Japanese to understand and in turn be understood.  This hotel's claim to fame was that a famous love scene was filmed in a room there for a popular Korean Drama - "Iris".  It was set up like a shrine, and you could peer in from the doorway, but there was strictly no entry.

We were served a gourmet meal by a smiley lady in the dining room that night.  There were very few other guests staying there.  The next morning we took a shuttle bus to the local ski mountain.  We dropped the kids off at childcare and had ourselves one of the best skiing experiences of our lives.  The amount of snow was incredible.  After a an hour lunch break, the girls were back in childcare, and we were back out on the slopes loving life. It was snowing heavily so we were thrilled that yet more powder was being added to an already outstanding base.

As we rode an old fashioned two seater chair (with no front bar) to the summit, suddenly without warning the chairlift stopped.  "What is it?" asked Mark.  I recognised the familiar shaking.  "An earthquake".  At this stage I wasn't overly concerned.  I had experienced many earthquakes during my time in Japan.  While it's not the most comforting experience - you typically freeze expectantly and exchange glances with the people you happen to be with at the time.  But usually they are over quickly and life goes back to normal, just like it never happened.

This one was long.  The initial 9.0 earthquake lasted about 3-5 minutes. It's estimated that this massive quake shortened the day about 1.8 microseconds, shifted the Earth's axis about 6.5 inches, and moved the country as much as 12 feet closer to North America.  It also sent shockwaves into space.  It sure was a big one.  Because it kept going and going, I became really frightened.  The posts that held up the chair lift, were waving around like grass in a breeze.  I was sure we were going to fall out.  It was terrifying.  Finally it stopped.  But we weren't gong anywhere.  We were suspended high above, in minus fifteen degrees during a snow storm.  Not ideal really.  And what about our babies?

Half an hour went past before movement started.  We were so bloody freezing.  We didn't know at the time, but power had gone out across the region, not to return for days.  All other people trapped in chairlifts were being rescued by ski patrol who were using some kind of pulley system.  We were too high up for this, but luckily they had managed to get our chairlift started, and moving slowly with an old generator.  It was a relief to get off.  However, we were at the very top of the mountain and we had to get all the way to the bottom.  As we buckled up, another quake shook the mountain - an aftershock.  Only then did I remember the possible risk of avalanches.  We got the hell out of there as quick as we possibly could.

This whirlpool is really freaky

The ski centre was in darkness and people were in a kind of panicked shock.  The girls weren't in the child-care room.  Mark checked his phone just before the service was shut down.  We saw that a tsunami was reported  - actually, it hit northern Japan about eight minutes after the earthquake occurred.  However, at this stage we had no idea of the extent of it.  We found the girls outside.  The lady from the childcare had got help from the ski rental man, and they had carried the girls outside in fear that the building would collapse.  Shortly after, one of the men from the hotel turned up to take us back to the hotel.  It was a little surreal.  The power was out at the hotel - not to return for a few days.  It was cold and getting dark.  There was no running water, no phone service, no Internet, no electricity - so, of course no heating.  The night-time temperature dropped down to about minus 20 at night.

Plus, there were constant aftershocks the whole time.  I think we racked up about 100 during that weekend.  I had a small bag packed with our passports, some money, our shoes, a torch and some water at the end of my bed.  We all slept in our ski gear and spent the cold days wrapped up in blankets.  The hotel dug in deep to their supplies and kept us fed.  They used small gas cookers to prepare the most incredible things such as lobster and steaks (all the speciality items in the deep freeze were pulled out).   Candles lit the hotel, snow was turned to water on the couple of small gas heaters in the lobby, and meals were served in the sacred "Love Scene Room" because it was the only room that had a fireplace in it that could keep us all warm.  We also hung out here during the day.  How the Korean soap opera fan's blood would have turned cold, to see a couple of babies jumping on the treasured "Lovemaking Bed".

