Activities 1995-1996

1995

November

11- Rock climbing at Yugawara with Chizuko, Shawn, and Michi. Discovered that there is more climbing areas to the right of the main area. Actually more varied to the right, which made for good climbs for everyone. Chizuko gets the prize for the day by climbing some of the same routes as us *without* climbing shoes.
That evening, the girls dropped Shawn and I off around 4pm for some evening surf at Chigasaki. Nice waist high waves, and a spectacular cyrstal clear sunset with Fuji looming in the background. Only bad part of the surfing was waiting for the girls to come pick us up way after sunset. Was just a bit cold.
18- Went to Shonan with Shawn. Was FLAT. Absolutely the flatest conditions I have ever seen anywhere. Yet, there were surfers in the water! Guess they wanted to get their money's worth from the $2,000+ they invested in their suit and board.
23- EPIC SURF at kujukuri! Waves were consistently overhead and LONG. Two best rides were quarter mile+ rides into the beach! The only problem was paddling back out (read stupid for me to have surfed into the beach). Went with Yagam, Shawn, Bill, and Yuichi.
25- Surfing at kyujukyuri with Chizuko, Yagam, Kieran, and Takako. Waves weren't that hot (literally, as the water was *cold*). We were all okay, as Ken and I had our new O'neill Cobra suits on. Chizuko and Takako voted to stay out of the 60 degree water, and instead rollerbladed along the road next to the beach. Waves were waist high, and started to pick up by the time we left.

December

08-23 AUSTRALIA. Fantastic trip. Chizuko and I did: Surfing, water skiing, bungy jumping (seven times!), snorkling on the Great Barrier Reef, river rafting class IV rapids, hiking, horseback riding, grass biking, tobagganing, jet skiing, and lots of shopping! Some pictures of our trip:
30- First snowboard day of the season. Went to Hatoriko (up the Tohoku highway about 1.5 hours). Conditions were good with loosely packed powder. Quite a large posse: Chizuko, Grant, George, Robert, and Keiko. Chizuko, Grant, and George got first dibs on the powder underneath the high-speed quad, while Robert, Keiko, and I did the ridge hits on the other side of the mountain.

1996

January

1- Went to Shonan with the intention of surfing. Weather was great, but the waves were small. Bagged it instead.
6-7 Snowboarding at Alts. Went with Chizuko, Shawn, Michi, Mike, his wo, Steve, and Ally. Conditions were good with average packed powder. Shawn and I went for some tree skiing, but the powder was a bit on the heavy side. Highlight of the trip was watching Mike consitently loose in a Japanese card game.
13- Snowboarding at Hatoriko. Just Chizuko and I. High speed-quad was closed in the early morning due to high winds, so I decided to do the powder underneath the chair, since nobody would see me. As luck would have it, there was one ski patrol person on his way up, and he raced down to the bottom of the mountain, and busted me. Luckily only got a warning. I apologized, and said that I couldn't help it, since the powder was too good to pass up. Stayed out of the chair until the afternoon, then I continued to tear it up.
20- Snowboarding at Mt. Jeans. Went with Robert and Keiko. Conditions 10-15cm of powder on top of packed snow. Not too bad. Spent some time on the half-pipe and snowboard park.

