The last remaining minutes...

It's 17:41 Eastern Standard time.

I have 1 day, 23 hours, 18 minutes to go in my current incarnation as a working man.

I'd like to say that this causes anything other than joyful feelings. But I can't because I would be lying.

So a brief schedule for the next few weeks (yes I know you are all giddy with the excitement!).

Week of 11th of June:
MEL --> SIN - we will hopefully be staying with an old mate of mine, The Cuz. Yes he warrents the word "the" in his title. I will spend another small fortune on camera equipment. Inspect the goodness at www.ikelite.com.

Once done there, we'll cross the border into Malaysia, and probably head up the west coast to Malaka and surrounds, on the way to KL.

Sometime early July we will fly from KL to Kota Kinabalu and do some Borneo stuff.
13th of July we will be on the Seaventures oil riggy thing for some diving at Sipadan.

Hopefully after this I we will either shoot into Indonesia to check out Derawan etc, and then I'll do muh D I V E M A S T E R stuff.

Correct. Stay tuned for post-work, pre-flying update.

/out.

Is nothing fucking sacred part 2...

The long suffering Charade has suffered another indignity.

This morning one of the West's finest managed to run into the back of it....

The rear-right has been pushed in a few cm, and now the boot doesn't quite close properly!!!!

Grrr...

We have now entered the second last week of work. The countdown to the world tour is truly on!

The terrible gun tragedy...

This post has been removed due to someone's complete lack of a sense of humour.

C'mon mate... learn to laugh at yourself, cause maybe, just maybe, everyone else is...

Peash..

SLAYER! SLAYER! SLAYER!

How on EARTH could I have forgotten the most important thing of last week.

Fresh off the big move... the Gun Team shook off the tiredness, the football, and the lack off pass-outs to attend...

S L A Y E R

It's been many years since I have attended a metal gig, and I must sadly admit that my wardrobe is about as metal as a drawer full of Glad Wrap.... James has never knowingly heard a Slayer song in his life... BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Mastodon were supporting. I have not heard them, and they kind of sucked for the 3 minutes we heard them.
3 Tooheys New's and 3 JW and Cola were quickly slammed down in preparation.

It's hard to sum up Slayer. Sure they might be getting old, but still as fast and as brutal as I ever imagined.
Dave Lombardo's double kick has the strange ability to warp reality...

So here's the alleged set-list:

Disciple
War Ensemble
Jihad
Die By The Sword
Show No Mercy
Captor Of Sin
Cult
Bloodline
Mandatory Suicide
Seasons In The Abyss
Supremist
Eyes Of The Insane
Postmortem
Silent Scream
Dead Skin Mask
Raining Blood
Angel Of Death

ROCK ON!!!!!!

Go West! Life is peaceful there...

We have followed the advice of the venerable Pet Shop Boys and headed west.

North if you actually believe what Lady Katherine says, however, if one consults the fine folk at Google Maps one will notice that whilst there is certainly a northerly aspect to our current location, there is also a WESTERLY aspect...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=22+westfield+blvd+westmeadows+melbourne&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.176059,59.238281&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=-37.679609,144.901455&spn=0.002085,0.003616&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

Now in fact our residence (well Lady Anna and Lord Vlado's residence) is the one to the left of the pool... perhaps if you're lucky one day the Google Satellite Network will be able to penetrate the cloaking device of Team Charade (TM).

Many thanks must go out to Jimmy "Guns Of Navarrone" Maglaras for his invaluable assistance during our move.

The award for "most useful guy during the move" goes to..... Vlado "The Titan" Presljak .

He drives trucks, lifts fridges, and manoeuvres a trolley... well... like a professional. What else can I say... a true champion.

Dishonourable mention goes to Big Al for his complete lack of assistance, and breaking the front of my TV.

Shameless commercial plugs go out to: Atlas Truck Rentals and Mark the cleaner (041248238).

This message brought to you in part by GE Money.

.out

Is nothing fucking sacred?!