The hotel began to fill up with guests.  These people were stranded travellers, who had to be given accommodation when all the trains in the area suddenly stopped operating.  In our conversations with these people, we began to understand the true extent of the calamity.  On the third day, somebody managed to get hold of a newspaper, and this was when we saw the first pictures of the tsunami ravaged east coast.  It was shocking.  I felt sick.  I also felt very lucky, and relieved that we had decided not to visit Sendai, as the photo of the flooded airport was one of the first images I viewed.

Sendai airport

The power finally came back on three days later - there was a resounding cheer as it started up during dinner one evening.  However, this was when the real fear started.  My eyes could not believe the carnage, the fires, the bodies, the destruction.  We had been sheltered - in a kind of bubble.  We were fed and taken care of, with no real understanding of what hundreds of thousands of people were going through.  It was confronting.  I felt so strange that the tsunami had surrounded us on all sides, but we were in one of the only untouched areas in the region.  Then we saw the reports of the impending nuclear disaster.  We saw news reports telling Tokyo residents to stay in doors due to radiation.  We saw foreigners desperately scrambling to leave the country and the chaos taking place at Tokyo's Narita Airport.  Furthermore, we were aware that we would have to travel past Fukushima to get to Tokyo.

How the wave spread across the Pacific

Our family and friends were urging us to get the hell out of there.  There was panic in the air.  But we felt like we had to just sit tight for the time being.  To be honest, leaving was a scary thought.  Packing up our children and our things and going where????  But, the next day a decision was made for us.  The hotel had to close.  They had no food left, and due to power shortages they had to turn everything off and go into shut down mode.  They had found us another small hotel in the area who said they would take us.  But for how long?  They too would run out of food at some stage, seeing as the national transport system had ground to a halt.  Plus it was the nuclear situation that spurred us into activity.

Mark found a way.  He always does.  A small airport in the northwest had their one and only once a week international flight to Seoul, and it was leaving in 24 hours.  Somehow, he got us on that flight.  Now, we just had to get 200km across the north island to Akita town.  There was no transport, and no cars had any fuel.  Amazingly, the hotel staff found us an old man with a tiny taxi who was willing to take on the journey.  Even more amazingly, we managed to fit three suitcases, four people, a stroller, two snowboard bags, and various mini bags into a extremely small Toyota.  We were off.

The roads were deserted.  Whole highways with no cars to be seen.  All shops were shut and buildings deserted.  It was like an apocalypse had occurred - and in fact I guess it had. The only time we saw any signs of life the entire whole journey, was at two open petrol stations where there were cars lined up and stretching 100 vehicles back, all filling cans and containers with gasoline.  We got to our hotel in Akita which was appropriately named "Alive".  It was a small business hotel connected to a train station.  I was shocked to see the entire floor of the train station jammed full of people sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes, under grey donated blankets.  They were all stranded travellers with no where to go and no way of getting home.  Again, for the thousandth time, I felt so fortunate.

make-shift beds

The four of us were sharing a tiny bed in a tiny room that night, before our flight left the nearby airport at 9am the next morning.   We went walking into the town, to try and get milk for our little girls, and some food.  It was like a ghost town.  It was so quiet.  And even where there were other people, nobody was talking, and there was none of the usual bustle, and laughter coming out from the bars and restaurants that lined the city streets, and were now closed.  The convenience store shelves were empty.  Totally empty, except for some chocolate bars, other assorted junk food and a few cans of soft drink. All the vending machines were out of water.  We bought some various crappy food and fed it too our daughters that night.  As you would imagine it didn't go down well with a couple of children who had barely had processed food in their lives.  Cordelia vomited all over all of us that night.  And after I cleaned it all up, she did it again.  Poor little poppet.  Poor me too, vomit is not the choice of hair product I usually like to indulge in.