February

3- Epic powder at Mt. Jeans. This resort grooms the slopes the night before, so since it dumped about a foot+ overnight, we got to the top of the 2k+ run, and looked down on an unbroken trail (minus a few snowboarders ahead of us) of pure powder. Can't get better than that unless you spend a few grand for a helicopter! We had powder every run all day, both on and off trail. Lucky crew members were Robert, Keiko, Chizuko, and I.
11- Epic powder *and* Epic Terrain at Shirakawa Koegen Ski resort. I have found the Mecca for snowboarding within a 3 hour drive of Tokyo. The best thing about this place is that there are no boundaries (almost). You take the lift up, then come anyway down you like. The only catch is that they don't like people going underneath the quad chair near the bottom. However, its okay to go underneath it near the top.
The next best thing about this place is that there aren't many snowboarders, so there isn't much competition for getting fresh powder to the sides. Most people are content staying in the middle of the trails, which is fine by us.
Flight crew on this fine and lucky day were: Chizuko, Shawn, Michi, Mike, Yeong, and I. Yeong had the best jump of the day: a 4 foot launch over a ridge, into a perfect landing, into a head-over-heels somersault, with a complete recovery, and no loss of speed. Mike spent time refining his billiard effect stop. This he accomplished by transferring all of his forward momentum to a stationary object (usually a skiier), which in turn stopped him.
17- Boarding at Mt. Jeans......sucked George, Jon, and I were the unlucky three to go to Jeans that day. It was *icy*. I'm talking concrete quality. Jon did a good job on his right knee. He landed on it while attempting a 180-into-fakie. He recovered, slightly, and endured the rest of the morning.
Highlight of the day was George finding a lift pass on the slopes at 9am. We took it to the bottom and sold it to someone else for 1,000 Yen off normal ticket price.
We quit at noon, and sold our tickets to some others for half price of a full day's ticket. Total cost to us for 4 hours of boarding was 1,000 Yen. Not bad considering the conditions.
24- Great Powder at Shirakawa Koegen Went back to Shirakawa Koegen. This time with Ken, Kiri and Chizuko. Ken and I ripped up the untouched powder in the trees, and did some synchronized ariel jumping underneath the chairlifts. It's been awhile since Ken and I last boarded together, so it felt good to be boarding again with a bud that started snowboarding back before it was 'fashionable'

March

02- Mt. Jeans snowboarding.
09-10 Mt. Snow, VERMONT. *Very* good conditions, considering that this was East Coast skiing. Was in NY for business, and was invited up to Mt. Snow for the weekend at a friend of a friends cabin up in Vermont. The whole week before it dumped snow, and was ready for shredding when I got there. The friend from work that I went with had never snowboarded before, but he was such a fast learner that he was going down the expert slopes with be before lunchtime! I couldn't believe it. Took me two seasons to accomplish what he did before lunch! Then again, I didn't have a teacher.
18- Whistler, BRITISH COLUMBIA. Was my first time to Whistler. Most impresive mountain, but too many flat spots between runs. That, and the conditions *sucked*. The East Coast had much better conditions than this mega-resort. Was the worst snowboarding of the whole season. Chizuko and I decided to only stay one day, then go back to Vancouver/Seattle. Maybe next time we'll get better conditions. Too bad that I had to end the season on such a bad day.

April

06- Surfing at Shonan. Was ~waist high.
13- Rock climbing at Yugawara with Shawn, Michi, and Chizuko.
27-28 Surfing at Tatado in Izu. Very nice overhead waves!

May

03-05 Surfing at Tatado in Izu. Friday was good with chest height waves, but Saturday was *FLAT*. I mean good waterskiing conditions flat. Sunday had some knee-high waves.
11- Sufing at Choshi. Waves were around chest height. Very nice breaks. That's whats good about Choshi: it is always consistent in wave quality. Even if its a small day, the waves tend to break nicely. Only problem with the place is the several tons of 55-gal cyanide drums dumped off the coast at the end of WWII. Hasn't killed anyone yet, but you never know...
18-19 Surfing at Tatado in Izu. Day started of small (~knee high) and worked up to overhead. My kind of day! Start off easy, and work into the big sets! Sunday was the exact opposite. Was overhead, then became knee-high.
25- Surfing at Tatado in Izu. Weather was nice, but the waves were small (~knee high).

June

01- Surfing at Tatado in Izu. Forgot what the conditions were like. Must not have been good.
08- Surfing at Choshi. Medium sized waist-high waves. Not big, but *good* breaks. Again, choshi pulls through on the quality front.
15- Surfing at Choshi. Same size as last weekend, but the quality was lacking this time around. Thats what I get for praising the place too much.
29- Surfing at Choshi. Before I describe the waves, let me explain what Kieran and I saw and heard as we pulled into the parking lot at Choshi. First, there was fog, and we couldn't see the beach. Second, we could hear the waves crashing OVER THE SOUND OF MY CAR STEREO, which I might add wasn't on a low volume setting! As we were changing into our wetsuits, we still couln't see the waves, but we certainly could hear them. Everyone else in the parking lot was standing around nervously, not doing anything. As though they knew going out would cause certain death. We knew the waves were big, just didn't know if they'd be breaking cleanly, or dumping. As Kieran and I approached the water with our boards, the fog began to lift. Then we saw 10-12 foot rhinos rolling through BREAKING CLEANLY! Did I mention I heard the angels singing? Paddling out was easy, as we used the jetty for protection. Once out, I noticed that there were less than 10 surfers in the water. Just the way I like it. Big waves tend to seperate the men from the boys. They were big and good, but not perfect peelers. For the first two hours, I was surfing big, then for about 30 minutes, they became *biblical*. An offshore breeze kicked in, and the water became flatter between sets, which made it easier to paddle out after surfing a set in. Then near then end of the 30 minute biblical break session, I had the pleasure of seeing a wave break 50+ meters from my position. Note that I'm a longboarder, which means that I'm the furthest person out since I can get on the waves before the shortboarders. Also note that I was further out than normal. This means that the wave was *HUGE* to be breaking further out from where I was. it was easily double overhead and breaking cleanly. Too bad I couldn't ride it. However, the wave was kind enough to pummel me and my board (breaking my leash in the process). Kieran and I quit around noon when the waves became smaller, and less exciting. They were still around overhead, but we were spoiled with the earlier rhinos. By far the best day of the season.

