melonBlog

A photo
I took this shot from the plane on the way into Adelaide... I like it so... here it is!

Returning to Oz
I'm in Korea at the moment (using the free internet lounge) in transit to Australia, It's been a fantastic 6 months in Japan, Snowboarding, and learning a new language... Yet again i've made lots of new friends and had some amazing experiences, The best was climbing Mt. Yotei a few weeks back (see last post). I'll be heading back to Japan again in November this year to pick up where i left off, A good friend is threatening to get me a visa sponsership which should enable me to stay in Japan for a year at least (hopefully more) i sure hope it comes to fruition as i have fallen in love with Japan in a big way, the culture is amazing, the food oishii and the powder snow in Niseko just can't be beaten!!

Mt. Yotei
I Climbed Mt. Yotei with 3 friends the other day... It was my first ascent but i've been wanting to do it since i first visited Hokkaido 3 years ago.
We left at about 9am and climbed for about 6.5 hours, in some spots it was very hard going, Steep, Sliding snow, I gave up about 3/4 of the way up but was spurred on again by a local Japanese skier who announced "It's easy from here..." I made it to the first crater but still had another 50 or so meters to go to get to the actual summit - these 50 meters were hard ice pack with large chunks! but by then i was exhausted and needed my reserve energy to snowboard back down again. It was a perfect day for climbing, No wind a little cloud which passed but basically a very sunny day (Needless to say we all got sunburnt!) This was an amazing experience, I've never used snow shoes before so having faith in every step I took, took time to aquire, however by the time i was nearly at my final destination i was amazed at just how well they hang on to the side of a Steep snow covered volcano!
I'll definately try again next season but next time i'm going all the way to the top!
The ride down was fun but by far the experience was all about the climb!





standing on top of the world!