Ah Sea Shepherd - subtle as a sled hammer - The minkes love you though

It wasn't the greatest night sleep, but the next day we made it to the airport and were lined up for quite some time, with a whole lot of other fleeing foreigners including the crew from the Sea Shepherd, who were one of the first on scene in some of the most devastated regions.  And finally, we were on that plane.  It was with a heavy heart that I left Japan, and all it's suffering behind.  It was strange to desert a country that had taken such good care of me over the years.  But Japan needed to pool all its resources so as to take care of it's own people and their incredible heartache.


When the wheels hit the tarmac in Seoul, I began to cry.  It was the first time during the whole ordeal that I had done so.  And for the next couple of days I couldn't stop.  Life was going on in Korea like nothing had happened.  I hated it there. I wanted to leave.  And so we did.  Headed for Thailand, where we later flew out of Koh Samui one day before the floods closed down the airport and resulted in the mass scale evacuation of tourists across southern parts of the country........

No rest for the wicked, but hopefully peace for all those who suffered in 2011, and continue to do so.  With 300 000 people still displaced, that's a lot of people who continue to wait for their lives to start up again.  They estimate the full recovery will take a decade, with areas affected by the nuclear disaster to to take even longer to recover.  Those who lost people they loved to the wave have a lifetime of sadness to carry with them.

Pray for Japan.

No Rooting in Rooters

Monsters

I would like to give any loved-glazed newly-weds some stellar advice.......Don't take your children on your honeymoon.  Just saying.  I now fully realise why many people get married before having kids.  And it's not to prevent them form suffering eternal damnation as bastards.  Not only are they annoying and ruin any dinner you may like to linger over - causing you to be forced to "Gulp and Bolt", but you may spend more time in the nude with strangers than you will with your husband.  Or for me, I spent much more time with my friend Zoe's naked body than with my new husband's.  Not that it wasn't pleasant - Zoe is hot - but I didn't just exchange "I dos" with Zoe.  By the way, it's not like we were sitting around in the nude for fun, we were actually soaking in a Japanese onsen.  I just wanted to mention that, before rumours fly that Zoe and I like to hang out naked for fun.  Although we actually were hanging out naked for fun, I still think it needed to be clarified that we were sitting in a bath with towels on our heads. Still saw her fanny though.

Me and snow (there's a few of these)

Anyway, back to good old Rooters we went.  I’ve harped on for significant amount of time just how great it is  here, so I wont go into too much detail about the particular things, that in my opinion, make Rusutsu the best resort in Japan – unbelievable snow and terrain, not so many Aussies, full sized carousel in the lobby, all you can eat sashimi, a talking tree - (reminiscent of a bad acid trip) , singing dogs, a bear band, the world's shortest and slowest monorail.  Basically, all kinds of kitsch at every turn.  You can read it all in last years Rooters entry if you’re so inclined.
http://twintravelling.blogspot.jp/2012/03/root-toot-toot.html

Not sure who these randoms are, I nicked this photo off "flickr"  for the tree 

The snow is usually excellent, and due to the fact that it had snowed for a week before we arrived, it was better than I’ve ever seen it.  However, the day after we arrived there was a full-on storm.  It actually made world news, as my Mother saw it, assumed the worst, and thus presumed we’d perished in an snowy hell.  Some people did.  Poor suckers who left their stalled cars to try and get out of there on foot didn't get far.  Also, a carload of children and their mother snuffed it (literally), when their exhaust pipe became blocked with snow and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  Horrific.  I saw photos of cars completely buried in snow.

Buried cars - apparently winds got to 110kmph and 5 metres of snow fell in some places

Trains were derailed

A scary moment

It was pretty intense.  We were out in it during the morning, and that was before the winds really picked up and they closed the mountain.  The gondolas were flapping around like they were going to collide, and it was not a very comforting situation.  At one stage I really thought the gondola was going to smash into a support pole and I had Chalk’s arm in a vice-like grip thinking to myself “I can’t believe this activity is classified as fun and costs thousands”.  It did strike me as ironic that in times of danger we are in our old favourite regular spot – suspended high in the air in a swaying icy tomb.

