Husband and Wife Rocks

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

I'm quite happy how this one turned out. The rocks are known as the "Husband and Wife" rocks because they are so close together and the smaller one seems to lean towards the bigger one. They are tied together with a really thick Shinto cord, and there is a little Torri gate on the top of the big one

A very cold day in Futami, Mie Prefecture

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

When the clouds cleared, we could actually see Mt Fuji in-between the rocks. Swear to Cthulhu!

Trees by the river in Ise Jingu, Mie Prefecture

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

I took this in last November when Tsuna and I took a day trip to Mie. I'll be uploading the prettier ones every time I'm online

Hamburg Steak Sushi!

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

I had six of them. It was 1000 Yen well spent

日本語 Get!

Well, I passed the Japanese 4th Level exam that I took last year with a score of 300 out of 400. As I wrote on Facebook, I passed through a combination of hard work, diligence and a computer error. Go ブレイク！

According to the notice I got, I have

"mastered the basic elements of grammar, knows around 100 Kanji and 800 words, and has the ability to engage in simple conversation and to read and write short, simple sentences. This level is normally reached after studying Japanese for around 150 hours and after completion of the first half of an elementary course"

So in other words, I can hold a conversation with a two year old. Which is good, because there are some smart, interesting two year olds in this country :P

Niseko

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

This is a photo of the top of Mt Niseko Annupuri in the early morning. Most of these pictures were taken on the first day when the weather was the clearest

I've got a whole bunch of photos from last Autumn that I hadn't uploaded to my computer until just now. I'll be posting them over the course of this week, so stay tuned!

Mt Yotei from the top of Niseko

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

Mt Yotei is also known as "The Ezo (Hokkaido) Fuji" due to it's similar shape. Unlike Fuji, Yotei is still an active volcano, which means good onsens with the chance of being buried in lava.

The clouds you can see around the top signals that it will rain or snow in the next few days, according to a Niseko native we talked to.

Blake and Ben, reunited at last!

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Originally uploaded by OmegaBlake.

Or is it the famous Ezo-bear? Sometimes I forget which is which.

Honeymoon Day 2 and 3

Well, it turned out the Hilton hotel didn't have the Internet, or at least free Internet. I'm to miserly to pay 1500 yen for 24 hours, so I couldn't upload my first post until I got back to Anjo. Bah Humbug! So here is he condensed summary of what happened on Days 2 and 3.

We woke up early on Day 2 and were in the first group of people up the mountain when the gondolas opened. Conditions were a bit cloudier and windier that day, but the snow was still good. I started to get better at turning on a dime, which meant that I could go down the mountain faster and in more control of my movements. I didn't crash into anyone, although there were some close scrapes, some of which were not even my fault!

Tsuna did something unusual with a pair of skis that I'm forbidden to repeat in this blog (*cough cough*) I guess this is what it's like to be married or something :P

That night we went to Kutchan, the town down the road from Niseko. Like fish that swim up waterfalls to return to the lake where they were spawned, I can find a restaurant I liked in the past by closing my eyes and retracing the steps. We found the Hamako izakaya without much of a fuss, although I did sink right up to my knees in powder snow on the sidewalk with a badly placed jump. I had forgotten it was primarily a seafood restaurant, so while I enjoyed my Hokkaido potato dishes, Tsuna ate lots of fresh Hokkaido sashimi. The meal got two thumbs up from both of us, followed by a quick scramble to make the bus back to Niseko.

Day 3 began on a real bad note. The night previously it had started to snow, but by the time we woke up it had turned into rain. For those of you living in drier climes, snow + rain = real slushy snow that is a pain to ski on. This was bad, but what was worse was the complete lack of visibility due to fog. When we arrived at the top, we could only see two meters in front of us. The 20 minute average run down the mountain turned into an hour long ordeal with multiple crashes and breaks due to leg cramps. Tsuna and I got separated in the mist and wound up arriving at different ends of the mountain. By the time I made it back to the hotel at 9:20 AM, the gondolas had shut down and that was the end of our skiing vacation.

