Blogs from Nagano, Japan, Asia - page 20

"Holidays on Ice" started on December 26 I was set to leave for Nagano on the evening of the 26th at 10 pm. I left earlier coz i wasnt familiar with the area of the bus station and i wanted to have enough time for getting lost etc. Well, good thing because I did get lost haha! But after seeing all these young people with snowboards, I followed them and they took me right to the bus station. The trip felt surprisingly short because i was sleeping most of the way, I was traveling by myself so the seat beside me was empty, thus i was more comfortable than the rest. When I got to the ski resort in Nagano, it was snowing and i was so happy! Primarily because it was the first time Ive ... read more

First I must apologise for the lateness of my blog. However the computer at the place i'm stating kept shutting down and we dont have the password to log back in, so theres been days when weve been unable to go on the PC. Other times Louis has been on it, so it is impossible to get on the computer as he is on about 4 hours a day doing pointless tasks. We reached hakuba on a day about a week ago, and it was snowing like crazy. A middle aged australian couple and their daughter and son in law were very friendly and we were soon all watching "the last samurai" around the TV. This finished around 11:30, so Louis and the australians went for a walk. I decided to catch them up, but as ... read more

Still continuing our work on the cider farm, mainly bottling using automatic machines and throwing apples in machines to process them. 6 hours a day work, interesting sometimes...but it's all about the free food and board innit. Dave needs to do his blog, he hasn't done one since March! He's gonna update on a lot and save me the job of doing it hopefully. Today we went to an onsen after work. This a place of a few hot public baths, which you go in after scrubbing yourself down in the showers and is very popular in Japan. To put it in more humourous and honest words we basically got naked and had a bath together. (Me, Dave, Dan and Eechi) with other Japanese. One thing about these onsens is that they are very hot, I ... read more

After we'd left our hosts we went back to Tokyo for a couple of days. We went drinking in the Shinjuku district whic is the most impressive of them all. There is a great photo of me there in the gallery. Went to a few bars, mostly irish and British themed ones. Yet again we were pestered outside by black touts who were convinced all we wanted was whores. They would come up to you and try and shake your hand then not let go and tell you about their great club. We usually said we were looking for somewhere to eat or we were gay. We had to get the last train at 0030, cos we were staying in the cheap part of town that was too far to walk to. In one pub a ... read more

Most people I know have these dreams of doing exciting things or seeing exotic places before they die, be it packing fish in Alaska, watching the Moscow circus in Moscow, seeing a broadway musical, jumping off the bridge at Bloukrans or taking their first road trip down to Cape Town... For me, one of those dreams was snow skiing in the Alps. And this week, I realised that dream! WOW! I can't believe I can actually say that! No, I didn't pop off tho Europe for the week... I was in the Japan Alps, frolicking in soft powdery snow and flying down the slopes, ski poles in the air, mouth wide open, catching snowflakes and, at the same time, grinning like some psycotic child. Heaven. In short: THE LAST FEW DAYS RANK AMOUNG THE MOST EXCITING, ... read more