Just not my idea of a good time

Outside it was like Mawson’s trip to Antarctica.  Blowing a gale, and a complete white out.  You could be skiing into anything, you just wouldn’t know.  I regretted not having a compass, some dehydrated peas, and a pack of huskies.  Sometimes, even on a steep hill you weren’t even moving due to the winds that picked up even more, apparently destined for 80kmph.  Needless to say we didn't last long out there.  I took the girls to the wave pool.  Again with the unrelaxing.  In fact I think it was worse than being outside in a blizzard.  Wave pools are unrelenting.  You feel like you're in a washing machine or something.  I had Valli and Cordi in their rings and it was really hard to keep them in check.  One would get sucked out to the back and one washed in across the steps.

Piss off

At least at the real beach, there is more of a gap regarding wave spacing.  In the wave pool they just kept on rolling.  I just console myself with the thought that soon the girls will be big enough,  and I’ll be one of the dry parents smiling smugly from a banana lounge at all the losers clutching their babies, and stumbling round with one boob hanging out and their hair all over their eyes.  It was like when the girls took swimming lessons last year in Melbourne.  I would have to get in the bloody pool with them every time.  I tried to get out of it on several occasions, but old chubby Anna Brown, from The Anna Brown Swim School  (didn't see that instructor's name coming),  shut me down with a “Get your bathers on” at any attempt I made to remain dry.  I hated those clothed bitches on the side in their thigh length quilted jackets and shiny riding boots.  I’m not taking them this year if I have to swim too.  It defeats the purpose.  If it’s good enough for dance class – nobody makes the mothers get up and wave streamers there.  If they want to look like dicks it’s entirely their own decision.

Sim stylin' it in a snowy wonderland

Anyway, so as you can imagine, with the big mountain closed for a day and all kinds of belting snow, when it came time to get out there and give it a red hot crack, it was pretty good.  Pretty, pretty good.  I know Rooters like the back of my anus too (I spend a lot of time checking the cellulite in mirrors), and the fact that you could ski anywhere all over the entire mountain made for a week of pure joy.  There were so many options, that even though it didn’t dump seriously again while we were there, fresh untracked powder was calling our names left, right and centre.

Chalks and snow (strangely there are a lot of these kind of shots too)

This snowy paradise was worth the walk out

We did some Rooters pioneering  and discovered some seriously divine first tracks experiences, saw a giant fox, avoided a gully of certain death, and ended up whereabouts unknown.  In this instance, the joy when I spotted a road was unparallelled, and even though we had to walk back to the mountain, the fact that we weren’t out in a field eating snow for dinner overshadowed all exhaustion.  For me anyway.  Unsure about 10 year old Nina – it’s a little different taking a long stroll up a snowy road in ski boots.

She may be tired but she still made it - best 10 year old skier ever xx

We made it back to civilisation!!!

We also had a bit of fun scooting under the ropes that had signs on them that said “Extreme Avalanche Danger”.  Seemed fine to us.  Not to mention brilliant fun.  We enjoyed that area for quite some time.  That was until we were on a section directly facing our former fields of pow - or  the tree run we referred to lovingly as “Avalanche” and spotted terrifying looking ridges and some rather large cracks.  Could have gone at any time. Ah, so THAT’S why the avalanche sign was there….I just thought ski patrol were being dramatic.  I guess they did try and build a wall of snow in front of the entry point which we just climbed over for a couple of days.  Whoops.  Oh well, we’re still alive.

Translates as "stupid westerners snowboarding below this point will fall 994m to their death"

Jai - one week on a board and already far better than me - why can't I be a 14 year old?

But like all good things, Rooters came to an end after a glorious week of fun and friends.  As our trusty companions zoomed away bound for the airport on the free bus, I actually got a bit teary.  It was brilliant having our beloved mates to hang out with.  Dear Zoe, Simon, Jai and Nina, we miss you!!!! The girls are really lost without their "big girl' bestie - the gorgeous Nina.

