More.
Well here it is, because someone demanded it. Some more ranting. It's been a few weeks since last time, so what has happened?? Well I had a visit from the most gracious Sonja from Switzerland, we had a very nice time together for 2 weeks. What did we do? I dunno, it went by so fast, the main highlight was snowboarding, then hanging around Tokyo for a week, we also went and walked up a mountain. She left on Sunday, so I've been back at work, very exciting no not really well it's ok yeah sure. Oh yes, we also went to Yokohama which was windy and cold, no big deal, there was a rollercoaster there and the world's cleanest Chinatown, now that's something, every other chinatown I've been to usually stinks like crap from all the rancid foodstuffs they have a habit of just throwing on the street, it's actually pretty interesting how they manage to create such a stench. But anyway, this one was immaculate, no garbage, no grease smeared footpaths, you get the idea.
Back to the snowboarding, that was a cool trip, we took a bus to the snow, the overnight bus from hell, well one of the many, we got picked up near my house at 9pm, then taken to another place to get on the main bus, I don't think anyone spoke English in this company, so suddenly I went from being the mong of Japanese to the interpreter. As soon as we got on the bus we leant our seats back so we could relax in comfort on this journey, I guess the staff must've looked around for someone who could speak enough English to come on and tell us "no recrining", so we had to sit up all the way. It's only 350km to the place, but they somehow managed to make the journey last 6 hours. We arrived at 5.30 in the morning, we weren't exactly sure what was gonna happen next, so again as is always the story with Japan, simple things become hard, we just had to rent our stuff and get the lift tickets, but this took a few hours cause we had no idea what was going on. I had my booklet of tickets for everything, but I never knew what the individual tickets were for, so everytime I had to do something I'd just hand over the whole book and let them and let them take out whatever they wanted. I've never snowboarded before, but it took literally 10 minutes to learn, problem was I got overconfident, so straight away we took on some bigger hills. The snow can be pretty hard when you are sliding down the mountain on your head. I was just cruising down when I fucked up a turn and took a dive, I saw some stars and slid about 5m or so. Then I sat there trying to remember my name and how to breath, I felt like I'd been truly punched out, been a while since I've enjoyed this sensation. That was my only major crash except for the end of the second day, when we became the last people left on the mountain and all the lift operators were waiting for us so they could follow us down. Sonja took off and I was trying to pretend I was in control, this time I felt back first and it felt like I had my arse ripped into two pieces and I whacked my head again. Though there was no time to grieve cause the patrol was right behind me so I stood up and very slowly cruised down pretending nothing was wrong. The hotel was pretty nice, though no showers in the room, this is pretty normal I gather, so I finally had my onsen experience. That was cool, they had an outdoor onsen, so I could sit in warm water while surrounded by snow and let my hair freeze solid. I didn't realise that they rotate the 2 onsens each day between men and women, so on the second day just walked into the same onsen as the day before, I was kind of confused seeing Sonja standing in the change room, then I realised what was going on and ran out and tried to explain to the Japanese dude sitting outside who just let me walk straight in there. Dinner was interesting, a learning experience, you learn through errors, we tried to get some soy sauce, but I couldn't quite remember the name, something starting with "s", the waitress brought us salt, I said thankyou and pretended to put it on my dinner, then continued my meal while watching the folks at the table over the room enjoy their soy sauce. I now know it's called Shoyou, which explains what this cartoon is all about. In the last hour of the 3rd day I suddenly cracked the code and I could snowboard fast confidently, bizarre how you just figure shit out like that. After that we took another death bus back to Tokyo, arriving on new years eve, it was insanely windy and cold at 5am. I wanted to buy some fireworks, but in a very Norwegian style there was a sheet over the fireworks shelf and a sign that I assume meant you can't by them on new years eve, why I don't know, cause it seems like the only time you'd need them. Fascists.
What else, I don't know. Yes we caught a train for 2 hours so we could climb a mountain in the snow, it was pretty cool though, I'd like to go back there. Then we went to the beach in Tokyo, more wind, and a big bridge that we walked over, that was cool though, and of course the Japanese 1/16th replica of the Statue of Liberty. I tried on a leather jacket in a shop, the biggest they had, but no, it felt like a straight jacket. Well, it's Friday the 13th, so don't be surprised if you die. I'm going to bed.
