Its Cherry Blossom Time!

Air Tower Sakura - HDR
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

The cherry blossoms are out... they are everywhere, and very cool. More pictures on my flickr photo stream, go have a look.

Thought I would have another play with qtpfsgui, yeah, gotta love software with abstract names... sort of fitting probably though in this case. Anyway, this pic is HDR, and I like it. Would probably have helped if I:

1) Used a tripod

2) Didn't take photos while its windy... the branches moved a lot.

It makes it really hard to get good alignment when you stack the images. Oh well. Still turned out ok.

Nozawa Onsen

A couple of us from work went for a last minute weekend trip to Nozawa Onsen. A lot of people had recommended this resort, so definitely keen to try it out. After deciding on Friday afternoon that I would go, was a bit hectic getting home to pick up boards then get back to work to get picked up for the four hour drive up to Nagano. We stayed in a really budget lodge run by an Aussie (vegemite toast for breakfast!), so the accommodation wasn't flash, but it was cheap and close to the slopes.

 

Now this was a fun resort. We spent most of the weekend dropping off the right hand side of the mountain down through a selection of incredibly steep gullies and ridges. At the start of the weekend it was almost untracked, but by the end... well we chopped up a fairly vast amount of terrain. In the end we had to give up on it because the temperature warmed up and it was getting just a bit to sketchy... 50+ degree lines that were coming with you rather a lot... and there was some fairly large cookies rolling down as well. We certainly wiped all the gullies clear of tracks by the amount of snow that was slipping down them. Heh steep... Fun.

So after spending a day and a half in the resort and not going on one single "marked" trail, we decided to try out a run called skyline to finish off the afternoon. Wow, this is probably the best groomed run I have ever ridden. It is a relatively narrow trail that goes straight down a ridge line with steep drops off both sides. Really impressive views all the way, and not crowded at all, so you can really speed down all 3km+ of it. Impressive.

After staying till closing time (several laps of Skyline!) on the Sunday we had a quick onsen then headed back to Tokyo. Even caught a glimpse of Shiga in the distance on the way home. Definitely going to go there next season, and definitely going back to Nozawa Onsen as well.

We got a taste of the famous weekend freeway traffic on the way home, but a quick stop for some ramen and we missed the worst of it and ended up back in Tokyo by about 10pm.

Twitter...

Twitter... have been thinking about having a play with it for a while, so finally signed up and added an RSS feed from my account to the sidebar on this blog. See what happens.

Snow and Shopping?

Yes, in Japan you can combine snowboarding and shopping together into one weekend. In fact you can do the both of them together in the same resort. Karuizawa.

We stayed in a cabin at the Prince Hotel. Very cool, a cabin in the snow, complete with big icicles hanging off the roof.

From the front door it was about two minutes walk to get to the ski lifts in one direction, and about two minutes walk in the other direction to get to the huge outdoor outlet mall thing. The slopes definitely aren't the best in Japan, but they are certainly good enough for a weekend of fun, and the views from the top of the mountain are pretty nice. And there is some pretty cool rocky mountains off behind the resort.

The actual ski slopes are pretty small, and so they get pretty crowded, probably the most crowded slopes I've seen here in Japan. And the whole resort is very beginner friendly, so a lot of time is spent dodging out of control beginners. And no powder, but still it was fun to just cruise around, and when you've had enough, you can go to the mall!

All in all a fun weekend.

Snowboarding in Naeba

On the work ski trip...

A friend and I snuck under the ropes and got some sneaky turns in under Gondola 1 at Naeba. Really easy access, no hiking! And the traverse out along a creek wasn't to bad... and unlike Australia, the creek was actually covered, so you could ride over it without to much concern. In fact we took a run down one of the gullies and it was much fun, well fun for me, apparently not so much fun for the person following me because I wiped all the snow off of a waterfall as I was going over it, so getting down after me was a bit of an issue. Heh.

Anyway, haven't ridden in the trees for quite a while, so was nice to get back into it again, and the snow was sensational, almost waist deep in some places and really fluffy. Yay, Pow!

 

Really was amazing to get such great snow (with steep bits!), with pretty much no other tracks apart from our own, and did I mention no hiking? Just get off the Gondola, duck the rope, enjoy the pow, short traverse along a creek, and duck another rope back onto a groomed run. Easy. Fun.

Got to say though, it's quite a bit steeper than it looks in these clips, and was pretty hard work, especially as I was riding a 146 with the stance set tip and tail with the back foot at -15. But for such a short board, it really handled it nicely. Just need to square up the angle on the back foot before next time, then it will be even better.

Still snowing...

 

Its still snowing.

This is the front of our apartment building, the grass is all completely covered and there is snow piling up against the little walls. There is a couple of inches of slush on the roads as well. The news is saying that some trains and highways are closed, and even the Shinkansen's are running late (that never happens!).

Might be interesting walking to work tomorrow morning if it freezes tonight...

It's snowing in Tokyo!

It's been snowing here in Tokyo all day. Very cool! Have to go out later, could be interesting...

Has been a while since I posted, but have some more to post later today...