Honestly. Who the fuck breaks into a car worth $2500.

Well apparently people who live around here do.

The damage:

- Front passenger door lock rooted, scratches and shit on the paint.
- $50 stereo stolen, center console fucked up.
- Digital clock stolen (ASSHOLES!!!)
- Wait for it.... slab of pepsi max stolen
- Ralliart backpack
- Burton board sleeve.
- Inexplicably, also the front right indicator has been smashed up...

FOR FUCKS SAKE. I FUCKING HATE YOU ABBOTSFORD.... DIE JUNKIES DIE.

PIctures pictures everywhere...

Well this is the last post for a while I guess, just popping some random pictures up.

There IS one thing that annoys me about this blogger interface though, PICTURES ALWAYS GET ADDED AT THE TOP?!?!?!

Grrr...

Anyhoo..

I dunno what this is, but it looked funny so I took a picture of it.


I also can't remember the name of this mountain, I'm sure a quick google would sort that out, but it's known as the "Mt. Fuji of the North" - due to its resemblance to it's southern cousin, Mt. Fuji.


A view from Hirafu back towards Mt. Annapuri at dusk - you can see the night-skiing runs lit up!


This is the interior of our room....



The guy on the left (in the blue top) was like a bus coordinator guy - while we were waiting for the first bus, he made a whole bunch of snowmen on the cafe near the bus stop....


Check this out:


This is erm... a river... from the bus on the way to Sapporo...


Now for some randomness from the beginning of the trip - first the view from our hotel at Haneda airport!



This is the fire station in Hirafu village:



Mr Potato Fireman...

Back to sweating and being flu-ey. Rockin.

C*ntass, journey, and sickness

Saturday 17th
06:30: Awaken and pack
09:15: Get on bus to New Chitose Airport
12:10: Arrive at airport
13:10: Plan to Haneda
14:45: Accidentally leave the baggage collection area, and cannot get back in. Nice Skymark airlines chappy gets our bags for us, quicker that we could have done it outselves.
15:30: On bus to Narita
17:00: Arrive at Narita to find massive queues, and eventually find we've been demoted to Economy. For some reason the baggage goes flagged as business class though.
19:30ish: At the gate they tell us there is ONE business class seat available, Kat kindly tells me to take it.
20:30: We take off, and I notice there are 3 free seats in Business Class. When asked about it, the shitty staff are suitably vague, and after a couple of hours Kat is told she cant go up to business because she IS WEARING JEANS?!

WTF?! I was in camo shorts, a t-shirt and a hat?! How does this work?!

I don't know what the story is with CUNTASS but there are many reasons I would not fly with them if I was paying full fare, and this kind of thing is one of them.... needless to say we were both extremely pissed off by this....

Anyway it was freakin hot in the plane, and we both had a shit sleep.

Promptly on Sunday I started to get sick, and have had the WORST sickness every for the last 3 days. Oh well.

Kat resigned yesterday. Doesn't seem to have caused that much of a stir yet.

Anyway probably my last entry for a while, unless random packing/moving thoughts are worthy. Will post some more photos next week when I get off my ass.

Enjoy!

Farewell Niseko

Unfortunately this is our last morning here. Was kept up late last night by drunken carousing, alas I was not participating.

Two restaurants that earn a special mention: Rosso Rosso and Sekka. Rosso Rosso served up a steak that is up there with the best I have had. Sekka's mains let it down a little, but the entree/appetiser/deserts easily made up for it.

Snowboarding Update: Yesterday we went across to Annapuri - if only we'd done this 5 days ago, it was easily the most fun we've had - nice runs, and plenty of off-piste action too.... we ended up riding from about 10:30 to 16:00 almost non stop (except for a katsu-curry).

I've pretty much got my toe-side carving down pat, but need to work a bit on the heel-side, I think I dig in too much and end up semi-stopping...

The old knees have been getting a bit of a work out... I wish I'd taken this up 10 years ago!