July

06- Surfing at Choshi. Around waist size breaks.
11- Surfing at Choshi. Shawn and I got out of work at 2pm on Thursday to ride the rhinos generated after the recently passed Typhoon #5. Waves were *big* (10-15 ft), and I must admit a little scary. Shawn was able to battle it out to the lineup, but I wussed out and opted for the safer route, which involved walking down the jetty past the breaks, and putting in there. Catching the waves was kind of hard, but once on, made for quite a ride. There was only 15-20 people in the water, so getting your own wave wasn't too much of a problem.
13- Surfing at...you guessed it: Choshi. One of the worst days I've ever experienced at Choshi. Waves were breaking around knee-height, and the water was filthly. Small waves and dirty water made me get out early (only one hour in the water). I changed and read a book while everyone else continued to surf.
20- Surfing at Mito in Ibaraki-ken. Waves were waist size, but breaking nicely. Just Chizuko and I, so made for a fun family trip.
27- Surfing at Mito in Ibaraki-ken. Went by myself this day. Pulled into the parking spot on the beach, and looked out. Was not pretty. It was *flat*. Again, glassy waterskiing conditions. What was puzzling is that I saw surfers in the water. Was most unhappy. As it took 2 hours to drive up, I decided to hang around for awhile and read a book. Few minutes later, I looked up from my book, and saw a set of 4 rhinos (10ft+) waves roll through. It was unbelievable. That would explain why the surfers were in the water. Took me about 15 seconds to change and get into the water after seeing that! The conditions that day were flat with *huge* waves rolling in every 4-7 minutes. It was so good that I didn't get my hair wet for the first hour. I'd surf a huge clean breaking wave in, then paddle out at my leisure in flat water. Then a strong offshore wind kicked in around 9am, and the waves started tubing. Not big tubes, but tubes nonetheless. One perk of the day was that the lifegaurd stand would announce when the big waves were coming. So I could sit on my board, take a nap, and wait for them to announce to the beach crowd over the PA system to be careful, as the rhinos were rolling in.

August

Surfed every weekend of this month (total of 6 days in the water). Highlight of the month was surfing the biggest waves I've ever been in. Can't really say I surfed them, as I only got one in. They were about 3X overhead (about 20ft on the face), and were very hard to catch. Being in waves this big for the first time was a humbling experience. However, am ready for more next time. Note that the following day a surfer drowned in the same break we were at due to the size of them.

September

HAWAII month. Spent two weeks in Hawaii to go to Shawn and Michi's wedding. However, surfing was what we did most of the time. Was my second time surfing in Hawaii, and first on a longboard there. Got to say longboarding is still more fun even on uncrowded waves. Came back with a nice tan and super shoulders (mostly from having to paddle out a 1/4 mile to get to the breaks in the first place).

October

Just a little surfing this month. Nothing Epic.

November

Spent most of the month in Hong Kong working, thus only got *one* day of surfing in. Not good.

December

No surfing, skating, but *one* day of snowboarding in. Was feeling *very* lethargic. Our one day snowboarding wasn't too great in terms of conditions, but the weather was great.

(Chizuko and I in the parking lot after boarding)
End of year sucked most, as some idiot hit my Honda CR-V from the side. He completely ran a stop sign, and thus smacked me and my car good. Best part is he had no insurance! Luckily my insurance company handled everything, and promptly sued him to recover the costs.