PS- I got that haircut from that joint. The dude looked kinda confused because I didn't have straight black hair. Then he just started hacking chunks out of it.
Back to the snowboarding, that was a cool trip, we took a bus to the snow, the overnight bus from hell, well one of the many, we got picked up near my house at 9pm, then taken to another place to get on the main bus, I don't think anyone spoke English in this company, so suddenly I went from being the mong of Japanese to the interpreter. As soon as we got on the bus we leant our seats back so we could relax in comfort on this journey, I guess the staff must've looked around for someone who could speak enough English to come on and tell us "no recrining", so we had to sit up all the way. It's only 350km to the place, but they somehow managed to make the journey last 6 hours. We arrived at 5.30 in the morning, we weren't exactly sure what was gonna happen next, so again as is always the story with Japan, simple things become hard, we just had to rent our stuff and get the lift tickets, but this took a few hours cause we had no idea what was going on. I had my booklet of tickets for everything, but I never knew what the individual tickets were for, so everytime I had to do something I'd just hand over the whole book and let them and let them take out whatever they wanted. I've never snowboarded before, but it took literally 10 minutes to learn, problem was I got overconfident, so straight away we took on some bigger hills. The snow can be pretty hard when you are sliding down the mountain on your head. I was just cruising down when I fucked up a turn and took a dive, I saw some stars and slid about 5m or so. Then I sat there trying to remember my name and how to breath, I felt like I'd been truly punched out, been a while since I've enjoyed this sensation. That was my only major crash except for the end of the second day, when we became the last people left on the mountain and all the lift operators were waiting for us so they could follow us down. Sonja took off and I was trying to pretend I was in control, this time I felt back first and it felt like I had my arse ripped into two pieces and I whacked my head again. Though there was no time to grieve cause the patrol was right behind me so I stood up and very slowly cruised down pretending nothing was wrong. The hotel was pretty nice, though no showers in the room, this is pretty normal I gather, so I finally had my onsen experience. That was cool, they had an outdoor onsen, so I could sit in warm water while surrounded by snow and let my hair freeze solid. I didn't realise that they rotate the 2 onsens each day between men and women, so on the second day just walked into the same onsen as the day before, I was kind of confused seeing Sonja standing in the change room, then I realised what was going on and ran out and tried to explain to the Japanese dude sitting outside who just let me walk straight in there. Dinner was interesting, a learning experience, you learn through errors, we tried to get some soy sauce, but I couldn't quite remember the name, something starting with "s", the waitress brought us salt, I said thankyou and pretended to put it on my dinner, then continued my meal while watching the folks at the table over the room enjoy their soy sauce. I now know it's called Shoyou, which explains what this cartoon is all about. In the last hour of the 3rd day I suddenly cracked the code and I could snowboard fast confidently, bizarre how you just figure shit out like that. After that we took another death bus back to Tokyo, arriving on new years eve, it was insanely windy and cold at 5am. I wanted to buy some fireworks, but in a very Norwegian style there was a sheet over the fireworks shelf and a sign that I assume meant you can't by them on new years eve, why I don't know, cause it seems like the only time you'd need them. Fascists.
What else, I don't know. Yes we caught a train for 2 hours so we could climb a mountain in the snow, it was pretty cool though, I'd like to go back there. Then we went to the beach in Tokyo, more wind, and a big bridge that we walked over, that was cool though, and of course the Japanese 1/16th replica of the Statue of Liberty. I tried on a leather jacket in a shop, the biggest they had, but no, it felt like a straight jacket. Well, it's Friday the 13th, so don't be surprised if you die. I'm going to bed.
PS- I got that haircut from that joint. The dude looked kinda confused because I didn't have straight black hair. Then he just started hacking chunks out of it.
posted by Brett at 05:26
2 Comments:
Pannekake
Open, Insightful, Informative.
What's up dude?
Same old.
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