Next snow will be Whistler I guess... hopefully I can make some more advances on my mad skillz and be doing some tricks.

So today is Niseko --> Sapporo, Sapporo --> Haneda, Haneda --> Narita, Narita --> Melbourne. The only thing that is a little concering is that we haven't heard from Kat's dad about the flights, but what's the worst that can happen - we have to stay in Tokyo for a couple of days? Damn.....

I'd have to say you should spend 2 weeks here, the first week sussing it all out, and the second week just enjoying it... Apparently we were lucky and this has been the most snow they've had all season..

Well I guess I'll make one more entry when we get back and kind of wrap it all up, and post any remaining pics.... until then...

.out.

Bow to your new snowman overlord...

I for one salute our new snowman overlord.


A urinal? Yes. But the only one I saw not made by the Toto urinal monopoly. They also make the "warmlet" heated toilet seat, and baths. Correct.

Fermented Soybeans

I want to describe to you the first food that has ever made me nearly sick.

First a picture - innocuous looking isn't it?

That friends is a fermented soybean sushi roll. It was described in the menu as "tasting like blue cheese". Now I am a man that loves blue cheese, however, I did not love this. It had all of the smell of blue cheese, without any of the taste, and I nearly gagged.....

Thankfully the chef did not take umbrage at my indiscretion - he said that anyone south of Tokyo wouldn't eat it, and I figure that Melbourne counts as pretty well south of Tokyo!

This is Kutchan at night - it's a nice place, not much engrish goes on though. I counted at least 3 pokie/slot machine venues too - looks like the Japanese like a bit of mindless gambling as much as my brothers do.

BOW TO YOUR NEW SNOWMAN MASTER!!!!

Here is the restaurant that served (a) the fermented soybean abomination and (b) the best katsu don I have had so far anywhere. The chef was a top bloke too - he let us go without paying half the bill, as I didn't have enough cash...

This is a picture of me sporting my newest stylez: thermals under shorts - ROCKIN!!!!!


There are many barber shops in Kutchen. Fear my mad photographic skillz CHUNG!!!!


Rare cheese cake. Enough said.


In Kutchen you have to watch out for the barber poles chasing each other with scissors... ooh..


In japan you are never going to die of (a) thirst or (b) a need for a smoke.... Is that Tommy Lee Jones Jnr?!


Snowboardo-des update: I am now riding down the hill with ever increasing speed......

Fat update: I now have two rolls. The shame.....

/out.

Tuesday - Kat's birthday

Yes, today is Kat's birthday. Unfortunately she is not catching up. I am however holding up quite well today.

This morning .. you guessed it, there was shitloads of snow. It just never seems to end here....

Snowboarding update: This morning we had our first lesson. I have never had a proper one before, and I'm not sure if Kat has either. I found out all the stuff I was doing wrong - by this evening I think I've sorted SOME of them out and am now riding with a bit more mad skillz.

We did one run tonight under lights - it was awesome. All the mad skillz jap kids are out at night, and there was plenty of skill to go around. Unfortunately I was not one of those pulling off any tricks, but I was also not falling over. Thank the lord for small miracles.

Apparently vitamin C is good for sore muscles, so I've been hitting it up today - we shall see the effect - expect a report tomorrow!

Beer update: There are so many different kinds of Asahi, Sapporo and Kirin that the mind boggles a little. I will take a photo of the wall of beer when it's complete.


Must dash, shower time, then off to Kutchen for dinner...

.out

Monday... More Snow than Kansas

Holy shit there was a lot of snow today. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and didn't let up for over 24 hours.

The powder was so deep we couldn't even ride it properly, and much falling over was done this morning.

Eating a facefull of snow sounds cool, but can be a bit disconcerting when the snow is half a metre deep....

Here is a couple of views of ... snow...




As you can see there is a lot of it. It probably gets annoying if you live here, but it's pretty cool (excuse the pun) for us.

