Japaneon (the final blog post*)

* Unless Tom puts together a ‘greatest hits’ type video

A mere seven-and-a-half weeks after returning from Hakuba (because I’ve been really busy with semi- unemployment over those seven-and-a-half weeks), I figure the time has come to complete the blog. 

My ski attire in Japan included one incredibly yellow jacket that I wore most days.

Bright, bright yellow.

When I bought the Flylow Higgins coat this winter, I thought for sure I’d be the brightest person in the Japanese Alps. Not so. Turns out the Japanese also love dazzling ski clothes. Here are some highlights:

We’ll kick off the photos with this guy, who we briefly thought was the director of ‘Andalucia,’ the movie that will launch international movie careers for Tom and I (coming out June 25! Check out the trailers: http://www.andalucia-movie.jp/) Now, this guy may or may not actually ski, but he did have a shimmering jacket that changed colors depending on the lighting. 

 Pink. Purple. Yellow. Diamonds. What more could you ask for? 

Wearing sunglasses in the cafeteria, no doubt to protect his eyes from the hot pink. 

 Purple purses accessorize quite well with ... every color imaginable. 

 Orange? Pink? Does it matter? 

 Pre-ski stretch. Because you can't just look good. You also need to feel good. 

 Look! Someone wearing something brighter than me!

 Lime green goes well with sun and pow. 

Shall we hike into the backcountry? Or just stand here and send out some neon vibes? 

Best goggle tan ever

I have a couple of blog posts to put up that I didn't get to in Japan, so here's one of them.

This is Jon. And this is Jon's goggle tan.

Stateside

After 30 hours of door-to-door travel (shuttle to the airport in Tokyo, flight to Chicago, flight to Boston, parental chauffeur to Hopkinton), Tom and I returned to the States shortly after midnight on Tuesday. No radiation scans, so we have no idea how contaminated we are.

We capped off the trip with a group dinner in the lodge on Sunday night, eating soup and gyoza.

Katja makes the soup

Everyone else prepares the hand-made gyoza

Dinner time!

Now I just need to fully kick a head cold I came down with late last week, and make sure I'm over jet lag. Tomorrow, it's back to Vermont for me.

To everyone we met in Japan, thanks for a great time!

Powder video

Tom put together the latest video. Most of this was filmed over the past two days, and most of the most was filmed on what I'll call "Super Deep Wednesday" (the name having been chosen just now in lieu of other monikers such as "Radioactive Pow Day" or "Nuclear Winter Day" -- don't worry, it wasn't really radioactive snow; we're still safe in Hakuba, and leaving soon).

japan week 5 from tom duggan on Vimeo.

Deep snow, and donating

Wow. Today was deep. Just ridiculously, absurdly deep.

Though as good a day as we had on the mountain, it’s crazy to know that so many people close to us are dealing with so much loss. So before I get into our day, here’s a link about donating to the relief efforts in Japan. If you can contribute, the Japanese can use the help.

www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-support-japan-earthquake-response

As for our wellbeing, there’s a lot of conflicting news reports about the severity of the nuclear threats and whether those threats will increase or decrease. The one consensus seems to be that we remain in a fairly safe spot in Japan. Tom and I have talked about our options, and barring some major development, we plan to stay here until Monday, as scheduled.

If today was any indication, we’ll have plenty of snow to enjoy in the next couple of days. We woke this morning to heavy snow falling, but only a dusting had accumulated on the ground. Happo One, on the other hand, had picked up a massive amount of snow. More than a foot at the higher elevations, and coming down hard throughout the day. A big group of us — Tom, Jon, Dan, Katja, Lachlan, Kirsti and myself — spent the morning up high in the deep snow. After yet another bakery lunch (becoming a daily stop), we moved down to the trees on the lower mountain. Here are some photographic highlights from the day: 

 Tom

 Jon

 Katja

 Lachlan

 Kirsti

 Tom again

 Jon again

 More Jon

 Jon kept finding the really deep snow today

Dan looks for a soft landing. He found one. 

Learning Japanese

I came to Japan knowing one Japanese word: Konnichiwa. Hello. Four weeks into a Japanese ski vacation, and I know three Japanese words. Arrigato. Hai. Konnichiwa. Thank you. Yes. Hello. Thankfully, that’s all you really need to know to communicate in Japan.

I haven’t intentionally avoided learning Japanese. The language has just been incredibly difficult for me to pick up. When I traveled around Western Europe during my college semester abroad, I always made a point to learn a dozen basic words or phrases: Hello, Thank you, Please, Excuse me, Wine, Beer, My name is …, Where is the bathroom, Goodbye, Yes, No. I’ve tried to learn the same set of words in Japanese, but no matter how hard I try, how many times someone tells me how to say a word, no matter how often I check my phrasebook, I’m stuck with three words.

