Lets Take The Long Way Home..

Gotta get out to get down!

Hey everyone, here is a little update about our recently hectic lives.  On Tuesday night (monday  where YOU are) The four of us had an ongoing chat through out our work day about the escalating situation in Japan.  We came to the conclusion that it would be better to be saddened by the Japanese devastation from elsewhere than to be "possibly" endangering our health.  So on tuesday night after work we booked tickets, packed up our lives, tied up loose ends and said our goodbyes.  We were on the JR (japanese rail) train headed for Sapporo Chitose airport by 5:45 the next morning.  We caught an air china flight to Beijing, had an 8 hour stopover then flew to Singapore through the night.  We arrived at around 6 am and spent nearly 8 hours in the airport figuring out how to ship our snowboard gear home!  We ended up sending three packages (two through singapore post and one through unaccompanied baggage) costing nearly a grand.  The burden of hauling around 67 Kg of snowboard gear was finally lifted off our shoulders thanks to a handful of AMAZINGLY nice people at the Singapore airport and a favor asked of some awesome family!

After "escaping the clutches" of the Singapore airport, We searched out hostels and hotels for most of the day trying to find the most affordable nights sleep we could.  In the process of searching we came across an incredible food court of street vendors where we enjoyed a large "Tiger beer" and some delicious...unidentified stuff.  We found a hostel called "Summer Tavern" near China town, took a cold shower and unpacked a bit.
We promptly went out to explore this humid, busy, amazing city.  We wandered through St.Patricks day celebrations near the river and into Chinatown where we found more delicious vendor food.  We all fell asleep instantly when we returned to the hostel and had much needed coma.

Today we woke up to a sunny sky and a world of possibilities.  Today marks the first day in quite some time that we have no pressing issues to deal with or no real obligations... *sigh* time to eat some fresh fruit , relax, and explore this sweaty wonderland.

Travel Plans

I realize it has been awhile since we've posted anything, so I figured we could fill everyone in on how our plans have shaped up. We have finally booked some tickets and set a few dates. We are planning on working at Proski until April 5th when the shop officially closes, then hanging around Hirafu for a few days to get some last days on the slopes. Our friend Jared will be arriving on the 6th of April to spend a few days here with us before he joins us for a week around Hokkaido. We fly out of Sapporo on the 13th to Tokyo. We plan on dropping our passports off at the Indian Embassy in Tokyo right away because we only have 2 weeks before we fly out. We plan on traveling through lots of southern Japan while our passports are being processed. We hope to hit Osaka, Kobe, Koyto, Hiroshima and all of the small towns in between.

Once we've seen our fair share of Japan we will be heading back to Tokyo to pick up our passports and hop on our next flight. We fly out of Tokyo on May 5th and will end up in Bali after a few stops along the way. We decided to head down to Bali for 2 weeks before we go to India for some time in the sun and surf. I'm so excited to just laze on the beach and soak in some sun for a few days.

The only other flight we have booked is our flight out of Bali to Delhi. It will take us a couple days with an overnight layover in Kuala Lumpur, but eventually we will land in Delhi to be met by Andy's friend Rahana. Rahana worked with Andy in Kelowna, but his family still lives in India. He will be in the country while we are there and has kindly offered to show us around for a few days!! We are all so excited to have a local to help us out in possibly the hardest part of our trip. We fully expect India to be the most challenging bit of traveling we will have to do. It will not only be hard on the stomach but a huge culture shock for all of us.

Other then the upcoming travel plans nothing else is really new here in Hirafu. We both miss all of our family and friends so much, but haven't become homesick yet.  :)

Our Home

Memory Lodge- The PROSKI staff house

Front entry. Lots of snowboard boots and shoes!!

Our packed kitchen.

Living/Dining room.

The snow piled up on our front windows

Bathroom area

Our ONLY shower for 21 people.

