Arrival In Japan…!

So Nic Watkins and myself at last got into Japan on Wednesday after a hectic couple of days driving back to London, organizing gear and trying to see as many people as possible before jetting off again!

The flight over was awesome and had more fun than i had ever had on an airplane, the cabin crew were so much fun and looked after us really well! We must thank British Airways who supplied us with complimentary booze all the way to Tokyo which made the 11 and a half hour trip fly by…! The crews banter was also brilliant and we spent most of our time stood in the crews compartment sipping on brandy and finding out all the cabin crews weird and wonderful stories about what happens behind the scenes on a flight…! We got into Tokyo at 9am local time and headed to one of the most hectic train stations in the world at peak rush hour time with our ski bags…. we were not the most popular tourists in the world!

We had to catch a couple of trains and a bus, but after 7 hours of traveling and a brief stop in Nagano, the site of the 1998 winter Olympics, we arrived into Hakuba our first stop on our tour! We met up with Camilla Stoddart, Beanie Milne Home and French skier Nicola Cruz, the crew was complete and best of all it was absolutely chucking it down SNOW!!! An early night was had by all as we had decided to not sleep on the plane and a very early start on Thursday was needed!

 

Waking up to Japan!

Waking up on our first day to sunny skies and fresh snow was a dream come true, it had snowed about 30 cm’s over night and the clouds had vanished! We headed straight up the hill after picking up our free passes off Andy Kelly, who has been a legend sorting stuff out for us!

As a warm up we decided to hike a ridge were we could see some pretty cool terrain off the side, after a 40 minutes of very warm hiking we stopped and checked out the snow and conditions, rather frustratingly the snow was pretty unstable and as there had been a few slides in the last couple of days we decided that we shouldn’t drop into the steeper stuff yet and turned round, it was annoying but better safe than sorry!

 

Nicola, myself and Nic at the top of the ridge, very hot indeed!

 

We headed for the trees and some smaller lines for the rest of the day, the snow was pretty good, not amazing but it was awesome fun to be skiing in Japan at last! We met up with some of Camilla’s friends at lunch time who had done winters in Hakuba and they showed us some secret spots, Camilla got some cool photo’s done of everyone and Nic managed to get a couple of cool lines filmed in the trees. We finished late in the afternoon very tired but very happy with what we had all got done!

 

Nic and myself checking a line out before filming

After an epic traditional dinner, it was another early night as we were all knackered!

Friday brought us the bad turn of weather we had been expecting, warm weather came in and so did the grey clouds, the snow very quickly started to turn to wet cement and on the lower parts of the mountain wet slush! We headed over to a resort close by which was renowned for its steep tree skiing called Cortina. It was also renowned for the huge Victorian styled house that makes up the hotel resort, it was massive!

 

Massive....!

The snow was done so we tried to head down the back of the resort and jib a dam the girls had found earlier in the week, we couldn’t do much with it as the snow was screwed but Camilla used her brilliance and got a couple of photos!

We entertained ourselves for the rest of the day in the kids play area as we found some of the best toys i have ever seen!

 

Nic and myself on the kids skidoo's

It was also the schools day out, there were thousands of school children there skiing, all wearing the same clothes, skis, boots, goggles everything! It was an amazing site! They were very interested to see us and were so funny and enthusiastic it was brilliant…!

 

School kids everywhere!!!

As the skiing was pretty poor we headed for the resort Onsens which were amazing, they are hot water spa type things and very relaxing indeed! The rules are you have to be naked so all the clothes come off and in you jump! Unfortunately they were not mixed and you cant see the girls…..

We headed home not having got much work done but had a really fun day! We had a huge traditional dinner, which was again awesome! The bad weather though had turned worse and the rain poured down all night and the next morning, so today we took a day off skis and headed out into town for a look around!

Tonight we are out for a few drinks and then tomorrow we are heading for Myoko where the snow is falling heavily and the terrain is amazing apparently! Its going to be a busy week shooting but then we get time to chill in Tokyo, but cant wait to ski some deep deep pow! A quick thanks to Beanie as i have pissed her off no end using her computer to write my blog as she has been waiting for me to finish!

Hope your all good xx