Rather than let the rest of the day go to waste, we decided to take the train to Otaru, a small port town on the Sea of Japan. I think that Otaru has a real downtown Freo vibe, just with a lot more snow and Russians. We tried another sushi place where we had salmon, tuna and hamburg steak sushi (the last being so awesome I had to take some pictures of it). Afterwards we went to a German style brewery on the canal, complete with bar-wench costumed waitresses and big German-sized meal portions. At one point, they brought out an entire pig's leg and began carving bacon off it.

We had a lot of trouble getting back though. Our train was delayed, so we missed our connecting bus back in Kutchan, which meant we got back to the hotel two hours after our reservation for our Valentine's Day meal. As such, we had to wait until 9:00 before we could get another spot. But we wound up enjoying the meal, and it didn't completely bankrupt me. So I guess that's a good thing

Overall, we had two good ski days out three, ate lots of fresh Hokkaido food and saw some beautiful natural scenery. The company wasn't too bad either... ^_^

I'll write more as the wedding plans progress

-Blake
The Fortress of Solitude, Anjo, Japan

Honeymoon Day 1

Greetings one and all. I once again apologise for my long absence- since WoW isn't taking up enough of my free time, I've added Eve Online and studying kanji to fill out the minutes when I'm only half asleep. As a result, the blog fell by the way side. The good news is that I'm back on the intertubes with the urge to type. At the moment I'm blogging from my hotel room in Niseko, Hokkaido. Outside it's around -6 degrees and the snow is soft and abundant. There are also wild foxes with a taste for Aussie blood, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Tsuna and I decided to have our honeymoon early so that we can spend some time with my folks when they come over for the wedding next month. Also, February is the best time to ski in Hokkaido, which influenced our decision slightly. Tsuna and I left Nagoya by plane on Wednesday afternoon and flew to New Chitose in Hokkaido. From there, we hopped on a bus that took us to Niseko, which is about two hour away.

Niseko, Hokkaido is famous for three things- Thick powder snow fresh from Siberia, the towering cone of the Ezo Fuji, Mt Yotei and the fact that there are more Australians here than you can find anywhere else outside of Gallipoli or a raging bush fire. It's where I first learned to ski, also known as the “uncontrolled falling down a mountain” incident. A lot has changed since we I first came here- a lot of the establishments I used to frequent have been replaced by high-rise apartments or pricier dining venues. Most of the people here use English on a daily basis, so I still get the startled look when I bust out my three-year old retarded child's Japanese while buying Vegemite at Lawsons.

On our first day here, we got up pretty early (although not early enough, according to Tsuna) and went half-way up the mountain. After having skied in the relatively drier ski resorts in Gifu and Nagano, I had forgotten what skiing on real powder snow felt like. As I chased Tsuna through the trees of the Shirokaba course, it was as if I were skiing on clouds. Niseko is not just one ski resort, it's four ski resorts that are spread out over the same mountain. There's no lack of variety here and we rarely use the same course twice. It's fun and exciting, although it's easy to wander off the easier courses onto the advanced/certifiably-insane ones.

There were no major accidents, so I consider our first day here to be a success. The sky was pretty clear, so I got a lot of photos of Mt Yotei from the top of the ski resort. My camera doesn't do the subject justice, but I'm not going to be taking up professional photography just yet (it would bite into my EVE time after all :P) Just after lunch we saw a man with a tame boar walking along the road, which was freaky enough, but when we got back to the top and started to ski down, we ran into a not-so-tame fox who had decided to park himself in the middle of the course.

Evasive actions were taken, and no human or foxi were hurt.

After a good six or seven hours of skiing, our legs decided to call it a day. After handing back out gear we headed straight for the onsen, which is no doubt why I feel only a little bit in agonizing pain today.

More as it comes

~Blake
Niseko Hilton, Hokkaido.