Visible from the heights..

Well, it is the new year and things are already off to a great start:
200k dead from a tsunami, IRAN becoming a threat to america’s ‘national security’, Bush being re-inaugurated and Kim Jong Ill being the head of a worldwide terror network.

Anyways, a group of us went snowboarding this past weekend at a resort about 1.5 hours from hiroshima at a place called Mizuho. This wasn’t the best resort I have been to, but it is among the top 10. Here is a a psuedo group picture, the only one missing is l2 as she took the picture with her nice new digit4l camera.

Superfriends role call!
::: Octavia (Oci)[igirusu-jin] / e6 [america-jin] / Nik [ ausutureiya-jin] / Robb [america-jin] / Juan [nu ziruandu-jin] :::
*check out the hot pants on juansama!*

So around 80% of the people on the mountains here are snowboarders, which means the mountains cater to the snowboarders. This also means that there are a helluva lot of people on boards.

Anyways, snowboarding was a blast and l2 is digging it major time. In fact we are heading back in two weeks to go again. It is really nice living close to mountains

We hit the mountain about 11 and went through closing of the mountain at 5 with a brief break for lunch around 2.

Nick and Juan skiied while oci, l2, robb and myself ‘boarded. Robb is a intermediate level boarder though and only did a few runs with us before he left. So that left the three of us and I was able to teach the ladies the basics of snowboarding. Both were hating it for about the first two hours but once they found their balance points and learned about edging, they got into it! So by end of the day they were doing basic stuff with occasional 180 turns (and faceplants.) I am a bit more advanced and picked up where I left off a few years back, trying to do short edged turns without dumping.

All in all a great time but tiring. This leads me to our next adventure.. the japanese onsen.

An onsen is basically a bath house with a hot spring (natural or man made). Men and women are separate at most as they are nude facilities. Anyways, you go to one of these, strip down in the chaning room and go into the bathing rooms. From here you bathe and clean yourself. After that you proceed to get into the water that you prefer the most. The one we went to had two selections: hot and really hot. The really hot one was inside and resembled a hot tub, just a bit bigger. The other was a pool formed from rocks and was outside.

So I layed in the really hot hot-tub for about 10 minutes and then went outside and got into the hot hot-tub for about 25 minutes. After getting out I had such an endorphin and/or seratonin rush I could barely walk and it lasted for about 30 minutes. It was fabulous.. it is about the closest you can come to drugs without doing any.

Anyways after managing to dry myself with the handtowel sized towel I was given, I stumbled my way back out to the lobby and had some unrefined sake (shochu) with some old guys we had talked to in the hot hot-tub.

This was amazing on the body, it totally refreshed me. I wonder why there are none of these in america.. probably an issue with the nudity and bathing..

The day after…

L2 couldn’t move without being in pain. Me on the other hand, I am fine with the exception of some knee pain from pushing the snowboard. There has to be a better way without taking your board off and carrying it up the lifts. hmmmm..

No aikido for l2, but I like pain. So I went to a night of koshinage. Being one of the tallest there, I got to do a lot of breakfalls. w000000t

Thoughts..
-general-
sn0wboarding rox when you are with a group of friends.
skiing rox when you want speed and don’t care about being with people.
onsen is a must after a snowboarding excursion (cost is about 6$.)
i should work at a mountain here…..

-snow sports in japan-
buy or bring everything with you, it is fricking expensive!
japanese snow bunnies are even hotter soup.
japanese are really really vain.
i should work at a mountain here…

Overall.. I will give it an ‘A’.