Who doesn't love a dizzy wizzy?

And as for me,  I'm really going to miss Zoe's boobs.......

Chums, sweet chums

Water Water Everywhere.....and Some Snow Too

Ma posse

Little Nozawa village

As you might imagine - Nozawa Onsen is a little town famous for onsens.  There is literally so much hot water there, that it pisses out from everywhere - all over the streets, under the streets, off the side of hills. There are pools of scalding hot water coming straight out of the earth where the villagers cook their vegetables.  It's a pretty amazing sight to see.  Not so amazing if you tripped and fell in one of those scalding pools.  Let me just say that I was vigilant in assuring I didn't end up with a couple of poached three year olds......I guess late night drunken stumbles home take on a significant type of danger.  I was careful to watch my sake intake - co-ordination is not one of my significant traits.

Yo check the front side bitches......

Boiling pools where the sweet corn cooking takes place

It is also famous for having a shit hot snow resort located above it.  Most people who have "discovered' Nozawa Onsen Ski-jo think it's the greatest place they have ever fingerbanged in their lives.  I was of the previously unmoved camp.  That was until this trip.  The journey there was your usual drag-piles-of-your-crap through busy train stations type of thing.  There was also a "miss the last bus" situation and then a psychotic mad sprint for the last train.  That type of incident is becoming unpleasantly familiar this trip, and I can't say I'm loving it.

A very snowy little walk

Old Sherps escorts my most annoying piece of baggage

As the local, crowded, piece of shit 2 carriage train crawled over the landscape the snow grew heavier and heavier.  By the time we arrived there was a snowy situation like no other.  Piles and piles of the good stuff all over the place.  We could hardly walk through it, let alone drag piles of bags.  At times like this, as well as pretty much all the time, I long for a couple of Sherpas.  Seriously, would it be legal to get a couple out from Nepal to shoulder the burden of my luggage?  Anyone familiar with the immigration laws regarding this?  I'm sure no slack arse Aussie's would want the job, so that part fits the criteria.   I can already imagine introducing them to everyone "Ahem, everyone, this is my Sherpa "Huan",  - Huan, these are my friends Bob, Karen and Joey - anyone need a bag carried, anyone, anyone?".  God life would be good, I could pack at least five more pairs of shoes and another bag or two of cosmetics. Though, come to think of it, I guess I do have a sort of Sherpa.  His name is Mark Korman, and I married him so I could cut back on the expense of a monthly salary.  Our friend Simon also proved himself to be a capable Sherpa.  Who needs Huan after all?

Although this one plays the flute, so he could be entertaining as well as helpful

Ko and Cordi

We managed to load all our crap and eight people in a van and we were off to our guest house.  It's run by the charming Ko, and her extended family.  They are all very nice - although I previously mentioned  Sadako ( the scary The Ring-esque daughter).  I was a bit freaked out when I saw Ko washing her in the guest house's onsen last year even though she was about 17, and wondered whether she was one of Japan's "shut ins", known as hikikomori.  This is a phenomenon unique to Japan, where the pressures of school and/or society cause numbers of young, (mostly male) people to retreat to their rooms and never come out.  Sometimes not for years.  Their parents care for them, sometimes into their thirties, and put trays of food in their rooms etc.  But as time goes on, it becomes harder for the hikkomori to return to "normal" life.  Surprisingly it's common.  There are estimates that there are a million "shut ins" in Japan.  And although there was a case where a hikikomori kidnapped a 9 year old girl and kept her in his room for a decade (again with the happy tales), most of them just read manga or watch TV.   I did read of a case once where the parents of one recluse were so terrified of their son, that they strangled him (Oh god again! - sorry, I can't help it, I strongly belief that I am currently macabre obsessed - while I'm at it, has anyone seen any pictures from Mermaid in A Manhole?  The Human Centipede???? Seriously I just can't stop, please don't look up The Human Centipede, the mere description will never leave you.......).  Jesus.  Japan really is the kind of society that doesn't deal well with those who don't conform.  Poor little pricks.  It would be difficult to be a child or teenager in the Japanese school system.  It's pretty tough, competitive, and with lots and lots of pressure.  Apparently Sadako is going to art school in Tokyo, so she must have recovered somewhat from the state she seemed to be in a year ago.  Didn't see any parental washing, and there was minimal lurking this year too.