A Rough Outline

Hi Everyone!
Like we said last time we've got our daily routine down, so not to much is new over here. It finally stopped snowing here for a few days. We ended up riding in the park for a couple days because the snow was tracked out everywhere else. But like normal it started snowing again on friday evening and we woke up the next morning to 150 cm of fresh snow and it was still dumping! As you probably guessed we have spent every minute on the mountain since then. Today I needed to let my legs rest a little and not go out for a ride after work.

Other than riding we haven't been up to much other than working. We are planning on heading to Sapporo next monday for the Winter Festival. It is really popular in Japan and apparently amazing to see. Check out this link for an idea of what we are in for http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5311.html.

We both can't believe we have almost been gone for a month already. The time has just flown by. We have started to plan the next little bit of our trip. So far everything is still a rough outline, but we are thinking we will be leaving Niseko in the beginning of April. We hope to pick up a cheap tent and make our way through Hokkaido then down to Honshu (the main island). We need to stop in Tokyo to apply for our Indian Visas. After that we hope to visit Okinawa, a little island in southern Japan, where a friend of Andy's lives. Then we will stop over in a few other main cities before we make our way back to Tokyo to fly out.

Andy has a friend from Chutney (an Indian restaurant where he worked at home) who will be in India when we are going there, and he really wants us to come and stay with his family. As of right now we are hoping to do a month or so in India around mid-may to mid-june. After India we are planning on heading into Nepal. Bre has started looking into some volunteer opportunities there and we've found a couple we are really interested in. One is living in a buddhist monastery and teaching Tibetan monks english just outside of Katmandu. In the monastery we would be living with and participating in daily the daily rituals of Tibetan monks as well as designing lesson plans and teaching daily english classes. The other volunteer position is a medical outpost in rural Nepal. At the outpost we would be working at a volunteer medical clinic where government funded health facilities are not available. We are going to apply for both positions and see if we are able to do both.

That is really as far as our rough planning has gone, but we will keep you posted if anything becomes set in stone or changes. We realized that we haven't posted any photos other than on the hill so we will post a few of where we live and work soon!

Some Pictures!

There was so much snow (waist deep)  that Syd had to hike out to a cat track to  get some speed up!

An awesome Japanese snowman.

Riding at "super ridge".

Getting set for more powder turns.

Andy riding hard!

I don't think this van is going anywhere anytime soon.

Mt. Yoti

Taking a break before more powder turns.

Happy boys.

Bre and Andy enjoying the fields of "super ridge'

Group shot with Mt. Yoti in the back ground.

We are starting to get pretty settled here in Niseko.  We have some daily routines started (for example: Wake up around 7, eat breakfast and either head to work or head to the lifts for some deep snow. After that it's home for a bit of relaxation and lunch before work or some quick food before throwing on our outerwear and sprinting to the lifts).

We've both been feeling a little under the weather lately. Living in a house with so many people and being around foreign germs, it was inevitable.  Despite being a little sick, we are still managing to have lots of fun.  Tonight we went to dinner in Kutchan with Andy and Bre.  We ate at an authentic Japanese sushi restaurant.  It was delicious!

We both have the next few days off, so I'm sure we will have some new adventures to post about very soon.

VIDEO POST

Daily Life in Japan

Hi Everyone!!
We've been here almost a week now, and are loving every minute of it! We both love our jobs here. It is defiantly more hire than retail, but we are both getting the hang of it. When we aren't working we are usually on the hill. The snow has been great every day, and we have been told this is nothing yet!

