Japan

The thing that I like about doing a PhD is being able to work with my laptop all around the world – literally. So I was working in Japan last week :-)

We took the aeroplane from Perth to Tokyo, then to Sapporo and a bus to Nesiko. Together with 6 other friends we were sharing a house in the ski resort here on the bottom of an old volcano.
Japan is great – I like it. It is actually the first Asian country that I visited and that I can think of living in for a while, also because it is probably the most “western” of all Asian countries.
Nonetheless arriving in Tokyo is like stepping into a different world / culture. I was very surprised how well everything is organised and how smoothly everything works. People are so friendly, they bow all the time – they bow when the bus departs, the signal guy at the airport when the plane stopped, all the service people,…

Starting at the airport and continuing the whole trip through we had lots of fun trying different toilets ;-) They come with heated seats (very good when you have a cold bum after snowboarding) and lots of different mystery buttons in Japanese. There are buttons that make different flushing sounds, others will give you a shower and clean your bum :-)


Japan – is also about the food!! And Japanese food is so yummy!! We ate sushi, sashimi (raw fish is one of my favourite), noodles, ramen, miso soup, tofu, … some of the not so nice stuff was cod semen or fermented soy beans.


But the actual reason we came to Japan was – Snowboarding!! Some of our friends have been in Niseko last year and said it was their best skiing / boarding ever. And it is!!! The old volcano Mt. Niseko is only just 1300m high but it gets cold wind and snow from Siberia.
And we were really luck!! The temperatures rose at the beginning of March and everyone thought winter might be over. But just a couple of days before we arrived a HUGE cold front came through with lots of snow!! It snowed pretty much every day.

And the snow there is so soft! It is really snow powder wonderland. I have actually never seen such light and fluffy snow! It was awesome! We had a ball of a time!
My snowboarding skills improved heaps! Because falling in soft deep powder doesn’t hurt at all :-) But I also expanded my snowboard equipment collection – I bought a gimp mask (the wind on the mountain was sometimes really nasty and cold) and some spikes to strap onto my boots (the streets were very icy).
Onsens are the best thing after a long day of snowboarding! They are thermal springs with very hot mineral water. Most of them are divided into a male and female section as one usually doesn’t wear swim suits. You go in, undress, and then there are lots of little plastic stools where you would sit on in front of a mirror and wash your hair and body. After that we would go outside (-10°C!!) and sit in this hot pool – very relaxing!!!
Back to food… Japanese somehow like plastic food :-) In front of restaurant would be a big display with all the meals they offer. They look so real and I had to look twice to discover that they are made from plastic. And apparently there are whole shops specialised in plastic food. But you can also buy hot(!) food at a vending machine. And on the mountain there would be a vending machine next to the display with plastic food. The vending machine takes your money and you choose a meal – you get a ticket from the machine – you give the ticket to another person – you will be called once your meal is ready. As a previous mentioned – everything is very organised!