Not sure if I like the look on the old sword-holding Toshinobu's face - glad I'm not his Mum

A few mounds......

Cord gears up for a day on the slopes

One of last years shots on the "Moving Walkway"

But back to the snow.  After a short walk through the winter wonderland that is Nozawa village, we rode the unique 400 metre tunnel enclosed stair-less escalator to the top. As you can imagine, the following day on the slopes was unbelievable.  We were all in shock from the sheer amount of powder all over the mountain.  None of us could quite comprehend it.  Really really special.  Chalks and I had been last year, and although we loved the atmosphere of the place, the snow wasn't quite up to par.  Well this year we saw what all the fuss was about.  We too, were chanting "Nozawa Nozawa Nozawa!" as we rode those gondolas right to the top.  We got it all during those four days - piles and piles of powder, back country, fog, lost, excitement, bluebird days.  Even Valli and Cordi rode the gondola to the top and skied the summit,  When I say skied, that can be interpreted any way you choose.  Cordi seemed to be inside a hula hoop.  Whatevs, she was loving life.  We had a few adventures ourselves.  I don't know the mountain very well, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I led a group (along with a teenager and a ten year old)  down the back side of the summit past a giant red sign with a cross on it.  What can I say - no risk, no rush.  And it was excellent, extremely excellent.  Even when we thought we were lost , even when we wound up coming out on what we thought was another mountain,  it was bloody unbelievable.  In between the creaming of the JaPOW!! on a daily basis, we chugged those beerus down, bathed in hot chocolates, dropped mountains of sashimi down our gullets, and walked around in the dark looking for restaurants to fit in a bunch of uncultured gorillas.

I honestly thought they were bullshitting when they told me they'd been on the gondola

Pow Wow! ( wasn't that term an activity in Brownies?? the speaking circle perhaps?)

We also spent large amounts of time in the nude with a bunch of Japanese women. Taking the waters of course.  That cellulite has got to be warmed up somehow.  Because the blood doesn't flow through that stuff, it takes scalding hot water to heat it internally after a big day out sliding around on your butt cheeks.  The heated toilet seats, no matter how pleasant, do little to really get to the crux of the issue.  Although, let me just say, that there is nowhere that those warm seats are more appreciated than the lunch hall on the mountain.  Some people also like washing their a-holes with those mini jets of warm water, but I am always sceptical about whether the nozzles make anal contact with previous squirters, and if not exactly contact, has other's bum water rebounded back onto the tip of the fanny pipe?  As I said, just can't go there.  Too much thinking has been done on that subject as you can tell.

A four metre base is nothing to sneer at

But the snow eventually grew tracked, we grew tired of thick slabs of white sandwich bread and strawberry jam in the morning, and thus, we were ready for the next adventure.  It was time to blow that popsicle stand and head for the snowy slopes of Hokkaido.   Back to Rutsutsu, which I like to refinely refer to as Rooters.  It sounds like it's an easy mission, but it was actually a 12 journey that involved trains, a plane, a missed bus, a long wait in a airport and an 11pm arrival at our next point of adventure.  Chuck in a couple of irritating freaks (and that's just the Sherpas, I haven't even got to my hideous offspring and their antics this time) and we were all thinking "This had BETTER be worth it".

Of course, it was.

SO great to have some friends to play with xxxx