Here is another picture I was trying to post yesterday, as you can see the subject is actually a lot better looking than I am, and has her eyes open. I put this down to my mad photography skillz....


Snowboarding update: This week have been plagued with foot pains, and pains in my thighs. Apparently this is due to my mad skillz also. This afternoon I adjusted my mad skillz stylez a little, and the pains in my foot have diminished. Thighs are still an issue, but think this is just due to being old and clapped out.

My only complaint about snow sports is that most snowboarders appear to share one brain cell, between all of them globally. They don't make for very interesting conversation..... it's a bit Beavis and Buttheadish... oh well. Can't all be mensa members I guess.

Time to go have a shower, and go eat some more - this ever increasing covering of fat doesn't happen by itself you know!!

/out.

Finally.... pictures

They say a picture tells a thousand words, and I'm guessing that if it was a thousand of my words you'd be asleep by now.

First to recap the boring details of our day. After drinking several beers last night I woke up a bit worse for wear, thus we did not hit the mountain straight away. After a small stroll, we decided to apply some wax to the boards.

Wax eh. Normally it makes everything smoother and faster. This wax however, was more like glue.... after riding the chairlifts all the way to the top, we made it down very VERY slowly with much falling over and cursing......

Thus the boards went off to have a professional job done on them.

Ok... now some pictures...

This is a view of the mountain:



As you can see there is a lot of snow. Today was a very busy day, or at least the morning was. Apparently Sunday is snow day for the Japs... (just like Friday is still-live-seafood day).

Here is a picture of a bloke with a ripping beard:



Apparently my eyes are always closed in photos... I blame the hired help!

...there are more, but blogger is being a POS.

TIme for a shower and some food. mm... food...

/out.

I nearly forgot to mention the "live prawn" dish. This was literally prawns served with their feelers still waving.....

Yesterday was pretty much on the snow all day. Not much to report, will head out this morning and take some pictures. Someone managed to lose their lift pass. Here in Japan however this isn't an issue - you just pay the 1000Yen deposit and off you go....

My artistic ability is being hampered by the fact that we have little remaining power on the laptop, and no appropriate plug for it!!

Niseko, Japan Day 02

Surprisingly everything ran smoothly between Melbourne and Sapporo, all except my inability to read gate/bus stop numbers correctly.

Apparently 23 is 30, and 4 is 9. Ahh well.

Had a quick ride of the mountain, which was pretty awesome - there certainly is a lot of powder here. There are also many large cans of beer, for very little money. I can see my gut getting bigger.

The high(low)light of my day must have been watching a japanese chef remove a live octopus from a tank, and proceed to cut one of its tentacles off, and then return it to a bag to be put back in the tank..... no wonder they like killing whales and dolphins.....

I was a little traumatised by this and had to leave the restaurant.... that scene is right up there with seeing the man squashed by the bus in Manila.

Sadly though, the japanese people are all very friendly and helpful. Their country seems to run with easy efficiency, and has been very easy to get around.

Pity SOMEONE left the phrasebook in MELBOURNE.

Up early today (0700) and will hit the mountain, hopefully not with my head. Have removed my butt pads, in anticipation of hitting something with that instead.

More tomorrow. Hopefully something wittier than today.

Peash!

Melbourne, Australia

Tomorrow we commence our test firing of the 2007/08 world tour with a short jaunt to Niseko, Japan.

Allegedly Niseko is the powder capital of the world. There's going to need to be a helluva lot of powder there to outshine our favourite country, Colombia.

Actually I'm sure Colombia sux, but it's the most cliched thing I could think of without making reference to our kitchen bench, and the many tables that have gone before it.

Fingers crossed tomorrow's *FIRST CLASS* flight to Tokyo comes off without a hitch. The only failure mode's I've identified so far are (a) the flight itself and (b) the bus from Chitose Airport (in Sapporo) to the snow. If either occur, I predict a tantrum of immense proportions.

Hopefully the next entry will be from the snow, in Japan...

Strap yourselves in, the world domination commences.... NOW.