We took our first adventure outside of our little village the other day. We needed to stock up on groceries and register for our gaijin card (foreigner's card). Once we get it we will be able to get a phone and all those good things. The bus is really expensive during the day so we decided to hitch hike to town (it is very safe and common in Japan). We got a ride with a great Aussie guy who has lived here for quite some time and offered to pick us up in an hour to go back to Hirafu. We would have loved to take him up on the offer, but we knew that grocery shopping is a good 2 hour process when you don't know what anything is. Marty and I have so much fun when we go shopping for groceries. We never know what anything is and always have to gamble on what we are getting. We found these great costumes at the local co-op. They are full sized animal costumes (bears, kangaroos, raccoons, care bears, cats dogs ect..) . I really want to get one for my birthday, and to send home for Drew. After a solid three hours in Kutchan we were finally ready to head back home. It took us awhile, but we finally got a ride back to Hirafu with a nice Japanese guy who spoke VERY little english.

Tonight while Marty was working I went to a local onsen with a bunch of people I live with. Onsens are really similar to a hot-springs, except they everyone goes naked. There are separate tubs for guys and girls, which are separated by this huge wall. After lounging in the pools for awhile we started to get pelted with snowballs from the other side of the wall (the guys side). They have these vending machines at the onsen that sells ice cold beer to cool you down while in the tub. Mom and dad you would love it!!

All in all things have been really great so far. I am really looking forward to get to know the mountain and the people around Hirafu a little better! I'll post a few more pictures below!!

Heading up the lift in the morning

Night Riding

Super Ridge! One of our favourite spots so far!!

Top of the lift looking down

Sneak Peek!!

Flying into Sapporo from Tokyo was a short, sleep-filled ride.  We quickly collected our baggage and tried to figure out how exactly we were going to get to Niseko. We had our first taste of real sushi and Japanese beer while we waited to catch our bus. We took a snowy bus trip from the airport Niseko with a short stop at Mushroom Kingdom (a mushroom store/convenience store). Once we arrived in Niseko we hauled all of our bags through the village to our new jobs. We were greeted by a few people we work with and were shown to our new place. Our house is a decent sized place that houses twenty people, most of which work at "Proski" alongside us. Despite having so many people under one roof, the house is surprisingly calm and organized. Since most of us work at the same shop, our shifts and snowboarding scheduals are varied enough that the house seems to work really well.  

Today we woke up to about 20 cms of fresh snow on top of the large mounts of powder that had fallen in the last few days.  We both got up early and went out for a few runs, which we both agreed were the best we have ever had.  The new snow on top of the ludicrous amounts that had fallen in the last few days resulted in waist deep runs and gigantic smiles.  After snowboarding for the morning, we headed in and tried to de-jetlag ourselves with an afternoon nap before we took off to Kutchan (the neighboring town) to get groceries for the next little while.

The night ended of with hanging out and getting to know the people we work/live with and then an early night to bed to try to get our internal clocks set to Japanese time.

EN-ROUTE TO NISEKO

So 17 hrs of flying later, one sprint to catch our connection, and no sleep at all... we've made it to Tokyo. The only thing we are missing is my backpack.. it got left in Beijing. They say it should be in Niseko within a few days. I'm not to worried about it. When we touched down in Beijing we had 45 min to disembark our plane clear international transfers then make it to our next gate on the other side of the airport. We were doing alright for time until we hit a roadblock. There was only ONE woman manning the international transfers booth with a line up of about 50 and she wasn't letting ANYONE through. We finally made it through at the same time pre-boarding was starting for our flight. We still thought we had some time until we ran down the stairs and realized we had to go through internal security. After running through that we caught one of those little taxis that you always see the old people on. Our taxi driver almost ran down a few little old ladies but he did get us to our gate just in time! 

All of us were absolutely dead tired for the trip to Tokyo. We had all been up for about 24 hrs with no sleep. I think we were all out before the plane even took off and only woke up for it to land. After an hour or so of dealing with my lost baggage our only challenge was to find some comfy beds for the night. I never thought airport benches could be so comfy. All in all this trip has been nothing but an adventure and lots of laughs so far. We are off to Sapporo and then to Niseko today. After a 2 hr flight and a 2 hr bus ride we will finally be at our new homes. It hasn't quite fully set in that we are gone for good yet, but I'm sure it will soon!