Well here I am in Japan in 2009 my first trip here was in 2005 after convincing a few close friends that this was powder heaven I became the trip organiser, luckily after my first trip over there I had already experienced the language barrier ,and just like what happened in Endless Summer I knew there were powder paradises not yet discovered ,to help with this I decided to learn some Japanese along with a few Ulladulla locals we went to a beautiful Japanese lady's house who is married to an Aussie so every Tuesday night for a year we learnt some basic Japanese ,cant begin to describe what it must sound like speaking Japanese with an Aussie accent ,what a fantastic experience it turned out to be so much fun and laughter & yes we did manage to learn enough to be polite & make many Japanese friends. One day during our 2007 trip I sat next to a Japanese man and started up a conversation ,the extent of my second language all over & his reply understood, thankfully he said he could also speak some English which was thankfully also better than my Japanese an instant friendship began and from this we we taken to places were no Aussie has ever been at one of these powder paradises we were introduced to a Japanese family who have treated us like one of their own & we have stayed with them ever since apart from the incredible food there is no other accommodation at this place so we are always first on the lift ,no need to look further our Endless Winter Paradise has been found
This photo of Terry Muir from Austi was taken on the 8th of Feb 2012 only a few weeks ago ,thats Mick Hatton from Thirroul standing on top of the hill, he is in the next photo & I am already down here taking these photos the bastards would not stop to take mine.
Mick Hatton above it don't get much better than this then Bruce Heggie from Wonoona decided to take a movie of me with his hand held mobile phone by snowboarding down beside me it was pretty poor quality & upside down but after a lot of editing I was able to get a few clips shown below
Now seeing how Bruce did such a good job I thought I had better feature a shot of him taken in 2011 not much difference in snowboarding & surfing just a different kind of water
My 8th trip to Japan ,look at all that untracked powder over towards the trees i had to ski back over this way because the mate who took the photo ended up in the wrong place it was the only photo taken of me in 2013 almost 68 & still charging
After the 2013 trip to Japan we decided to have a year off to do other things , in 2014 Terry went to France & Spain ,Mick went to Western Aus to swim with whale sharks ,Rob could not help himself & went to Hakuba ,Myself & my long time partner Maureen went to South Aus in April & the north island of NZ in May ,a trip that I had been promising my mate Barry Blud for 40 years but more about that on another page . With every intention of another trip to Japan in 2015 due to unforeseen circumstances it would not be until February of 2016 when we would make it back which will be our last skiing trip to Japan