The rest of the time I point, nod, smile or act confused. I can sort of understand a few other words, even if I don’t fully know their meaning. The Japanese often say, “Arrigato dorimas.” My best guess is that emphasizes the thank you. Perhaps a Thank you very much. Cheers is kompai, but I don’t know if that’s a real cheers or just something Westerners say for cheers. In the past few days I’m coming closer to knowing “Excuse me.” Sumimachen, or something close to that. I have yet to try it out on a real Japanese person.

But the other phrases — You’re welcome, Please, My name is … — are totally lost on me. I’ve asked how to say those words. I’ve been told how to say those words. But I can never remember how to say those words. I have a 20-minute retention period, tops.

In other news, I had another pair of bindings break on me yesterday. I was borrowing lodge owner Nick’s tele skis, which had an old pair of Voile bindings. I noticed when I started skiing them that the binding cable was frayed. Sure enough, after the first run on the third day of using them, they gave out. I had gone in for a bathroom break, came back out, clipped into one ski, bent down to clip into the other, and POP! Binding snapped.

I went back, grabbed the last pair of tele skis in the lodge, and used those for the past two days. But with snow supposedly on the way (we've been switching between rain and snow for the past few hours), and the tele skis a mere 78 millimeters underfoot (which, once upon a time probably qualified as a powder ski), I’m likely switching to alpine for the last few days. Once again, thanks to Nick for the gear. 

Disasters and our safety (and deep snow)

Been a strange few days here in Hakuba. We were skiing up on Happo One on Friday when the first earthquake brought a low rumbling. I didn’t even mention it at the time, thinking I may have heard an avalanche up in the mountains. Not much later, as five of us were waiting to drop into a run, the first aftershock hit. We felt that one much more strongly. After the shaking stopped and we looked around for an avalanche, one in our group said, “That was an earthquake.”

It wasn’t until we made it back to the lodge that we found out the severity of the quake. Japanese television was showing images of the tsunami, and we began checking U.S. and international news outlets for updates. I’m sure everyone has seen the same images as us. The tsunami footage was horrible to watch, and the nuclear plant explosion was just scary.

Fortunately for us, we do seem to be in one of the safer spots of Japan at the moment. The affected nuclear plants are fairly far away, and the wind would blow any radiation away from us. We keep checking the news for updates, but all in all, we feel removed from the whole situation, physically and mentally. Quiet on the mountain and in town, somber but quiet in the lodge. We’ve had surreal blue skies the past two days, and with no one at the lodge affected by the disasters, we really have no connection to the situation other than what we’re reading online and seeing on TV. Barring some major development, we’ll be home in a week. Until then, give your thoughts to the Japanese who are actually suffering through all this destruction.

This will sound rather inconsequential after all the other news happening here, but the skiing had been amazing on Friday. Snow started falling Thursday night and came down heavily all day on Friday. We spent the day making laps through the woods, playing in the fresh snow that kept piling up between the trees. One of the more enjoyable ski days I’ve had on this trip (the mood changed quickly when we heard about the earthquake and tsunami).

Tom, above the powder

Jon, in the powder

Katja, above the powder

Katja, in the powder

Kirsti, through the powder

Saturday brought blue skies and a bright sun, which baked a lot of the south-facing terrain by early morning. After one trip to the top of the mountain (where we saw numerous avalanches crowns; we’re assuming the earthquake and aftershocks triggered the slides), we returned to the north-facing woods we had skied Friday to find plenty of deep, soft snow, which took our minds off the earthquake news. A few laps with Nick, then Tom, Jon and I went to the gondola station for a long lunch break at the bakery. Post-lunch we met up with Yoshi, an employee at Hakuba Powder Lodging who wanted us to take him snowboarding in the trees. Returned to the woods for a few more laps, and then we came upon a couple of other lodge guests building a backcountry kicker. Yoshi went big.

Yoshi, well above the powder

Yoshi, covered in powder

Jon, upside down above the powder and on the way to landing a backflip

Today we gave our bodies a much-needed rest, lounging around the lodge for most of the day.

One more update on our safety: sounds like some skiers were caught in a slide this weekend. I have no real details yet, but in case any news of a Hakuba avalanche makes it back home, just know it wasn’t us. Snow stability hasn’t been great in general, so we’re skiing trees and avoiding avalanche terrain.